Are you ailing from 'writers block' while writing a session for a conference, or when submitting an abstract for a conference? This article may help!
Following a recent chat with Andy McCandless and Sujit Neb about a topic that was included in the recent "Have I got NewZ for You" Mainframerz newsletter, I was inspired to write this article!
This should provide guidance to our readers for presentations at events đŁď¸
This may be of particular benefit to anyone who is looking to deliver an entry-level presentation for one of the Mighty Mainframe, SHARE or TechXchange conferences!
Speaking of which, if anyone wants to know more about the WAVEZ GSE UK team, including who chairs the 101 / 102 streams (and what the difference between them is) then please see the table below!
Titles: Engage not Vague
In order for us to populate an agenda, chairpeople will require a title.
The title is possibly the first thing that we, and our audience, will see!
Please make sure your titles are succinct and are able pique curiosity, without us wondering what topic is actually due to be covered.
That means something short and snappy, without being overly vague.
Some companies may prefer not to use certain terms in their slides, so you may have to be creative with what titles you submit...
Cover your A$$ with RACF - Fun and clear; crude but not explicit
Learn RACF with John Doe - Clear and concise, but arguably boring
Top 10 Tips: You won't believe number 3! - Curious but ultimately just total clickbait
Start with a bang
With many of our audience being young and/or inexperienced, we suggest:
- Donât jump straight in at the deep-end and risk overwhelming the audience
- Don't give the audience a rubber-ring and patronise them with anything too simple
As with life, the trick is about finding happy mediums
To calm your audienceâs nerves we would recommend you start with something captivating.
This would be an interesting quote with a cool background, or a little pop quiz to gauge the audience's existing knowledge of a topic, even a practical activity.
Whatever you choose, this is your opportunity to immediately grab the attention of the audience, and keep them more engrossed with the rest of the session.
You can then follow-up by giving a concise summary of your presentationâs topic(s).
Utilise your ending
Just because your session has ran out of content, that doesn't mean the session should go out with a whimper...
Make your ending just as valuable as your opening slide
This is especially important if you have a long session (over 1hr) as there is every risk of people getting distracted or zoning-out.
When ending your presentation, you can provide a recap of the objectives of the session, and answer them with a short answer - This can effectively act as the "TL;DR" slide.
Alternative, deliver a short summary of the main topics covered to remind people what your session was about: They may not remember all of the content, but they may still remember the broad-strokes and it may become a talking-point in the community!
If the audience can only remember a single slide, you want it to be the last slide!
For slideshows, limit the use of text
If your slides have too much text on them, you may as well have emailed the content to your audience, rather than asking them to watch your session.
The audience want to see a presentation, not read a book
Three lines of text maximum per slide will help the audience remain engaged, and mitigates distraction from attendees reading an information-dense slide.
The more succinct and concise that these lines of text are, the more they will emphasise your point, for example using a large banner of "80%" with no extra fluff will help your audience to retain that statistic after the presentation is finished.
You don't need to read the context, as the speaker will explain it to you.
The audience shouldnât find their focus torn between listening to the speaker or reading the content on-screen, so you should tactically use visuals that illustrate your point, rather than having 'War & Peace' on your slides.
Creative and Engaging sessions
Nobody wants to attend a session that could have been recorded:
As we deliver presentations to the audience, our collective mentality should be to âjustify our attendanceâ!
Conferences always want speakers to be as charismatic and emotive as possible.
Speaking to an audience should involve being deliberate and conscious about how the audience is captivated.
This may mean using all of the modern tools available, including quiz software like Kahoot! and feedback / question tools like Mentimeter.
As soon as the audience get distracted and their attention is lost, it's an uphill battle for speakers to win them over again, so let's keep them engaged!
Avoiding jargon and technical terminology
This includes unclear abbreviations, acronyms and initialisms (there is a difference between them) as they may all confuse your audience.
Don't use terms like "RACF" or "Sysplex" without explaining them
All it takes is a single sentence to provide further clarity and prevent follow-up questions.
For example I could write something along the lines of "RACF is an ESM made by IBM that works on MVS / zOS systems, and it is blah blah blah..." but if I were to instead write "RACF, a piece of security software made by IBM for the zSeries mainframes, is blah blah blah..." then this will provide far more clarity and only took twelves words.
Please remember that many in the audience will likely be very new to the Mainframe space, so confusing terminology should be avoided unless you plan to clearly explain their meaning later during the session (e.g. "Software like RACF, which we will discuss shortly").
This is especially true if the technical terms only relate to your organisation, or if you are presenting to people who may not be in the industry (i.e. students)
Subsequent Learning
No session is long enough to flesh out a topic inside-and-out!
What materials helped you build confidence in the discussed field? Recommend these materials to your audience!
This is an opportunity to provide "education beyond the session" to your spectators!
Try to think of a few resources that you would encourage them to procure if they want to learn more about the topic you have just discussed.
Passing on suggestions for "Recommended Reading" is easy, and allows us to support the growth of anyone in the audience who is particularly captivated by the topic discussed!
Visual Stimuli is your friend
Don't let your text get in the way of a good message
Show, don't tell - Don't be stingy with imagery and/or video-clips
Providing charts/graphs or animated gifs can help to drive a point home in a way that text isn't capable of, especially when it comes to matters of size/scale.
Try to find a way to use graphs, imagery, iconography, videos, looping gifs, etc...
As long as the imagery supports and reinforces the point you are making, then itâs like the saying goes: âA picture is worth a thousand wordsâ.
Recommended use of vibrant colours
You may be asked to use the slides that are branded after a certain organisation, but this doesnât mean you shouldn't find a way to present your content using colours that beguile the audience.
A research study found that âblack text on a white background overstimulates the OFF ganglion cells while white text on black background overstimulates the ON ganglion cellsâ and advised against reading black text on a white background for risk of contrast polarity.
Furthermore, there is significant scientific research that suggests that using colours has the tendency to capture better attention levels.
The colours don't have to be bright to be eye-catching! You can use darker colours like Midnight Blue, Garnet Red, Pine Green, etc...
But don't just take our word for it, look below and see the difference for yourself!
Optional challenges for willing presenters
Why not "dig deep" into your presentation skills and attempt to use No Slideware?
Powerpoint may fail you one day, so learn to live without it
This is only for those who are more experienced with public speaking, but it encourages you to find different ways to deliver content to an audience, and prepares you for times when technology may let you down.
START WITH A STORY to set some context for what you will be discussing.
For example, âOnce upon a time X happened. Why am I bringing this up? Because it relates to Y that is happening in our industryâ
BE CREATIVE through the use of props, audience participation, anecdotes, etcâŚ
Here's an kinaesthetic example that I use when teaching STEM and Cyber Skills to young students: We use the Imp Computer plan where individual students act as nodes in a technological Process Diagram (such as for a Roomba) to help physically re-enact a logical process.
Product promotions are NOT okay
If you need to include product screenshots, please make it about something relevant to a more general point.
We understand you are keen to share your wonderful products/services with our audience, but there are other platforms for that discussion.
Letâs respect the audience; donât make them endure a sales pitch.
This is especially true when the audience are students, trainees, apprentices, graduates, etc...
HOWEVER if you do have any merchandise (mugs, coasters, charger cables, pens, etcâŚ) to give away as prizes or rewards, this would greatly support audience engagement and we are encourage speakers to offer these items to attendees.
Final words
Committee members of all conferences (GSE, SHARE, IDUG, etc...) are united by gratefulness to prospective presenters for their time and passion, so letâs make a huge effort to make sure that enthusiasm and captivation rubs off on the audience!