1. Workshop I Giving presentations
Path Planning
Workshop I Giving presentations
Dr. Roland Geraerts
28 November 2016
Start with asking question about what the students want to learn, get out of the workshop, and write it down.

2. Contents of the workshop
Preparations
Using your hands
Providing right amount of information
Keeping audience’s attention
While everybody has read the paper
Being credible
From the pro’s
PowerPoint caroussel

3. Preparations Master the topic / contents
Don’t learn the text by heart (unless you’re a pro)
Steve Jobs - iPhone Introduction in 2007; see e.g.
What did work for you?
What presentation skills stood out?

4. active exercise Preparations Check the room / hardware in advance
Be there at least 15 minutes in advance
Clean it up (white/black board, litter)
Set up your presentation and check it
Ideally before first participant enters
Otherwise, set screen to black while setting up
Public speaking is fear #1
Get rid of excessive stresses
Image taken from
active exercise

5. Preparations Carefully spell check your slides
Preferably don’t use cheat sheets
Don’t use excuses
Public transportation, illness, English usage, partner didn’t do xyz
Enter the room energetically
A few students should enter the room energetically.
Then, make the blackboard dirty and place some mess on the table. The challenge is that the students, who enter the room, should clean it up…

6. Hands: clumpy limbs or helpful tool?
Question: what should you do with your hands?
Explain the difference between open and closed stance.

7. How not to give too much information?
Keep your slides light
Don’t put too much information on your slides
Rule of thumb: no more than 6/7 bullet points
Have a consistent formatting
Slides should be supportive
Slides should reinforce your work, not repeat them
Use multiple modalities (text, images, videos, table, charts, …)
Pictures:

8. How not to give too much information?
Only provide contents that you’re going to discuss
Unless used as a trick to impress people
Don’t use animations, slide transitions, and sound effects
Unless there is a purpose
Pictures:

9. How to keep your audience’s attention?
Give your presentation to the audience instead of yourself
Only look at the screen (or notes) when you really have to
Look at some (random) faces in the crowd
Talk clearly
Talk calmly
Avoid ticks and distracting sounds
Sighs, dry mouth, pen clicks, mouse laser, play with hair
Start intermezzo to keep attention span
Each 7 minutes

10. How to keep your audience’s attention?
What kind of intermezzos can you think of?
Ask a question
Show a short movie
Tell an anecdote
Give a demo
Provide a quote
Give an assignment
Do something extraordinary (only once)
Sing (yes, this actually happened in an interview)
Walk over tables (yes, this actually happened in a lecture)

11. How to keep your audience’s attention?
But everybody has read the paper…
Spent like 6-7 minutes on the contents
Find corresponding movie and show it
Relate paper with future papers (papers that cite your paper)
Relate paper with other papers in the course
Tell (a story or an anecdote) about the authors
There just like real people: you can mail or phone them
Give a short demo if available
There’s a reason why your paper is part of the course (explain)

12. How can you be credible? Dress up nicely Use your pitch well
A lower pitch is usually more believable than a higher one
Don’t raise your pitch at the end when you state something
Vary your pitch!
Replace filler words by pauses
Use open body language

13. From the pro’s Tell a story Ditch the bullet points
It’s not a presentation, it’s a performance
Practice, Practice, PRACTICE
What Would Steve Do? 10 Lessons from the World's Most Captivating Presenters," HubSpot
See

14. PowerPoint carrousel