Peter Levin’s Rethinking Markets

May 14, 2008

Giving good presentations, addition one

Filed under: Ramble — Peter @ 5:00 pm

There’s been some more discussion around giving a good presentation. I find myself disagree with some points. First, of course, there are a series of guidelines that make presentations better: more practice, more confidence, attentiveness to one’s audience, etc. But second, individual mileage will vary considerably. For some people, 5-7 words per slide works great. For others, disaster. Likewise having fun, being ‘into’ your presentation, and things like that. I think some folks have been hooked by Tufte’s elegance, Atkinson’s storyboarding, and Hans Rosling’s enthusiasm. It’s the 2.0 aesthetic, to be sure.

But I kind of like literature reviews. Not in the sense that I like a litany of work that’s gone before. But to situate what you are going to talk about. For example, in a recent talk, I used the following slide:

This slide is meant to capture two different approaches in economic sociology. I can talk about this slide for 20 minutes, or for 5, giving specific examples and research to add meat if I have the time or at least flavor if not. But there are more than 6 words, and I still find it useful. Especially when followed by a slide that uses the same form, but adds substance from the current talk:

So now, you have the same slide, but progressively (there were interim discussion and slides) more content built onto the generic form. I guess I don’t see what the problem is here, or why I need to dumb down my slides to make my work more bite-sized. The audience was cultural sociologists, not economic sociologists, so it’s not as if this was a crowd who benefited greatly from shorthand. And yet.

5 Responses to “Giving good presentations, addition one”

1. Andrew Says:
   May 14th, 2008 at 6:15 pm

   Well, not that you need comments from the peanut gallery, but I was at the UCSD conference (or most of it), so I got to see your presentation principles in action. My own tendency is to say - yes, sure, slides shouldn’t be excessively wordy in the interest of being readable, which will mean different things for different venues. The Great Hall had the advantage of having a large screen readable from most angles. But there wasn’t a problem following your visual material at all (of course, I read this blog, so…). The point to take away, though, was that regardless of the slides your oral presentation was very polished, not a single ‘um’ or ‘uh’ or getting lost in a raft of slides, but a methodical walking of the audience through an argument, which is what a lot of presenters forget to do. We don’t need anecdotes or fun stories or soaring rhetoric - though these have their function too, I guess - as long as the presenter takes some care to frame his/her point of view and lay it out methodically, and clearly, and with awareness of time limitations.

   PS: As for the conference itself, the Calhoun/Swidler bookends were pretty interesting; the panel was also good, but I resisted the idea that the three presentations (or all of the talks) could be synthesized in any straightforward way, but that’s neither here nor there.

2. brayden Says:
   May 14th, 2008 at 11:21 pm

   I admire people who give great presentations. I know that I’m not great at it, but it’s not something I want to spend a ton of my extra time perfecting either. After all it’s a small part of what I do as an academic and much less important to me than other aspects of my career. Writing well, doing good research, learning how to think better, starting good discussions in class - these are all things that are more important than presenting. I certainly spend more time doing those things than I do presenting.

   So why do academics worry so much about their presentation style? Perhaps it’s because we (as an audience) give too much weight to presentations as a measure of a person’s intellect and seriousness as a scholar. Nothing is more overweighted in an assessment of a candidate than a person’s job talk, I think, and yet we continue to emphasize it as a clincher. I’m not complaining here about some personal experience, but I do think it’s unfortunate that as a field we continue to place so much importance on an activity that occurs so rarely.

   Just my thoughts on the matter.

3. Peter Says:
   May 15th, 2008 at 8:37 am

   Andrew - you were there and didn’t introduce yourself? Or did you and I lost it in the mix? I’m glad the talk went off well, I worried quite a bit about it. Keynote has a clever presentation mode (which I think PPT has as well) that allows me to keep a running timer, notes, and next slide on my screen as the main presentation plays on the main screen. I think sticking to timing is my own main nit to pick for others - and there’s nothing worse for me than someone who decides to speak faster rather than say less..

   I rewrote those slides and practiced the talk something like 30 times, and on Thursday I realized there was a tick in my talk - I had originally wanted to make the point about synthesizing markets-have and markets-are culture perspectives. In the end, I just said each perspective has something to say, and left out the more theoretical argument about settled/unsettled markets.

   I’d also resist the coherence/synthesis of the talks - it’s pretty clear that the organizers invite people they want to have around, and then frame coherence after the fact (if even then). I knew David and Ann beforehand, so I did kind of know what they might have up their sleeves, and vice versa.

   Brayden, I agree wholeheartedly. It kind of sucks that talks are my stronger point, writing less so, since in the end talks are good for status-elevation but writing is structurally valued. So you’re on safe ground, I think. There’s an argument about being able to present research as part and parcel of scholarship, insights into collegiality and having to be around someone, etc., but I wouldn’t make that argument myself.

4. Andrew Says:
   May 16th, 2008 at 8:50 am

   I didn’t introduce myself. How awkward of me, eh? But I couldn’t get past the admiring throngs and thought I’d chat with the UC grad students (they like the environment and their programs but complain of having skimpy resources). I also needed to thank Ann Swidler (she had sent me some stuff last summer re: her HIV/AIDS work) as I left for LA during her Q&A. However, you did at one point gesture toward a part of the room and say that you saw someone’s eyes glaze over at the mention of CMOs, and it wasn’t the lady but the person ‘behind her,’ and that was either me or someone right next to me.

   Anyway, the talk benefitted from the practice, and from your alternatingly self-deprecating and slightly lacerating sense of humor (There were perhaps a couple of people in the room for whom your talk was not only informative, but an occasion for self-rebuke).

5. Peter Says:
   May 16th, 2008 at 10:25 am

   I would add that Ann’s slide with the potential interventions in HIV was righteous, and it had a lot of information on it. Six words my foot.

   Admiring throngs, heh. I had the same sense you did from the UCSD students, and I’d add from the perspective of faculty that it seems a really friendly and good-to-work-at department.

   Per the sense of humor, I’ve been told on a number of occasions to knock that off - especially the self-deprecations. The argument being that if you deprecate yourself, people will believe you. The lacerations were interesting in light of David’s slightly more motivating (I’d say preachy but that sounds more critical than what I mean) talk. But yes, middle-class complicity in the housing crisis is widespread, from those who are hoping for a point or two more interest in their TIAA/CREF accounts to those who would like a bit more house than they probably could afford. Not to measure this as identical (or comparable) to the systematic screwing-over of poorer people or frank malfeasance by financial firms, but still..

   Next time, introduce yourself, will ya. I think you’re close to across the street from me in RL, no?

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