- You've worked really hard
in preparing and practicing your talk,
so on the day of,
you wanna make sure that there are no technical glitches,
and that you're comfortable in what you're wearing.
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- If you go to the room that you're going to present,
and suddenly the computer doesn't work,
you're going to freak out.
Try to avoid those things by, if you can,
making sure that the technical components,
you know what they are and you know they're working.
- There have been so many times that I have thought,
"It's okay, I have notes in the Power Point slides,
and I'm gonna have Presenter view,"
and then you show up,
and that's absolutely not how their setup is,
and there's no way for them to give you that setup,
and you just have to go.
There may or may not be technology support
immediately on hand,
and there may or may not be a lot of instruction
for how you're supposed to bring or share your slides.
I tend to try to have my slides in multiple formats.
So I have my laptop where my slides are ready to go,
I have a thumb drive where my slides are ready to go,
I have them somewhere on Box, or Dropbox, or Google Drive,
where I can also download them if I need them,
so that I can always access the slides.
And then comes the question of,
okay, great, I can access the slides,
but these days I'll often have a video somewhere in them,
does the video work?
- When it comes to video or audio,
just embed all of those images in your file,
and make sure that you back up that file more than once
and have a few copies of it on you,
especially if you're presenting
at an international conference
where you might not have access to your computer.
- If I can, I do try to simulate
what the talk environment is going to be like.
Often, where you're giving the talk
is not where you're practicing the talk.
- And I always really wanna know what the setup is gonna be.
Is it gonna be a really big screen,
is it gonna be on a television,
or sometimes it's a room that has
a whole bunch of screens in every direction.
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I had a really great opportunity
to go around Turkey giving research talks.
And when I got there, the first place that I went to
was an auditorium of about 500 or 600 students.
I showed up there,
they got me mic'd up with a Britney Spears mic,
they had all these Turkish celebrities there
that were also giving talks
about the work that they had done in their research,
it was so intimidating.
And if I had known more of that,
then I probably would have prepared differently.
It just really changed what I was gonna do
and how I was gonna do it.
Because I was caught off guard once,
I definitely have learned from that mistake,
I will always ask whoever I can
what the venue is gonna look like.
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- As scientists, our daily lives tend to be pretty casual,
but there's something about the talk environment
that I think, just intrinsically,
you sorta wanna respect that experience
by dressing a little bit nicer.
What I see scientists wearing when they're giving talks
is sort of a slightly more formal version
of their day-to-day wear.
You are wearing something that is
a little more professional,
but is still typically comfortable.
- Wear something that makes you feel happy.
If you are going to be itching,
or something's gonna be too tight,
you're gonna be uncomfortable while delivering that talk,
and that's probably gonna affect how you deliver that talk.
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- Dress as professionally as possible,
but also have fun with it.
Put yourself in clothing and in jewelry
that makes you feel great.
Because if you feel great,
that will translate into how you present your talk.
- One question you need to ask yourself is
what kind of event you are presenting at.
If you're presenting at a scientific conference to peers,
you wanna dress nicely, you wanna dress in probably
a button shirt and khakis or some nicer jeans.
But obviously, if you're giving a presentation
at a black tie event, make sure you fit with the crowd.
- I went to a conference when I was in college that was,
it was the Oceania Chondricthyan Society,
which is people who study sharks in Australia
and sort of the surrounding areas.
Because it was in Australia,
there were a lot of tank tops and flip flops,
but I didn't know that going in,
and I had just come from visiting a friend
who is in a very, very different field from me,
and she told me, for sure you need to have a suit for this.
I had bought a suit that fit me really nicely,
I got there, I gave my presentation
amongst all these other ecologists
that are in flip flops and stuff.
They gave me the Best Dressed award for the conference.
Which sounds nice, except,
when you think about the clothing you choose
in order to give a presentation,
you don't want that to be the thing that they remember,
you want the information you're conveying
to be what people remember.
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- Whatever you are wearing to your talk,
make sure your slide background is not the same color.
So if you tend to wear black a lot,
it's probably a good idea
for your slide background to not be black,
so that you're not just a floating head
in front of the slides.
It's kinda silly, but I have caught myself sorta being like,
"Oh, wait, hold on, my slides are black,
okay, that means I have to change what I'm wearing today."
- When I step on the stage, and I'm talking about my work,
and I'm dressed really nice,
I know that I'm putting my best foot forward in my image,
but I'm also putting my best foot forward in my work.
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