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Showing posts from July, 2011

The Power Button

The Power Button is the other punch to engrave key points on the audience's mind. It introduces your Power Line to the audience, by set them up to listen to you.  Last week I wrote about James Humes' Power Line as the first punch to engrave your key idea in the audience's mind. The second punch is the Power Button and it is the launcher of your Power Line. In the words of the author: The Power Button says to the audience "Ready—Set—Listen" to set them up for the Power Line that follows. I heard a very well known professor in the field of applied math using this Power Button back in 2009 in the Netherlands. Almost two year later I still remember his Power Button. Unfortunately his presentation was bad, but with the (perhaps unconscious) use of the Power Button he engraved in the mind the idea that  Tangential interpolation methods are the only possible set of method to attain H2-norm optimality. Nevermind that his means, I just want to point out this Power Butt

The Power Line

Many scientific presentations fail because the presenter lacks the energy and enthusiasm to connect with the audience. In this post I offer some advice on what to do whether you want to present or not to fix your key point in the audience's mind. The method is called Power Line Power Button. One of the reasons why so many scientific presentations suck is that the presenter fails to connect with the audience. Geology professor Jay H. Lehr knows this. In 1985 he wrote a 4 page article called Let There Be Stoning (click here to download it as a pdf file) describing the landscape of scientific presentations. This article ought to be a compulsory reading for all college students (and professors). Yes, your guest is right; I strongly encourage you to read it. Some scientific talks will be inherently bad because the presenter has no passion for that topic he or she must present. In an ideal world these people shouldn't be allowed to present that topic. If you find yourself in t