Outline of presentation skills training:

WORK IN PROGRESS -- NOT FINISHED

Introduction Course Outline Introduction and objectives Presentation Software Overview Documents vs. slides Content Have a topic list Breakdown the content into a logical structure Tell a story Non-stories Order the topics Content assumptions Material Structure Slides Speaking Room layout Backup of slides Printed copies and printed material OSDC Specifics Practical work Notes License

Introduction

This 30-45 minute course is for geeks who feel they need to brush up their presentation skills before OSDC. It will concentrate on:

1. Structure
2. Speaking style

Attendees are expected to bring a short, but complete, presentation (3 mins) that will be given and then reviewed. It is suggested that they bring an extract from their OSDC presentation, however it is important that it be self contained (i.e. it has a beginning, middle and end).

Course Outline

Introduction and objectives

1. Improve style and techniques for technical presenters
2. Improve self confidence
3. Provide specific guidance for OSDC presenters

Documents vs. slides

For technical presentations it really helps to have a corresponding paper. This paper has several benefits:

1. It gives attendees something to refer back to, when remembering your talk
2. It gives non-attendees something to know what they missed out on
3. (but most importantly) It gives you the opportunity to put your thoughts down in a useful order

People who do a lot of presentations can get away with creating an outline and then working directly with their slides. Everyone else really ought to write a paper.

Content

If you haven't written a paper, then hopefully your proposal specifies your audience and assumed knowledge.

Decide now:

1. What is the objective of your presentation and message you want to give? e.g.
1. Teach a new technique
2. Sell an OSS product
3. Persuade the community on some issue
2. If there will be demontrations:
1. Do you really need a demonstration?
2. Will be be simple enough to be understood?
3. Will it make people go Wow? Or might it be boring?
1. Be careful about demonstrations that show multiple activites in the same segment. They can be cery hard to follow and difficult to explain
4. Can you create a robust demonstration -- remember you will need some reliable way to reset the demonstration configuration back to the start.

Tell a story

• People love stories and suspense is great
• Introduce us to a problem as if you're telling a story

• Your story doesn't have to be 100% true
• But it does have to be engaging.
• Give us an idea of some of the solutions you tried
• Suggest obvious but wrong paths if they exist

• Work up to your solution, and then present it
• Talk briefly about the consequences
• Then finish up.

Non-stories

Not all topics lend themselves to stories. In this case you need to be even better at presenting.

• Start the talk with a description for why the audience should care.
• Pose it in terms of what they might be looking to get out of the talk, usually with a question. For example "Have you ever needed to do X?"
• Explain the problem domain
• Cover some of the various possible solutions
• Give *your* answer
• Discuss any relevant aspects of your answer
• Finish up

Content assumptions

1. Be careful about assuming specific knowledge, you will have a very diverse audience

• Not everyone will have used Linux
• Not everyone knows XUL

1. Rule of thumb
1. Major topics or jargon should be explained. This includes the title of the your presentation
2. Other terms should be expanded when first used e.g.
3. The Apache Web Server.
2. Note also that terms like Apache have multiple meanings

• Apache is
• A web server
• An organisation,
• The name associated with a leading OSS license
• An umbrella for many software projects

Material

1. Slides
2. Written material and Papers distributed before, during or after
3. Demonstrations
4. Online materials

Structure

1. Simple to more complex
2. Make sure you get your important message over first
3. Conclusion

Slides

1. When not to use slides
2. Slide layout
3. Pace
4. Alternatives to slides

Speaking

1. Do
1. Speak slowly
2. Loudly
3. Use tone and variety
4. Scan the audience and try to make eye contact
5. Seek confirmation from audience
2. Dont's
1. Read your slides
2. Use cliches
3. Mumble
4. Talk too fast
5. Wander off the topic -- slides can help you stay on track
6. Let members of the audience highjack the presentation

• It's you presentation,so it's OK to force the presentation onwards and offer to take material offline or even point out that the question or interruption is not relevant

1. Practice: Practise several times, in front of friends and colleagues
2. Timing

Room layout

Backup of slides

It is always a good idea to assume the worst -- either your

1. Printed

• Have a printed copy of your presentation that can be photocopied and given to the audience -- would you presentation work without access to any demonstration?

1. Other Media

• Put the slides onto a thumb drive, in some neutral formt like S5 or HTML if possible

1. On-line

• Place the material on a public web site

1. Projector and laptop

• For deluse cover take a spare laptop and projector with you -- however that is not an option for OSDC

Printed copies and printed material

1. OSDC provide all attendess with a paper copy of the proceddings before the presentation. Will you lay yours out to give room for note tacking. Whill you provide OSDC and the attendees with slides or a written paper.

OSDC Specifics

1. Presentation format. OSDC require that you supply your own laptop of that your presentation can be displayed via OpenOffice or a web browser.
2. Backup
3. Publication and copyright

Practical work

• Each student will be expected to come with a complete 3 minute presentation which they will give and be reviewed

Notes

Supporting Material
And here I should put some useful links to external material

License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 License.

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