08 March 2009

8 tips for speakers from a TED photographer

Via boingboing: James Duncan Davidson was one of our shooters at TED2009 (along with Asa Mathat -- an amazing team). As a photographer and conferencegoer, Duncan has watched a lifetime's worth of speakers, the good and the bad, the pro and the amateur, the calm and the completely freaked out. His takeaway: "There are things that speakers do that feel good to them, but which are not actually great for the audience." He offers 8 pieces of presentation advice -- meaning presentation of yourself, not of your PowerPoint slides -- in this roundup: Dear Speakers. From the essay:

Please deliver your speech to the crowd, not the screen. Your slides aren’t the recipient of your presentation. Your audience is. Face them. Address them.

Please take off your name tag. This is self-explanatory enough.

Read all 8 tips >>

See more of Duncan and Asa's work in the TED2009 photo galleries >>

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15 February 2008

Brain science makes better PowerPoint

A timely item in the week before TED2008: Stephen M. Kosslyn, professor and researcher in mental imagery at Harvard, is out to empower PowerPoint users with lessons from cognitive science.

Kosslyn spoke in Boston today at a meeting of the AAAS to share some quirkily titled guidelines (the Goldilocks Rule, the Rudolph Rule) that will help speakers play to the strengths -- and sidestep the flaws -- of the human brain. Good to know: The human brain likes to spot differences and oddities -- and it doesn't like to see more than four things at once. The rules might remind you of some of our more innovative TEDTalks presentations. (Via io9.) -- Matthew Trost

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