Time to Speak Tech!

“Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it.” – Steve Jobs

Are there differences between a technical and non-technical presentation?

I would say this. There are certain areas in technical presentations that will cause you particular problems. Because of the technical nature of your subject, these problems have a tendency to be magnified in technical presentations.

Read on to find out what they are!

Do You Know What Your Audience Knows About Your Technical Topic?

You are giving a briefing on Quantum Computing. Well before your presentation, can you answer the following questions?

• What is my audience’s expertise concerning Quantum Computing?
• What does my audience’s want to know about Quantum Computing?
• What does my audience need to know about Quantum Computing?

If you cannot answer these questions well before your presentation, there is almost a 100% chance that you will miss an opportunity to present information your audience will find useful.

Although failing to analyze the audience is a malady suffered by both technical and non-technical speakers, I think this is a “steeper climb” to accomplish this for your technical presentations. Read below to find out why.

Technical subjects have many more details associated with them than do more general topics such as the next election, child rearing and yoga. Also, the percentage of the general population who know anything about your technical topic is much smaller than the percentage of the general population who know anything about a general topic like the next election, child rearing and yoga.

What does this mean? It means there is a lower and maybe much lower chance that anyone in your audience has knowledge of your topic as compared with a general topic.

Without knowledge of what your audience knows about your technical topic, you are “in the middle of a large lake without a paddle or rudder.” Knowledge of your audience are the “paddle” and “rudder” for your presentation. Knowledge of your audience provides the necessary foundation of a great and useful presentation.

Too many speakers ask the question, “What do I want to talk about in my presentation?” instead of “What does my audience want to hear and what do they need to learn from my presentation?”

So, the first step is to look to your audience to find the answers to the three questions above.

The next point centers around presentation detail. Engineers and scientists love detail. That is why they pursued a degree in engineering or science. Too much detail is almost always detrimental in your technical presentations.

When in Doubt, Take It Out!

This love for detail actually blinds us engineers and scientists to the amount of material to put on our slides and the detail to put into our speaking. As in other professions, engineers and scientists are proud of their work and rightfully so. They like the rest of speakers want to tell others what they are working on. Remember though your presentation is for your audience, not you!

However, the propensity to tell our audiences all there is to know about our subject is strong and needs to be overcome if you are truly going to give your audience what they want and what they need from your presentation.

The best rule of thumb is, “When in doubt, take it out.” As mentioned above, the “paddle” and “rudder” to prepare your presentation is your audience.

While developing your presentation, constantly ask yourself the question, “Does my audience need this information to fulfill the purpose of my presentation?” And you know by now the purpose of your presentation is always determined by what your audience wants and needs from your presentation.

So, you know the first step in developing a presentation is to answer the three questions in the first section. You also know whenever you are in doubt of adding specific information, the wise thing is to take it out. A corollary of this is when in doubt, if you can reduce your doubt sufficiently, leave the information in your presentation.

However, one of the hardest challenges to overcome for all speakers, not only technical ones, is the propensity of your audience’s attention to wander to other things and not stay totally focused on your topic. Unnecessary detail in your slides and what you say unrelated or, at best, tangentially related to your presentation purpose has a tendency to distract your audience.

“Separate the Wheat from the Chaff”

There is an old farming expression that says, “Separate the wheat from the chaff.” If you have ever farmed, you know what I am talking about.

“Wheat” is good. “Chaff” is bad. The “wheat” in your presentation is the information you need your audience to take away from your presentation. The “chaff” in your presentation is the information your audience does not need to take away. The “chaff” is often somewhat related information that your audience may find interesting, but does not need to take away from your presentation. Your job is to keep the “wheat” and discard the “chaff.”

The “chaff” in your presentation could be in your slides, videos, exercises, and even in the words you speak.

As a writer, I know that reuse of relevant content saves time. That is why newsletters turn into blogs which turn into social media posts, which turn into books, etc. It is smart to do this. It saves a lot of time. It is very efficient and, if done correctly, is very effective for your target audience.

However, too many times engineers and scientists don’t perform a quality check on content to ensure their audiences really need to know everything on a slide or in what they say. Yes, I mean look at ever slide, video and what you are going to say to see if it passes the “Does my audience need to know this?” test.

It takes some time to do this, but is it better to have some short term pain for long term gain or the other way around? Short term gain for long term pain is, to be sure, faster, but it will never provide the long term gain you are looking for and produce a great presentation.

This being said, as you spend years in certain subject areas, you will build up quite a lot of slides and videos on your topic. A judicious selection of these slides/videos for a particular presentation is OK if you want to “hit singles and doubles (baseball analogy).” However, if you want to “hit a home run” with all your presentations, review the selection of the previous slides you developed and planned to use for particular relevance to your current audience.

If there are five items of information on the slide and your current topic only requires three of these five items, take out the two not needed before you present to your current audience. You won’t “hit a home run” all the time, but your chances go up dramatically of “hitting one.”

So, what have you learned today?

You learned the first step in developing a presentation is to answer the three questions

• What is my audience’s expertise concerning my technical topic?
• What does my audience’s want to know about my technical topic?
• What does my audience need to know about my technical topic?

You also learned a good rule of thumb is whenever you are in doubt of adding specific information, the wise thing is to take it out. A corollary of this is when in doubt, if you can reduce your doubt sufficiently, leave the information in your presentation.

Finally, you learned unnecessary detail in your slides and what you say unrelated or, at best, tangentially related to your presentation purpose has a tendency to distract your audience. “Separate your wheat from your chaff.”

So, heed these speaking tips the next time you prepare and deliver a technical presentation.

You want to “hit a home run,” don’t you!

Call to Action

Before you prepare your next presentation find out

• What is my audience’s expertise concerning my technical topic?
• What does my audience’s want to know about my technical topic?
• What does my audience need to know about my technical topic?

While you are preparing your next presentation, if you have any doubt about whether you should use a particular item of information, don’t use it

Also, while you are preparing your next presentation, “separate the wheat from the chaff.” Only use information, your audience absolutely needs to use

“A bad attitude is like a flat tire. You can’t go anywhere till you change it.” – Earl Nightingale