The Art of the Presentation (Part 2 of 3)

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You’ve created your presentation, now you need to practise. Or as the great Yogi Berra put it:

In theory there is no difference between theory and practise. In practise, there is.

Almost certainly in the early days of your presenting you will need to practise a considerable amount. There are two main reasons for this; firstly you will be presenting your own unique content for the first time in an open forum like a conference, which means you will need to be absolutely sure of what it is you are going to say to ensure you don’t come across as someone who is less knowledgeable than you are. Secondly, you will almost always be nervous. How quickly you overcome your nerves will vary greatly from person to person and a variety of other factors. For me it took just over two years before my nerves stopped kicking in to the point where they were visible.

The key to coming across confidently is to know what you are going to say right from your first sentence, all the way through to your last sentence. You also need to ensure that you don’t learn every single word of the talk parrot fashion. Unless you have a gift for remembering dialogue (in which case you will sound like you are simply reading your verbiage), you will have to employ a few tricks to get around this…

The Opening

Firstly, practise your very first sentence, and make it snappy and to the point, and impactful at the same time if you can. Don’t drone on about how happy you are to be here, what your name is,  thank you all for coming, I hope you like my talk, how you can’t believe you are stood in front of such a talented crowd at this amazing conference etc.. I recall practising in front of a good friend, and before I had got halfway through my introductory sentence he bellowed:

BORRRRRIIIIING! YAWN 

 

His point was that people weren’t there to hear your platitudes, they are here to get their money’s worth and listen to what you have got to say, so just get on with it. Additionally, if people want to know more about you personally they will either read your bio in the conference agenda, or look you up after the talk. Do not spend five minutes establishing your credentials as not only can it come across as egotistical (except in very rare circumstances) but erodes your impact as a confident and knowledgeable speaker.

Slide on the slides

The second trick is to use your slides as a prompt for a train of thought rather than using them as an aid to specific sentences you want to remember. In the first blog on this topic I mentioned using imagery as much as possible; avoiding the use of bullet points or long sentences as much as possible means you won’t be tempted to rely on the text for what you are going to say. Try to sound conversational, and while practising do consider filming yourself or at the very least an audio recording. Running through it a few times will help embed a few key phrases in your head you can move between, and also give your imagination a chance expand further on your thoughts. Having a few Tweetable length phrases ready to roll off your tongue is a useful way of making an impact with few words, as well as encouraging people to potentially tweet your quotes during the talk (an increase your audience). Don’t forget your “story” or the beginning, middle, end structure either.

Variety

This point is also an opportunity to practise varying the tone and pitch of your voice, the use of your hands and even how you want to move around. Practise slowing down your talking , and possible even lowering your volume (more easily achieved if you are going to be using a microphone), when you want to emphasis something of critical importance. You can also speed up and become more animated on sections that you find exciting, fun or revealing. A little bit of humour thrown in as well helps, but be careful here, especially with an international audience. Test it on colleagues and peers first.

The Close

So you have made it through the deck and you are on your last slide; before you know it you have finished your presentation. how do you finish? “And, um, that’s it really…” is not the way to go. See the first point and memorise a closing statement, something straightforward, and again, snappy. “With that, I will close and thank you all for your time and attention. I will now take questions” is a good place to start. Don’t be afraid to make changes to the deck and the story as you go through either; they will evolve as you become more proficient, and the deck should not limit your message; the message dictates the deck.

How often should you run through your deck? In my early days I would practise at least five times, recording it a few times, and often in front of a critical friend or two. This is a very real time commitment, so be aware and plan it into the creation of your presentation to meet your deadline. As you get more comfortable, you will be rehearsing the presentation as you create the deck, and after a few reviews will know what you are going to say (roughly) with each slide and each transition.

Patience

Above all, be patient with the process; like anything it takes thousands of hours to be proficient at something depending upon your natural ability, the circumstances and the topic in hand. If you are not having fun, ascertain what part of the process are you not enjoying? Very often, I talk to people who hate the entire process, including the presenting, until immediately after when they get such a rush they want to do it again. if that is the case, the painful parts do get easier. Also, make sure you find someone who will honestly critique your presentation either in person or after watching a recording. Take their viewpoint very seriously, and if they are a serious speaker then all the better.

So, if you are wondering how you can get to Carnegie Hall, as the violinist turned comedian Jack Benny once answered:

Practise Practise Practise!

Next time, The Art of the Presentation (part 3 of 3) – The Delivery.

 

Note: Look out for a new YouTube series from me coming soon, The Lost CISO!

The Art of the Presentation (Part 1 of 3)

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In a post a few years ago I talked about The Art of the Conference, and what conference organisers can do to improve their conferences and make lives easier for their presenters. I was reminded of this post again recently as this is the sixth year that I am mentoring a rookie speaker at BSides London, and in my initial conversation with them I discussed a three stage approach to creating, practising and delivering the talk (the latter of which touches on the content of my previous post).

This post focusses on the first part of this process, the actual creation of the talk.

