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A technical presentation still needs a story. This is standard storytelling technique -- you start with the inciting event, the hook that gets you interested.

A technical presentation still needs a story. This is standard storytelling technique -- you start with the inciting event, the hook that gets you interested. How does The Matrix start? With Trinity about to get caught. Bambi? Mom gets shot. Star Wars? A tiny ship is getting chased by a huge ship with lasers. A good tech presentation follows good storytelling: 1) Inciting event, build to a semi-climax, pull back a little, hit the climax, then conclusion. If you want to be a great technical presenter, read some books on telling good stories. :)

IshKebab 2y ago
Yes, although I think you have to be careful not to piss audiences off with that technique. E.g. think of those too-long form articles that start "<Interesting hook and then...> David lives in a 3 bedroom house in rural blah with his two dogs, boopy and bloppy...". Instant close. I did an amazing presentation course once run by a comedian. He was very very good, and the main advice that stuck with me was to have your presentation follow the hero's tale. Everyone knows it: all is good, tragedy strikes, problem is overcome, celebrate. You might think that you can't fit technical talks into that format, and I wouldn't say every presentation needs to be like that. But it's applicable way more often than you'd think. Basically anything that solves a problem can be told like this. But too many presentations are like "I'm going to tell you about the X project. Here's an overview of the slides. Right, what is X?" instead of "We have a lot of things that do Y. This all worked great until Z, then disaster! Existing solution A doesn't work at all for this case. So we created X. But it didn't work because ... so we had to do ..., and finally everything worked!"
- gretch 2y ago
  > I think you have to be careful not to piss audiences off with that technique. E.g. think of those too-long form articles that start "<Interesting hook and then...> David lives in a 3 bedroom house in rural blah with his two dogs, boopy and bloppy...". Instant close. I would say that’s because the example is the antithesis of the advice given. In this case, I don’t know who David is, I don’t care. Why are you telling me about him.
lazyasciiart 2y ago
Bambi starts off with him being born - his mother doesn't die til the middle of the movie.
- jedberg 2y ago
  Fascinating, you're absolutely right! Apparently I'm not the only one who got it wrong: https://www.reddit.com/r/MandelaEffect/comments/8w0ewm/me_and_my_entire_group_of_friends_remember_bambis/ https://www.reddit.com/r/MandelaEffect/comments/8w0ewm/me_an...
interludead 2y ago
A technical presentation benefits greatly from the use of storytelling techniques.

IshKebab 2y ago

Yes, although I think you have to be careful not to piss audiences off with that technique. E.g. think of those too-long form articles that start "<Interesting hook and then...> David lives in a 3 bedroom house in rural blah with his two dogs, boopy and bloppy...". Instant close. I did an amazing presentation course once run by a comedian. He was very very good, and the main advice that stuck with me was to have your presentation follow the hero's tale. Everyone knows it: all is good, tragedy strikes, problem is overcome, celebrate. You might think that you can't fit technical talks into that format, and I wouldn't say every presentation needs to be like that. But it's applicable way more often than you'd think. Basically anything that solves a problem can be told like this. But too many presentations are like "I'm going to tell you about the X project. Here's an overview of the slides. Right, what is X?" instead of "We have a lot of things that do Y. This all worked great until Z, then disaster! Existing solution A doesn't work at all for this case. So we created X. But it didn't work because ... so we had to do ..., and finally everything worked!"

gretch 2y ago
> I think you have to be careful not to piss audiences off with that technique. E.g. think of those too-long form articles that start "<Interesting hook and then...> David lives in a 3 bedroom house in rural blah with his two dogs, boopy and bloppy...". Instant close. I would say that’s because the example is the antithesis of the advice given. In this case, I don’t know who David is, I don’t care. Why are you telling me about him.

lazyasciiart 2y ago

Bambi starts off with him being born - his mother doesn't die til the middle of the movie.

jedberg 2y ago
Fascinating, you're absolutely right! Apparently I'm not the only one who got it wrong: https://www.reddit.com/r/MandelaEffect/comments/8w0ewm/me_and_my_entire_group_of_friends_remember_bambis/ https://www.reddit.com/r/MandelaEffect/comments/8w0ewm/me_an...

interludead 2y ago

A technical presentation benefits greatly from the use of storytelling techniques.