1. How to give a good talk with apologies to: Simon Peyton Jones, John Hughes, & John Launchbury

2. The purpose of a talk…...is not:  Impressing the audience with your brainpower  Telling everyone how much you know  Giving away all of your intellectual property  Explaining every detail and nuance

3. The purpose of a talk…...but is:  Giving the audience an intuitive feel for your idea, work, or project  Making them foam at the mouth with eagerness to know more  Engaging, exciting, and provoking them

4. The ideal audience…  Knows your topic, material, and ideas intimately  Are all agog to hear about what you are going to present  Are fresh, alert, and ready for action

5. The actual audience…  Never heard of you  Heard of your topic, but really wish they hadn’t  Just had lunch and are ready for a nap Your mission: WAKE THEM UP And make them happy about it

6. What to put in 1.Motivation (20%) 2.Your key ideas (80%) 3.There is no 3

7. Motivation You have 2 minutes to capture your audience before they doze In this time, you must explain to them:  What the talk is about  Why this is important  Why they should pay attention Example: Is cache locality really a problem, or are people just wasting time and money trying to develop better ways of organizing heap objects Example: Everyone loves playing games and eating pizza. Both industries are absolutely booming. We need to capitalize on this by bringing back the Noid in a series of games.

8. Your key idea What is the one point the audience should (will) remember from your talk?  You must identify a key idea. “The evil project assigned to us” is No Good™.  Be specific. People will not figure it out for themselves.  Be absolutely specific. Say “If you remember nothing else, remember this.”  Center your talk on this key idea. Prune material that is irrelevant to this topic.

9. Your main weapon Examples are your main weapon Examples:  Motivate your audience  Convey the basic intuition  Illustrate Your Idea™ in action  Highlight limitations When time is short, omit the general case, not the example

10. Technical detail

11. Omit technical details  Even though every line is drenched in your blood and sweat, dense clouds of notation send audiences to sleep  In all honesty, nobody cares  Make people come to you for details  The people you need to impress will not hesitate to ask  Prepare backup slides to respond to questions

12. Ambiguity Equals Pirates; Code Bores char _3141592654[3141 ],__3141[3141];_314159[31415],_3141[31415];main(){register char* _3_141,*_3_1415, *_3__1415; register int _314,_31415,__31415,*_31, _3_14159,__3_1415;*_3141592654=__31415=2,_3141592654[0][_3141592654 -1]=1[__3141]=5;__3_1415=1;do{_3_14159=_314=0,__31415++;for( _31415 =0;_31415<(3,14-4)*__31415;_31415++)_31415[_3141]=_314159[_31415]= - 1;_3141[*_314159=_3_14159]=_314;_3_141=_3141592654+__3_1415;_3_1415= __3_1415 +__3141;for(_31415 = 3141- __3_1415 ;_31415;_31415--,_3_141 ++,_3_1415++){_314 +=_314<<2 ;_314<<=1;_314+= *_3_1415;_31 =_314159+_314; if(!(*_31+1) )* _31 =_314 / __31415,_314 [_3141]=_314 % __31415 ;* ( _3__1415=_3_141 )+= *_3_1415 = *_31;while(* _3__1415 >= 31415/3141 ) * _3__1415+= - 10,(*--_3__1415 )++;_314=_314 [_3141]; if ( ! _3_14159 && * _3_1415)_3_14159 =1,__3_1415 = 3141-_31415;}if( _314+(__31415 >>1)>=__31415 ) while ( ++ * _3_141==3141/314 )*_3_141--=0 ;}while(_3_14159 ) ; { char * __3_14= "3.1415"; write((3,1) (--*__3_14,__3_14 ),(_3_14159 ++,++_3_14159))+ 3.1415926; } for ( _31415 = 1; _31415<3141- 1;_31415++)write( 31415% 314-( 3,14),_3141592654[ _31415 ] + "0123456789","314" [ 3]+1)-_314; puts((*_3141592654=0,_3141592654)) ;_314= *"3.141592";}

13. Code Is Root of All Evil Code does not fit on a slide Inevitably shrink font to unreadable size Hard to place code in context Unless project has 30 or fewer lines Nobody cares about your code Can only serve to hurt your chances Code in a talk == good time to nap

14. Polish your slides the night before (You will have written them much earlier…) Your talk must be fresh in your mind  The day of your talk you will have ideas unrelated to your talk  Write them down, call your voice mail, send yourself a telegram, do what is needed so you can remember the ideas later  Get them out of your mind ASAP!

15. How to present your talk By far the most important thing is to be enthusiastic

16. Enthusiasm  Enthusiasm makes people dramatically more receptive  Why would anyone else care if you do not?  Even faking it gets you loosened up, breathing, & moving around

17. The jelly effect Common, apparently-severe, pre-talk symptoms:  Inability to breathe  Inability to stand up (legs give way)  Inability to eat (feel sick to one’s stomach)  Inability to operate brain

18. What to do about it  Hit a bathroom between YouTube and the room  Take some deep breaths just before you talk  Script your first few sentences (=> no brain required)  Script the transitions between slides (=> no brain required)  Move around, use large gestures, wave your arms, stand on desks, picture Dr. McConnell in his underwear, whatever it takes  You are not a wimp. Everyone feels this way.

19. Being seen, being heard  Speak to the audience at the back of the room  If you think you are talking too quickly, you are  If you might be talking too quickly, you are  If you do not think you are talking too quickly, you are talking too quickly  Take a breath and talk slower  Identify nodders and talk directly to them  Keep an eye out for questions…  Questions mean people are awake  Questions mean people care

20. Finishing You must absolutely, positively finish on time  How long do you pay attention in class?  How long do you pay attention when class ends?  Audiences stop listening when your time is up.

21. There is hope The standard is so low that you only have to be a step above lousy to stand out  Watch how your instructors and others present  Freely steal anything that works  Avoid ideas that do not work