5 ms·

Off topic, and I don't want to knock the presenter here, but if you're ever going to give a public talk or presentation at work _please_ review the Death By Pow

by spyspy 11mo ago

Off topic, and I don't want to knock the presenter here, but if you're ever going to give a public talk or presentation at work _please_ review the Death By Powerpoint slide deck[0] first. [0] https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/death-by-powerpoint/85551 https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/death-by-powerpoint/855...

Cyph0n 11mo ago
Good advice for presenting a TEDx talk. Bad advice for a technical talk.
- OkayPhysicist 11mo ago
  If you don't care about the material, why on earth would anybody sit around for 15 minutes/30 minutes/an hour listening to you talk about the material. The sole reason for a presentation over a technical reference buried somewhere is because the presenter wants the audience to care about the thing they're presenting. If that isn't reflected in the presentation, it's not a worthwhile presentation.
  - Cyph0n 11mo ago
    But this was a technical presentation at a conference dedicated to the technology in question. A person stumbling across this on HN does not magically make them part of the target audience.
    - OkayPhysicist 11mo ago
      A technical presentation is a still a presentation, as opposed to a reference document. If you want to give someone a block of technical information, you do so in a reference document. You talk in front of a room full of people in order to convince them that this matters enough to bother.
      - Cyph0n 11mo ago
        Sure, but I don’t think this is relevant to the comment thread we’re in, which started off by sharing generic advice that mostly applies to TED-style motivational talks or “keynotes” at large conferences etc.
        OkayPhysicist 11mo ago
        I definitely thought we were downstream of pinkmuffinere's critiques about not establishing a reason to be excited about the material. oops.
martinvonz 11mo ago
Thanks for the link. I went through it but I'm not sure what it's telling me to change. Can you elaborate? If it's "be more engaging", i think is unfortunately going to be hard to improve because this is just how i am.
- BoorishBears 11mo ago
  The thing to change: realizing time your audience spends reading your slides is not spent paying attention to what you say. If you struggle with being engaging, then you want even less text on each slide so that the audience doesn't get an additional reason to tune you out.
- pinkmuffinere 11mo ago
  I appreciate your frank oppenness to feedback! I'd like to give you some, but first I want to call out that (1) I'm certainly no expert and (2) you may have been voluntold to make a powerpoint on material that isn't well-fit for powerpoint. My feedback: - I think you could improve by being more excited / exciting (the Death By Powerpoint slide deck says "passionate"). Personally, I try to mitigate this problem by drinking coffee shortly before I'm expected to be engaging. It is a drug, and for me it works. - You could also draw the main impactful points out of the background info. The presentation you give here has a lot of deep technical detail, which is certainly of interest for the correct audience, but I think generally fits poorly in a powerpoint presentation. I think you'd generally want to focus on more high-level performance characteristics, or particularly interesting details. Perhaps a 3-4 page document would be better for this sort of deep technical material. Or maybe the level of detail is actually perfect, and I'm just not the correct audience. I really love your response here. You seem like a great person, I think your coworkers are lucky to have you.
  - deleted 11mo ago
    [deleted]
  - martinvonz 11mo ago
    Thanks! The presentation was mainly for the audience that was present at the conference, which was mainly people who have used jj for a relatively long time, so I think part of the problem is just a mismatch between audiences there and on YouTube. I agree about being more exciting. Not sure how to improve that :P I drink too much coffee all the time that I don't notice any difference. Harder drugs, perhaps :)
Y_Y 11mo ago
Ugh, I'd prefer people keep passion for the bedroom and just convey information straightforwardly without trying to "sell" it to me. Adding a false excitement signal to the information is a hindrance to me as a viewer. If you want Tony Robbins then go and see him. If you want an overview of the new product architecture lets keep calm and get on with it.
- BoorishBears 11mo ago
  The irony the deck presents 3 very different presenters to show that you don't need to be Tony Robbins to be passionate. If you can't be passionate, don't make it a presentation. Passionate doesn't need to mean over-the-top, but it means speaking on the topic effectively and in a way that reflects believing there's a reason for these people to sit there and listen to you. No one is forcing people to do presentations, but once you put people in a situation where they're expected to give you their undivided attention for a block of time, those are very reasonable table stakes. There's always blog posts, articles, mailing lists, HN posts, etc. if you don't believe there's a strong need for people to set aside time consume your information in the form of a presentation.
  - phainopepla2 11mo ago
    > No one is forcing people to do presentations To the contrary, pretty much every presentation I've ever given has been one that I would not have done if it were up to me
    - BoorishBears 11mo ago
      Ah sorry, I gave way too much credit to the reader. Please do continue to give bad presentations and insist it's just not in you to do better.
- Agingcoder 11mo ago
  I disagree, but it doesn’t mean you’re wrong - we might just be looking for different things. My view is that if you’re going to talk like a bored robot, then I need a transcript or a paper which is much shorter than a talk. I distinctly remember not going to classes at university because the teachers wouldn’t give me anything beyond reading a book aloud. I just read the book at home. Now, if you’re able to indicate what’s important and not important, what’s interesting and what isn’t , and why you like it , I’ll be delighted to watch your talk. I think it’s very difficult to be interested in something new if the presenter doesn’t seem to care about it. This is different from something written , where I expect something dry anyway.
cwillu 11mo ago
Ironically, that slide deck is pretty insufferable. Yes, lets pretend “make *meaning*” is a meaningful thing to say, when compared to “I'm required to do this” or “I have information to convey”
skeptrune 11mo ago
I love this. Will review my presentations by this standard in the future haha.

by spyspy 11mo ago

Cyph0n 11mo ago

Good advice for presenting a TEDx talk. Bad advice for a technical talk.

