Presenting your Proposal

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Presentingyour Proposal
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Introduction

• Communication is key to sell the merits of your
  project
• Communication skills required
• Oral presentations
• Written proposals

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• Oral Presentation

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Potential Outline

• Introduction
• Knowledge Management in general
• Knowledge Management specific bit
• Organisation / Experiment
• What I will measure and how
• What I think this will tell me
• Other bits

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Oral Presentation Know your audience

• Clearly identify the audiences depth of
  knowledge
• Do not derive semiconductor physics to investment
  bankers
• Do show fundamental understanding of KM to
  whoever is giving the grades !
• Clearly identify the audiences interests
• Your lecturers want to make sure you understand
  KM
• Everyone likes to be entertained!

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FOCUS
Too Many Details for most talks

• What is the point? Why am I here?
• oral presentations
• For long talk, can lose audience easy
• Avoid lengthy text/notation
• A picture is worth a thousand words
• NOT, a picture with a thousand words

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Focus
Conditions Important! T25C

• Remind audience of important points.
• Detailed Technical figures may be unavoidable in
  some presentations
• If a detailed picture is absolutely necessary,
  emphasize important details visually

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Organization

• Easy for audience to lose big picture
• Get lost in details
• Useful tip redisplay the talk outline for each
  topic
• Highlight present topic
• Remind audience the organization of the talk

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Organization Basic Structure

• Start with Introduction
• Motivations
• Why is this interesting
• Provide outline of the talk
• Can be redisplayed to show topic progression
• Background material as needed
• Your new ideas
• New and better ways to do .ship2ship
  communications, make , lose weight, etc
• Defend your ideas
• Examples are helpful
• Conclusion

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Organization

• Powerpoint Rules
• Keep it simple
• Cut clutter
• At the most two font families
• No more than one or two charts or figures per
  slide
• 666 rule
• 6 words per bullet
• 6 bullets per page
• 6 word slides in a row
• Be consistent

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Organization

• Powerpoint Sins (Joseph Sommerville,
  http//entrepreneurs.about.com/cs/marketing/a/7sin
  sofppt.htm)
• Slide Transitions and Sound Effects
• Standard clipart
• Presentation templates
• Text-Heavy slides
• Text and images are too small
• Reading the slides
• Faith in technology

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Organization

• Powerpoint Sins (Joseph Sommerville,
  http//entrepreneurs.about.com/cs/marketing/a/7sin
  sofppt.htm)
• Slide Transitions and Sound Effects
• Standard clipart
• Presentation templates
• Text-Heavy slides
• Text and images are too small
• Reading the slides
• Faith in technology

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Faith in Technology

• If you are showing software working, please do
  screen captures of it working and have it ready
  on PPT as a backup
• Make backups regularly
• Have a camera with you a lot to take pictures of
  interesting things paper-based designs, signs
  you have hung up around the office, people
  interacting with your software.

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Talk to the audience

• Obtain and maintain interest
• Make eye contact with people in different parts
  of the room
• Practice with your teddy bear collection at home
• or Post-its on the wall with eyes to look at

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Talk to the audience

• Obtain and maintain interest
• Use examples
• We will build an optical communication network
  using dense wavelength division multiplexing with
  polarization division multiplexing to transmit
  Terabit bandwidth telecommunication signals
  
• BORING!
• Doesnt it drive you nuts when it takes you 20
  minutes to download the Lord of the Rings box set
  torrent ? We will build a network that will
  download it in 10 seconds using optical fiber!

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Humour

• Be appropriate!
• People are more awake if theyre laughing
• BUT humour maybe misconstrued as not taking the
  task seriously

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Time Management

• First rule of presentations
• KNOW HOW MUCH TIME YOU HAVE!!!
• Nothing irritates an audience more than a
  presentation that runs long - especially if its
  boring
• Keep a watch or clock easily visible
• Know ahead of time which slides you can skip if
  you are running long
• Skip implementation details
• Show results - thats what impresses people
• Good rule of thumb - 1 to 2 minutes per slide

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Answering Questions

• Dont panic if people ask you questions
• Try an listen to it, and ask for clarification if
  you are unsure.
• If you still cant figure it out, ask them nicely
  to give you an example please
• Explain your position clearly, but dont be
  argumentative
• If someone is insisting that you should think
  about Topic X, they probably have a good reason,
  so accept their advice and say Ill definitely
  add that in.

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Answering Questions

• If they point out an area of research that they
  feel that should be incorporated into your
  proposal, please
• Dont say well thats not relevant because
• Do say thank you for that Ill certainly look
  into that and see to what extent it can be
  incorporated into my research.

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Answering Questions

• You will be asked
• So wheres the KM in this?
• So please have an answer ready. First explain
  what aspect of KM you see this project is
  covering and then be specific about how it is
  relevant

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Conclusion

• Oral presentations
• know your audience,
• organize and focus, and
• talk to your audience.