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Showing posts from March, 2011

Storytelling using scientific data

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Data is at the heart of the scientific discipline. Turning quantitative information into visual storytelling is done everyday by newspapers. We can do the same for our scientific presentations. Here is an example. Last week I was reading in the New York Times the story about GE and how they avoid paying taxes.  Shocking, I know, but politics aside, the interesting fact about the story was the complementary article using visualization of data, also known as infographics. It is visual storytelling at its best: A script, words, and pictures (or in this case graphs). See below a screenshot. Now,  this is  engaging and compiling because of the visual evidence of the graphs and overall Gestalt .  Each of these panels makes for great  a slide. Sure the panel in the middle-right would need some adjustments because of the quantity of the text, but that is a minor detail. I'm sure you know where I'm going. These infographics complement the main text-based article, just as slides com

Worse than Really Bad PowerPoint

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In some presentations the use of mathematical formulas helps to amplify and clarify the message. In mathematics the use of the TeX's package Beamer is unfortunately widely spread. In this post I make a case to avoid using Beamer and instead use TeX to only produce snapshots of these formulas.   Seth Godin is an American entrepreneur and blogger on marketing of ideas in the digital age . Seth knows one of two things about presentations. He is an all-time TED favorite. He also wrote a booklet call Really Bad PowerPoint (click here to get it!) where he briefly talks about the birth, problematic, and possible solutions of the Death by PowerPoint. I strongly encourage you to read it. Bad presentations (aka bad PowerPoint) are all around, not only in sales, but also in education, science, and even in the military! Check out this article from the New York Times about use of PowerPoint in the US military. Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse you meet Beamer. If you

A tip on books for presentations

Finding the appropriate books to get started on better scientific talks might be a slightly difficult task. In this post I offer my top three books on delivery and message and visuals design. Maybe you have always felt that there was a problem with the presentations you gave in college as an undergrad. Maybe you even got bad advice from your peers when preparing a talk, without knowing it was bad advice. So, you know there is a problem and you want to fix it (maybe that's why you are reading this post/blog,) but the question is where to start. So, here is a list of books on message design, visuals design and delivery. Confessions of a Public Speaker by Scott Berkun. This is by far the best public speaking book I have read. But don't take my word for granted, check out the amazon.com reviews. Presentation Zen Design by Garr Reynolds.  I have mentioned Garr's work and expertise before. He is the author of three great books on presentations, though the first one, Presen