The Idea

This is actually the hardest part of the entire process (aside perhaps from actually standing in front of 200 people of course). In my experience many people try to not only come up with a wholly unique idea, but then try and explore it in too much detail. Given your talk will probably be competing against many other talks, the easiest way to make yours stand out is with it’s simplicity. Take the core of a topic, and honestly ask yourself what your view on it is; do you agree with it, if not why not, what could be better, what is your experience of it and how have you addressed it? By keeping it simple your audience will have more chance of remembering what you said. This process could take anywhere from minutes to weeks and weeks dependent upon your experience, knowledge and confidence. Don’t assume however that just because you have an opinion that everyone else is fully knowledgeable of it either; if nothing else you are bringing your own unique viewpoint.

The Creative

This is a point at which your approach may differ, but I have always found this the best way of actually inspiring myself and getting my story straight. I fill a sheet of paper with boxes (below) and then start to sketch out, not always legibly) the approach I am going to take on the deck I produce. I do this because it ensures I don’t write any actual prose on the topic; personally when I do this I find it very difficult to then pull myself away from the prose when presenting. It is a mental block of sorts of course, but this approach allows me to sketch out the story of my talk without having to get attached to a certain way of saying things

I try and avoid too many words as they are a distraction to the audience, and focus on high resolution images that help embellish my point or provoke an appropriate reaction from the audience. There are some very good books on creating slides for presentation that I have referenced, Presentation Zen and Slide:ology; I strongly recommend these to anyone who wants to up their game on the visual presentation side of things.

This approach also allows you to build a story; making sure your presentation has a beginning, middle and end help draw your audience in. What talk would you rather watch…

My talk is about a simple technology we used to allow someone to Tweet over a phone call.

or

John Doe is a man who was imprisoned on the flimsiest of evidence and with ludicrously high bail. He had restricted access to legal counsel and even family were not allowed to visit him. His entire campaign for justice was focussed around his significant Twitter followers, and given his elevated fame in his industry was where most of his support would come from. Here is the story of how we used a Raspberry Pi, two cans, a length of string and Python to allow him to live Tweet from his weekly phone call, directly and un-redacted, and ultimately beat the corrupt government that had arrested him.

Your approach needs to be simple, but that doesn’t mean it needs to be dull.

The Timings

Timing a presentation is very difficult, but after some experience I have found I can not only tell roughly what the length of a presentation created like this, but can also vary it in length, sometimes upon to 100%. The other rule of thumb is to dive the number of minutes you have by the number of slides. One slide for roughly every minute is a good place to start, but keep an eye out for when that number increases. Trying to cover more than one slide every 15 seconds is going to be very challenging.

The Takeaways

I often say that people will remember less than 30% of what you said less that 30 minutes after you have finished speaking. Not only is this where the simplicity of your deck is important, but also making sure you leave the audience with clear activities or advice on what to do next is vitally important. If you don’t do this, you will leave the audience somewhat nonplussed even if your content is great. As one close friend of mine said to me after I had asked for feedback:

It was a good talk, but I got to the end and thought “meh, so what?”

Your talk can be interesting, but if it doesn’t have a point, you will always be in the “meh” zone.

Next time (or maybe the time after), The Art of the Presentation (Part 2 of 3) – Practising.

The Power of Silence

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Not so many years ago in the dim and distant past, the very first full length public talk I did was called “An Anatomy of a Risk Assessment”; it was a successful talk and one I was asked to present several times again in the following years. Below is a film of the second time I presented it, this time at BSides London:

My presentation style left a lot to be desired, and I seemed unable to stop using note cards until almost eighteen months later despite me not using them for other talks I gave! (Top speaking tip folks, never use printed notes when speaking, it conditions your mind to think it can only deliver when using them.) But that is not the focus of this message.

One of the pieces of “anatomy” that I spoke about in terms of risk assessments was the ears. The principle being that since you have two ears and one mouth, when auditing or assessing you should be listen twice as much as be speaking. This is important for two reasons, the second of which may not be as obvious as the first:

  1. If you are assessing someone or something, you should be drawing information from them. When you are speaking you are not gaining any information from them which is a wasted opportunity. As a consequence of this therefore,
  2. There will be periods of silence which you must not feel tempted to break. Just as nature fills a vacuum so a human wants to fill a silence. Silence therefore will encourage the target of the assessment to open up even more, just so as not to feel awkward!

Interestingly, after my very first presentation of this talk, a member of the audience asked me if i had ever been in the Police Force. “I haven’t” I replied.

Well, some of the techniques you just described are exactly like police interrogation techniques, especially the silence. I should know, I used them every day!

Flattered though I was, I did become a little concerned! Was i taking this risk assessment malarkey a little too seriously? Was i subjecting people to what amounted to an interrogation?

Obviously this was not the case, but it occurred to me that in the many books i have read on risk assessment and audit, never is the softer side of the process covered. We tend to focus on the technology, or the boxes that need to be ticked, when actually we can simply sit back and let others do the talking. I also employ humour very often to help people relax, and even do it when i am on the other side of the table too. It can make a gruelling and mindless activity far more engaging and allow you to connect with the person on the other side of the table more effectively.

It engenders trust.

You can apply many of the techniques described in the presentation in your daily work lives, especially when on a discovery programme or wanting to get to the bottom of an incident. In fact, I can’t think of anything easier than having a (one-sided) chat with someone and getting the assessment completed.

Or as Will Rogers, actor and vaudeville performer in the early 1900’s put it:

Never miss a good chance to shut up

On another note, look out for a new series of YouTube films coming from me in the next few weeks.

I give you, The Lost CISO