More on Presentation Mistakes
More on Presentation Mistakes
A few years ago I have given a very short talk about giving effective talks; I still think that was a good summary, so I am providing the link above, to the PowerPoint slides.
BTW, I love PowerPoint. I think that it is a great tool, which can be extremely effective when used properly. Like any other tool, it can be used improperly, but this doesn’t make it bad. (Are hammers bad because they can cause injuries?) I think PowerPoint enables many people to present and organize their ideas in much better ways than before. Can you give a great speech without it? Sure. Can you have a terrible slide show? Certainly. But that’s not how you measure its effectiveness.
I have also written some (extended) advice on how to give presentations some time ago, but I guess that web page it too long, and not terribly original.
I also know quite a few people who manage to contradict a very large number of pieces of advice from my write-up and still give amazingly good talks (one example I remember vividly is Amir Pnueli). The secret in these cases is almost always crystal-clear thinking and a very sharp flow of ideas. So these rules are not the only way to do things.
But here I thought to mention a few (other) mistakes which I see frequently in job interviews (and many other presentations):
- Not listening the questions. It is amazing how many people answer a different question from the one that is being asked. Watching tapes of my talks I have realized that this has happened to me too. The reason is that I often have already in mind a list of questions that I expect, and I tend to match the words I hear to one my mental models. (Some people start answering before the questioner has even finished, thinking they have heard everything!)
The best way to avoid this symptom is to listen carefully, repeat or rephrase the question, and (if possible) ask whether this is the intended meaning.
- Giving too many details. A good talk is a fine balance between advertising and teaching hard facts. In truth, most people will forget almost everything you tell them, so the point is to make them interested in the work, and to stick a few salient facts in their mind. To remember, (the vast majority of) people will have to rehearse, and for this they will have to go to a more persistent material than just a talk. A corolary of this observation is that one should rely on intution when it is appropriate, and not try to explain everything in detail.