After I’d given a couple of talks as a “spotlight” speaker at a conference in Singapore, someone tweeted, “Terry Freedman should read Presentation Zen”. I thought that comment was rather ill-informed. It’s true that I gave a lecture rather than some sort of whiz-bang presentation. but that was partly because the organisers asked me to. They wanted a lecture, and that’s what I gave them.
I have to say, though, that the best talks I’ve attended have been lectures, sometimes illustrated with slides, sometimes not. On the other hand, the absolute worst talks were the ones where the style of presentation seemed to take precedence over the content.
For example, one speaker illustrated his talk by repeatedly throwing a ball into the audience, a member of which would throw it back. I have no idea what his talk was about because I spent the entire forty minutes worried that the ball would hurtle in my direction. I was concerned that if I failed to catch it my glasses would get smashed, or that itwould land on the table causing tea and coffee to erupt everywhere.
Other presentations I’ve attended include slides with pictures that seemingly have nothing to do with what’s being said.
In both of these examples my question is this: what was the point? If it was to impart information, I’m afraid they failed miserably as far as myself is concerne