Good tips for a Technical presentation [closed]

Answer 1

Have you heard of Pecha-Kucha?

The idea behind Pecha Kucha is to keep presentations concise, the interest level up and to have many presenters sharing their ideas within the course of one night. Therefore the 20x20 Pecha Kucha format was created: each presenter is allowed a slideshow of 20 images, each shown for 20 seconds. This results in a total presentation time of 6 minutes 40 seconds on a stage before the next presenter is up

Now, i am not sure if that short duration could be ok for a product demonstration. But you can try to get some nice ideas from the concept, such as to be concise and keep to the point, effective time, space management etc..

Answer 2

The #1 rule for me is: Don't try to show too much.

It's easy to live with a chunk of code for a couple of weeks and think, "Damn, when I show 'em this they are gonna freak out!" Even during your private rehearsals you feel good about things. But once in front of an audience, the complexity of your code is multiplied by the square of the number of audience members. (It becomes exponentially harder to explain code for each audience member added!)

What seemed so simple and direct privately quickly turns into a giant bowl of spaghetti that under pressure even you don't understand. Don't try to show production code (well factored and well partitioned), make simple inline examples that convey your core message.

My rule #1 could be construed, by the cynical, as don't overestimate you audience. As an optimist, I see it as don't overestimate your ability to explain your code!

rp

Answer 3

This is something that was explained to me, and I think it is very useful. You may want to consider not going to slide heavy at the beginning. You want to show your listeners something (obviously probably not the code) up front that will keep them on the edge of their seats wanting to learn about how to do what you just showed them.

Answer 4

Since it sounds like you are doing a live presentation, where you will be working with real systems and not just charts (PPT, Impress, whatever) make sure it is all working just before you start. It never fails, if I don't try it just before I start talking, it doesn't work how I expected it to. Especially with demos. (I'm doing one on Tuesday so I can relate.)

The other thing that helps is simply to practice, practice, practice. Especially if you can do it in the exact environment you will be presenting in. That way you get a feel for where you need to be so as not to block the view for your listeners as well as any other technical gotchas there might be with regards to the room setup or systems.

Answer 5

I've recently started to use Mind Mapping tools for presentations and found that it goes over very well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_map

Basically, I find people just zone out the second you start to go into details with a presentation. Conveying the information with a mind map (at least in my experience), provides a much easier way for the information to be conveyed and tied together.

The key is presenting the information in stages (ie, your high-level ideas first, then in more detail, one at a time). The mind-mapping tools basically let you expand your map, as the audience watches and your present more and more detailed information. Doing it this way lets your audience gradually absorb the data in smaller stages, which tends to aid retention.

Check out FreeMind for a free tool to play with. Mind Manager is a paid product, but is much more polished and fluent.

Answer 6

If you use slides at all, follow Guy Kawasaki's 10/20/30 rule:

• No more than 10 slides
• No more than 20 minutes spent on slides
• No less than 30 point type on slides

-Adam