Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!unmvax!ncar!ico!vail!rcd From: rcd@ico.ISC.COM (Dick Dunn) Newsgroups: comp.org.usenix Subject: Re: Presentations (was: First impressions) Summary: last-minute preparation vs correction Message-ID: <15926@vail.ICO.ISC.COM> Date: 14 Jul 89 05:17:50 GMT References: <3624@ap.sei.cmu.edu> Distribution: na Organization: Interactive Systems Corp, Boulder, CO Lines: 94 I seem to have hit a nerve with both Steve Bellovin and Dan Klein--both of whom have presented (good) papers at recent USENIXes and both of whom were on the program committee for Baltimore. They may be pretty sensitive about quality of presentations, and I probably didn't convey quite what I meant. I was not trying to say that "overheads" are superior to slides--but only that each format has some advantages over the other. I'd like to see good equipment which can accommodate either format. In article <3624@ap.sei.cmu.edu>, dvk@sei.cmu.edu (Daniel Klein) writes: > > - The overhead format is more convenient and familiar to many > > folk. > > Yeah, we've always done it that way, and we don't want to change, even if > it's better another way. I think this is a cheap shot. I don't agree that slides are better in all respects, and I think that if you're standing in front of a thousand people trying to do a smooth presentation, there's a distinct advantage to working with a familiar format. People *do* fumble with slide projectors! They shouldn't--in theory a slide projector is trivial to operate--but theory doesn't matter unless practice obliges. The main objection seems to be to my suggestion that overheads are much easier to fix at the last minute, either by running off a new one just before you leave for the conference, or by manual correction with a marker. > This is one of the biggest problems at USENIX conferences - the last-minute > mentality. If you are going to be making a presentation to over a thousand > people, you simply cannot make your slides at the last minute... I agree...but that's not anything like what I was suggesting. I was suggesting that you might find a mistake at the very last minute and want to correct it. Do better proofreading, you say? Fine, that will reduce the chance for error. With the small number of slides you need for a 20-minute talk, the errors should be down to almost zero. Yeah, almost. If you don't think you can prepare a talk with incredible care, go over it repeatedly, study every detail, and still miss an error, either you haven't given enough talks or you lead a charmed, Murphy-free existence. Chances are you won't have anything you need to correct if you're even reasonably careful-- except that (Murphy) the harder it is to make a correction, the more likely you are to find one at the last minute! Even if you don't have any errors, there's always the chance that you'll get that last minute call or email that says, "Hey Billybob, y'know that test you wanted me to run on the Frobozz/2? I finally ran it, and you won't believe the numbers!" Of course, you can ignore the last-minute info, but unless it's really too late to incorporate it, that's a cop-out. (USENIX is supposed to be timely, remember?) If you have to put up a slide you couldn't correct, and point out the change, it will break your stride in the talk, waste some of your valuable time, and confuse the people whose attention was drifting just then. It's THESE things that you can avoid by being able to make a last-minute minor correction. You'd better have your talk all ready to go well in advance, as both Klein and Bellovin said. In no way do I advocate doing the preparation at the last minute, but I might like the option of being enough of a perfectionist to make a small correction at the last minute, without the constraints of the visual medium being in my way. > A 20 minute talk should have between 10 and 15 slides, maximum. Flipping > back through 15 slides won't hurt anyone... ...IF the speaker knows how to use the projector in reverse! (Again, that *shouldn't* be hard, but it seems to be.) It is disruptive to have to watch the flash/flash/flash, but I guess it's rare enough that it's not too bad. > ...Calling for the overhead is just as time consuming, > because more often than not, the overhead turner does not know the talk, and > is only there to flip pages... Why is that? By earlier arguments, if you're presenting a talk to this many people, you'd better have rehearsed it. I hope it's in front of people who can understand and critique it! So rehearse it in front of the person who's going to turn the overheads for you. non-problem. Again, I'm not trying to assert superiority of overheads; I'm just trying to put them at parity with slides. I've seen enough overheads done right that I know they can work - and work well enough that other factors in the talk are more important. They have advantages as well as the disadvantages that others have mentioned. There are even problems with both media--such as trying to anticipate the readability in a room of > 10^3 people. There were some poor slides at Baltimore--one set in particular was just too dark to read. -- Dick Dunn rcd@ico.isc.com uucp: {ncar,nbires}!ico!rcd (303)449-2870 ...Simpler is better.