the situation is the same in the computer industry as everywhere else – talks run long, often mere narration of slides, etcetera.

So: We can read faster than you can speak; don’t give us a reason not to listen to you.

As for using visuals as signposts for the presentation’s organizational structure, I’d say that if the structure isn’t logical, no amount of external prompting will make it so.

I have spent some time thinking about how that style might work with certain academic presentations, but I haven’t yet figured it out. I think it is definitely conducive to something like a class lecture. I’ve tried to incorporate elements here and there, but that’s as far as I’ve gotten so far.

As to your point about whether academics are human, too. Precisely. They are, so they shouldn’t have to sit through horrible talks that have no end in sight.

My approach in giving presentations is almost the opposite in both cases. First, variation of pace is as important in a presentation as in any other medium – I have slides which stay on screen for 15 seconds and (admittedly more rarely) slides which I can talk to for ten minutes (and that’s not because they are visually cluttered). That’s closely related to the second point: for almost all my presentations, the innocent reader couldn’t work out the narrative just by looking at the slides. I can read bullet points faster than any speaker can read them out, and I assume that everybody to whom I am presenting can do the same. The purpose of slides is to illustrate, to emphasise, to make it easier for the audience to remember. The most common and most devastating error I see is the extraordinary number of presenters whose slides are clearly there as props for the speaker and not for the benefit of the audience at all.

I have absolutely no experience of presenting to academic audiences, so can’t speak directly to the applicability of this. But aren’t academics human too? And for a bravura disply of all the above, watch Dick Hardt in action (and no, I know nothing about him beyond that presentation – but I wish I could do that).

One of the most important things to do in preparing for a talk is to say, “If I were my audience, what might I ask after hearing this talk”- and then know the answers.

Everyone who’s ever given a paper/talk/interview knows the things they didn’t get to in the main body (that proleptic parenthetical that grew to a whole paragraph, etc.): that’s the stuff I’m talking about. If you come up with a nice mix of long and short answers, then try to fit what you’ve rehearsed to the questions asked you—with appropriate reframing, you’re just going to come off as a lot more professional (and, I’d say, give your audience a better experience).

I was initially horrified by this proposition, thinking, as you seem to be, that it amounted to a lot of empty spin. No such thing. It’s really the difference between being capable of giving articulate, well-calibrated answers to questions and spending more time than necessary fumbling for answers.

This takes a lot of work, no doubt—and there are times when it doesn’t make sense (but then: even attorneys spend a lot of time coaching their witnesses). My experience is as visiting lecturer/tv/radio interviewee (and, before that, as a software executive)—in all of these instances, the latter especially, you’re given a fairly limited time to make as much impact as you can. The more you practice all the elements of your performance, the better it will be.

In my experience, your suggested course of action is very often just an example of (a).
However, I agree with you basic point, that admitting you don’t know the answer is better than trying to BS. There are probably people as smart or smarter than you in the audience, and if they’re paying attention, they probably will be able to tell that you’re just blowing smoke.

It’s also often a good idea to tell the questioner that “that’s a good point,” at least in the cases when it is, or at least when it’s not a bad point. A little praise will usually make the questioner more pleasantly inclined towards you and avoid hostile follow-ups. A related point is to avoid getting defensive about questions. That never looks good, even if you’re in the right.

That’s something one also works on at Toastmasters. seeking to focus on exactly what you’re saying makes to lose the filler words.

Unfortunately, the finding was that there was an inverse relationship between alcohol and filler words. The more alcohol the subjects had had to drink, the fewer filler words they used.

1. If you want to persuade someone to change a decision they’ve just made, do not call the decision wrong and do not state frequently how you are amazed that the decision-makers could arrive at such a stunningly wrong decision.

2. Unless you’re with an audience that you know already knows your credentials, take a moment to state them. (I spend a lot of time talking to engineers, and the conversation goes much better when they know I have an engineering degree.)

3. If you get a hostile question, do the three Rs: – Reflect the question. Repeat it back rephrased and check that you’ve got the question right. – Respect the question. Say something like “Yes, many other people have said similar things.” – Respond to the question.
If you think you’re likely to get hostile questions, practice this method with a friend beforehand.

Doing that, I cottoned on to one really important point that I’d always taken for granted: put your points into the form of a story. Human minds are hardwired to absorb info in the form of narratives.

I learnt lots of other things too, but they’ve already been covered here. Lets just say that I’m quite a fascist when I’m moderating – I think stealing other’s time is selfishness.

The man I work for can make the simplest of meetings into the dullest, grinding drudgery because he doesn’t know how to shut up. Simple as that.

In my limited freelance writing for the local paper though, I’ve found the perfect method for limiting my own talk time. Whenever I’m writing, I impose a word limit more restrictive than what is even called for. This forces me to distill out the repetitive, and superfluous, and eventually I can put much more pertinent info into the piece because I’ve forced an economy of sorts on to the work.