OkayPhysicist 11mo ago
If you don't care about the material, why on earth would anybody sit around for 15 minutes/30 minutes/an hour listening to you talk about the material. The sole reason for a presentation over a technical reference buried somewhere is because the presenter wants the audience to care about the thing they're presenting. If that isn't reflected in the presentation, it's not a worthwhile presentation.
- Cyph0n 11mo ago
  But this was a technical presentation at a conference dedicated to the technology in question. A person stumbling across this on HN does not magically make them part of the target audience.
  - OkayPhysicist 11mo ago
    A technical presentation is a still a presentation, as opposed to a reference document. If you want to give someone a block of technical information, you do so in a reference document. You talk in front of a room full of people in order to convince them that this matters enough to bother.
    - Cyph0n 11mo ago
      Sure, but I don’t think this is relevant to the comment thread we’re in, which started off by sharing generic advice that mostly applies to TED-style motivational talks or “keynotes” at large conferences etc.
      - OkayPhysicist 11mo ago
        I definitely thought we were downstream of pinkmuffinere's critiques about not establishing a reason to be excited about the material. oops.

martinvonz 11mo ago

Thanks for the link. I went through it but I'm not sure what it's telling me to change. Can you elaborate? If it's "be more engaging", i think is unfortunately going to be hard to improve because this is just how i am.

BoorishBears 11mo ago
The thing to change: realizing time your audience spends reading your slides is not spent paying attention to what you say. If you struggle with being engaging, then you want even less text on each slide so that the audience doesn't get an additional reason to tune you out.
pinkmuffinere 11mo ago
I appreciate your frank oppenness to feedback! I'd like to give you some, but first I want to call out that (1) I'm certainly no expert and (2) you may have been voluntold to make a powerpoint on material that isn't well-fit for powerpoint. My feedback: - I think you could improve by being more excited / exciting (the Death By Powerpoint slide deck says "passionate"). Personally, I try to mitigate this problem by drinking coffee shortly before I'm expected to be engaging. It is a drug, and for me it works. - You could also draw the main impactful points out of the background info. The presentation you give here has a lot of deep technical detail, which is certainly of interest for the correct audience, but I think generally fits poorly in a powerpoint presentation. I think you'd generally want to focus on more high-level performance characteristics, or particularly interesting details. Perhaps a 3-4 page document would be better for this sort of deep technical material. Or maybe the level of detail is actually perfect, and I'm just not the correct audience. I really love your response here. You seem like a great person, I think your coworkers are lucky to have you.
- deleted 11mo ago
  [deleted]
- martinvonz 11mo ago
  Thanks! The presentation was mainly for the audience that was present at the conference, which was mainly people who have used jj for a relatively long time, so I think part of the problem is just a mismatch between audiences there and on YouTube. I agree about being more exciting. Not sure how to improve that :P I drink too much coffee all the time that I don't notice any difference. Harder drugs, perhaps :)

Y_Y 11mo ago

Ugh, I'd prefer people keep passion for the bedroom and just convey information straightforwardly without trying to "sell" it to me. Adding a false excitement signal to the information is a hindrance to me as a viewer. If you want Tony Robbins then go and see him. If you want an overview of the new product architecture lets keep calm and get on with it.

BoorishBears 11mo ago
The irony the deck presents 3 very different presenters to show that you don't need to be Tony Robbins to be passionate. If you can't be passionate, don't make it a presentation. Passionate doesn't need to mean over-the-top, but it means speaking on the topic effectively and in a way that reflects believing there's a reason for these people to sit there and listen to you. No one is forcing people to do presentations, but once you put people in a situation where they're expected to give you their undivided attention for a block of time, those are very reasonable table stakes. There's always blog posts, articles, mailing lists, HN posts, etc. if you don't believe there's a strong need for people to set aside time consume your information in the form of a presentation.
- phainopepla2 11mo ago
  > No one is forcing people to do presentations To the contrary, pretty much every presentation I've ever given has been one that I would not have done if it were up to me
  - BoorishBears 11mo ago
    Ah sorry, I gave way too much credit to the reader. Please do continue to give bad presentations and insist it's just not in you to do better.
Agingcoder 11mo ago
I disagree, but it doesn’t mean you’re wrong - we might just be looking for different things. My view is that if you’re going to talk like a bored robot, then I need a transcript or a paper which is much shorter than a talk. I distinctly remember not going to classes at university because the teachers wouldn’t give me anything beyond reading a book aloud. I just read the book at home. Now, if you’re able to indicate what’s important and not important, what’s interesting and what isn’t , and why you like it , I’ll be delighted to watch your talk. I think it’s very difficult to be interested in something new if the presenter doesn’t seem to care about it. This is different from something written , where I expect something dry anyway.

cwillu 11mo ago

Ironically, that slide deck is pretty insufferable. Yes, lets pretend “make *meaning*” is a meaningful thing to say, when compared to “I'm required to do this” or “I have information to convey”

skeptrune 11mo ago

I love this. Will review my presentations by this standard in the future haha.