1. NAIC Visiting Committee Meeting · February 19-21, 2007 Some Presentation Suggestions T. H. Hankins, with some parts from Mihai Budiu http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~mihaib/presentation-rules.html

2. NAIC Visiting Committee Meeting · February 19-21, 2007 The Golden Rule Human attention is the scarcest resource. --Herbert Simon [Nobel 1972, Turing 1975]

3. NAIC Visiting Committee Meeting · February 19-21, 2007 Attention Span Standard deviation for typical listener is about 15 minutes.

4. NAIC Visiting Committee Meeting · February 19-21, 2007 The Bottom Line: Practice

5. NAIC Visiting Committee Meeting · February 19-21, 2007 1 Idea per slide (i.e., KISS = Keep it simple, s…)

6. NAIC Visiting Committee Meeting · February 19-21, 2007 Memory Limitations Short-term memory: ~ 7 simple things Audience may get 1 or 2 from your talk. Reinforce the core message, not details. What is your “story line”?

7. NAIC Visiting Committee Meeting · February 19-21, 2007 Use Pictures as Visual Metaphors A picture is worth 1000 words This thesis presents a compilation framework for translating ANSI C ack of branch prediction and register renaming. A comparison of Spatial Computation and superscalar processors highlights some of the weaknesses of our model of computation, such as the l ack of branch prediction and register renaming. this is one word that I am writing The first part of this document describes Pegasus, the internal representation of CASH, and a series of novel program transformations performed by CASH. Low-level simulation however suggests that the energy efficiency of Application-Specific Hardware is three orders of magnitude better than superscalar processors, one order of magnitude better than low-power digital signal processors and asynchronous processors, and approaching custom hardware chips. The second part of this document evaluates the performance of the generated circuits using simulation. Using media processing benchmarks, we show that for the domain of embedded computation, the circuits generated by CASH can sustain high levels of instruction level parallelism, due to the effective use of dataflow software pipelining. The most notable of these are a new optimal register- promotion algorithm and partial redundancy elimination for memory accesses based on predicate manipulation.

8. NAIC Visiting Committee Meeting · February 19-21, 2007 Notes from AUSAC Limit detail on all slides. 20-30 words max. Make plot linewidths extra fat. Incorporate ALL movies and simulations into Powerpoint/Keynote, etc. Look at audience. Never read slides. Audience listens and reads at different rates.

9. NAIC Visiting Committee Meeting · February 19-21, 2007 More Notes from AUSAC Explain ALL your slides. Never underline. (Use bold, CAPS, italics, color) Stick to one font family. Kerned fonts clearest. This is 32-point Times New Roman font. Slide change gimmicks: yecch!! Use the spelling checker. Explain ALL your slides. Never underline. (Use bold, CAPS, italics, color) Stick to one font family. Kerned fonts clearest. This is 32-point Times New Roman font. Slide change gimmicks: yecch!! Use the spelling checker.

10. NAIC Visiting Committee Meeting · February 19-21, 2007 Even More Notes from AUSAC Laser pointer: –Use a. (What is s/he pointing at?) –Use very sparingly. –Don ’ t wave it around! (Makes me seasick.) –Steady it on the podium if necessary. (Who ’ s nervous?)

11. NAIC Visiting Committee Meeting · February 19-21, 2007 Time Always end on time. Even if you have to cut.

12. NAIC Visiting Committee Meeting · February 19-21, 2007 Rehearse and Repeat The talk will only get better

13. NAIC Visiting Committee Meeting · February 19-21, 2007 Questions Listen very carefully. Repeat the question. –To be sure you got it right –So that the rest of the audience can hear it, too. Answer succinctly and clearly Most people answer different questions than are asked!

14. NAIC Visiting Committee Meeting · February 19-21, 2007 Figures, graphs, diagrams Fat lines essential. Label axes clearly (i.e., big enough to read.) Maximize figure size on slide. Figures should be self-contained; no short-term memory required. Beware of low-contrast projection: washes out color.

15. Intensity and spectrum of a Main pulse

16. NAIC Visiting Committee Meeting · February 19-21, 2007 A “Megapulse” 2.2 Mega-Jansky pulse Duration: 0.4 nanoseconds 2.2 Mega-Jansky pulse Duration: 0.4 nanoseconds 0.4 ns

17. NAIC Visiting Committee Meeting · February 19-21, 2007 Interpulse spectral band spacing proportional to frequency

18. NAIC Visiting Committee Meeting · February 19-21, 2007 Quotes: Leslie Lamport “Don't give your paper; the audience can't take it. If someone can understand in thirty minutes what it took you weeks to develop, then you're in the wrong business.” “Time your talk. Running over your allotted time is a mark of incompetence.”

19. NAIC Visiting Committee Meeting · February 19-21, 2007 More from Leslie Lamport: You are now thinking: "All those dull speakers I've listened to should use these rules, but I don't need them because my talks are interesting." All those dull speakers are now thinking exactly the same thing. Read the rules again with the proper humility. They apply to everyone.

20. NAIC Visiting Committee Meeting · February 19-21, 2007 Conclusions Conclusions: what one should remember. Conclusions: not the same as summary. Optimize talk for audience. You can always improve a talk. People may remember the impression you make far longer than the contents of your talk.