Fly With Chest Infection

How NOT to speak in public

This entry will be brief because lately including seminars, conferences and "retreats" I have little time for laboratory and less still to write, but this time and lately I've been sitting in a room watching and listening PowerPoints people (more or less prestigious) to talk about his work several things caught my attention.

Very attentive all yes, but ... how long?

course is not the first time I see some details but it's really impressive that scientists with established careers and are as bad communicators. The explanation is not attributable solely to the fact that until recently there were the workshops on how to give presentations but also something deeper and very typical of the profession: absolute lack of empathy.

Some may think what c $ &% is about one thing with another? As much, if not all, because when the person giving the presentation looks at an audience of more than 25 people and more than most people go looking at the walls if not taking a nap is that something is wrong in the way they communicate. But of course, for that would be necessary for that person looking away from your slides or shoes, in the case of the more timid, and try to seek contact with the audience.

Moreover one of the core deficits of empathy that seems most suffer when preparing a talk is thinking about the type and level of the audience to whom it is addressed because some (most) believe that everyone is an expert in your field or that this is SO important that everyone should know the meaning the acronym SPF-3rd (just inventármelo but certainly in some contexts there ... and should know) and so it happens that in seminars that are supposed to be more or less generic content become a talk only suitable for experts and a genuine punishment for most.

while

attention to Curve

Another issue that kills my nerves (perhaps due to my limited attention span) is the length. Anyone who has received a kind of effective communication or has gone through the education system knows, even for experienced call attention curve means that there is a peak of attention at the beginning of the talk that goes with it lessens along with it and picks at the time presented the findings. For example, in a presentation of about 40 minutes which is the term that is often asked the rapporteurs to prepare a minimum of attention is achieved at 30 minutes picking up in the last 10, with the final conclusions. For a 45-minute talk, the last 5 or 10 minutes should be reserved for questions, which will surely arise if one has done the job well and not all the audience is asleep. However, the reality is that most always take time to discuss his last 10 or 15 slides of data, also in many cases not even providing relevant information and could be ignored. And if you ask me, I will say that the worst is ... the deception. When they say that in the last couple of slides I'll show you blablabla and innocent, desperate to get out of hell slumber of the talk of yore you believe and then you find out that pair of slides in 15 becomes minutes of incessant diatribe want to die ... or kill.

A slide background pink? Better not

Regarding the design of the slides and or talk: text color that stands out from the background graphics notation axis far from being understood, or not even discussed or slides where they concentrate so many graphics that do not even know where to look ... at least I did say that the rapporteur watch you point a laser pointer. The problem is that it tends to move the ball over a tennis match between Federer Nadal and so the best thing that can happen is that if you pay attention you end up with a headache or blind, if the laser has just pointed in your direction.

These are some of the things I've seen ... and you? encourage one to tell me that you seem more frequent errors among scientists / teachers when they present their work in public. And lest you go the same that they do good homework (ref. 1 and 2). If you want to have a good time I recommend you read the article Gottfried Schatz wrote on the subject for FEBS letters and I can assure you that it is a good speaker.