Giving Technical Presentations
I want to share with you some suggestions I received from one of the best speakers in the computer world: David Chappell.
I met him @TechEd 2008, in Barcelona. He had a speech with the group of all the Microsoft Student Partners from Western Europe, giving some tips&tricks about delivering technical presentations.
Here you have some points of what I got from him!
Goals of a Technical Presentation – The three I’s
Information: Facts
Insight: Connections among facts
Inspiration: Feelings about facts
Presentation Content
Structure, structure, structure
Get the organization right
Tell a story
Prioritize, prioritize, prioritize
Cover what’s important to the audience
Don’t try to convey everything you know
Remember what it was like not to know the topic
What was hard for you to understand?
Don’t show “How” to people who don’t yet know “What” and “Why”
Build pictures in the audience’s heads
Diagrams are more memorable than words
Presentation Style
Find a part of yourself that works well on stage, then project that part
Speaking is theatre
Control the audience’s attention
With PowerPoint, always use a wireless remote
Use builds
Use pauses
Look for emotion
Tell stories: People will remember them
Final Thoughts
Giving effective technical presentations is a skill: One that can be learned and practiced
Being a strong communicator can be a big asset: It can be at least as important as being a strong technologist