My Experience Attending ‘Present Your Science’ Workshop

I recently had the pleasure of attending a ‘Present Your Science’ workshop hosted by Melissa Marshall. Marshall is a prolific speaker who has given a TED talk, and now runs her own business, Present Your Science, to disseminate her teachings and best practices on giving scientific presentations. In this post, I will share some of my key takeaways on giving successful presentations to diverse audiences.

Presenting Science Well

The premise we start with is an analogy of a bridge with a gap in between. On one side of the bridge’s gap, we have a representation of our research, which is very technical and detailed. On the other side of the bridge’s gap, we have a representation of our stakeholder. The obvious question is, how do we bridge this gap? How can we smoothly connect our research with our stakeholders? According to Marshall, “Science not communicated is science not done”, and this is very true.

Science not communicated is science not done.

There are three universal truths for presenting science well:

• Have a good story to tell.
• Have passion, enthusiasm, energy, and sincerity when you present.
• Have a sense of audience.

To summarize these universal quotes, Marshall asserts that the most successful speakers are audience-centric, not speaker-centric. We must constantly ask ourselves, “What makes sense for my audience?”, because presentation success is always rooted in the audience.

The most successful speakers are audience-centric, not speaker-centric.

Addressing Biases

For addressing the aforementioned gap in the bridge between our research and our audience, we must recognize biases, which act like a physical wall between us and the audience. Marshall identified two particular biases:

• Technical bias — assuming the audience already knows the technicalities of the topic at hand.
• Programmatical bias — asking for something (like time or money) from the stakeholders.

To recognize these biases, we must address them explicitly to the audience, using phrases like “I know that [insert bias]”, or “I recognize these concerns you might have”. Doing so changes the atmosphere of the room and makes it more collaborative, because the audience now knows that you (the presenter) are aware of the audience’s concerns, and are on the same page as them.

Success is always rooted in the audience.

Some speaking tips Marshall recommended:

• Use metaphors and analogies whenever possible, audiences can relate more to the topic at hand.
• Take pauses when speaking, it allows the audience to think about the point(s) you are making.

We will almost always encounter diverse audiences, in the sense that their backgrounds may differ to yours, and therefore it is important to keep in mind the ‘scuba/snorkel’ analogy.

The Scuba/Snorkel Analogy

Imagine we are taking the audience with us for a dive in the ocean (a metaphor for deep technical details). Some members of the audience will have scuba diving equipment, which will allow them to breathe underwater for long periods of time. Most audience members, though, will have snorkeling equipment, which requires them to frequently come up to the surface for some air.

In other words, not many members of the audience may have the background required to understand the technical details of your presentation, and so it is important to take a ‘snorkeling strategy’, by allowing the audience to regularly come up for air. Specifically, after making a key technical detail (taking a deep dive in the ocean), make a ‘so what?’ statement to allow the audience to understand the relevance of the point (coming back up for air).

These ‘so what’ statements might look like, “So, what this all means is that…”, or “This is important because…”, or “The next question this causes us to ask is…”. Doing this scuba/snorkel maneuver every slide or so allows the audience to connect the dots correctly, rather than making mis-connections between the key points.

Audiences highly value speakers who are interpreters, not reporters, of the work.

Another way to deal with excessive technical detail is to filter and prioritize important details, by being more objective. For this, it is important to keep in mind the ‘mountain view’ analogy.

The Mountain View Analogy

Imagine we are a mountain trail guide, whose task it is to guide the audience on the trail up to the mountain peak for a fantastic view. We need to deliver the view to the audience, while keeping them on the trail. If we show the audience every rock and tree on the trail, we will lose a lot of audience members on the trail, who will not get to see the majestic view (your key takeaway).

Therefore, when planning a presentation, we should start with the key ‘view’ we want to leave the audience with, and work backwards to identify the logical points the audience needs to get to that view. Keeping a clear structure with a core message is more convincing than a structure that can’t be followed.

Clarity is confusing, confusion is costly.

Slide Design

In terms of slide design, it is all too easy to fall in the trap of adding too much text and details on the slide, but this only adds to cognitive overload. Instead, here are some slide design tips we should follow to ensure the slides serve the strategy, thinking, and messaging.

• Have a sentence headline, as an assertion, per slide.
• Have supporting visuals, like graphs, charts, tables, pictures, videos, equations, flowcharts, etc. to support the sentence headline.
• Almost any list of bullet points can be turned into a visual infographic. Do so.
• Use PowerPoint to your advantage, and create annotations to assist with your intended visual focus.
• Focus on relationships between the bullet points, and convert these to visual assists.

My Takeaways and Impressions

Overall, the key message I took away from this workshop was to think in an audience-centric manner, and make things as simple as possible to allow the main message to shine through. Most of these methodologies were not new to me, personally, but it was a really good refresher on making effective and successful presentations to reach diverse audiences, whether those are business stakeholders, company leadership, conference attendees, or anyone else. I definitely enjoyed this workshop, and look forward to implementing these approaches in my future work!