Here are some tips for speakers to prepare for their talk more efficiently:
Do:
• Take into account the diversity in the audience by gearing your talk to the level of a first-year graduate student.
• On top of the overview picture and theory, use practical examples to demo the usage. This is especially important for a tech talk. Take Henry Paik’s git/github talk as a good example.
• Plan to speak for 30-45 minutes, and encourage people to ask questions in the middle or at the end.
• Practice your talk ahead of time, ideally in front of some non-experts. When practicing, try to modulate your voice, especially when you’re about to share an exciting or unexpected result, so that the audience knows to be excited or intrigued too.
• Plan on enjoying the experience.
Don’t:
• Assume that we are familiar with the topic you are presenting. Even for a daily-used topic like
• Use abbreviations or jargon without first defining what they mean.
• Talk longer than 45 minutes.
• Worry if you are asked a challenging or difficult question after your talk. You are among friends and the valued of friends asking you tough questions is that it will prepare you if you find yourself presenting to a less receptive audience.
You may bring your presentation on either your own computer or a USB stick. If your laptop, make sure you have connector/adaptor to either VGA or HDMI (those are the cables available to the conference room). If a USB stick, you can use the Windows PC in the room. Please plan to arrive at least 15 minutes before the start of your talk, so that you can set up your presentation and ensure that it will display properly. I will bring a remote control w/ laser pointer for you.