This is the first in a what will likely be a long series of posts on how to give a technical presentation. Everyone has sat through their share of horrid presentations, and it’s easy to throw stones, but what happens when you’re called on to be the one talking? Hopefully these posts will help…

Audience

This sounds obvious, but you’d be surprised how often people skip this step. Here’s the key idea: The audience does not care about you. They care about themselves. So you have to speak to them in language that’s relevant to them.

What does that mean? Here are some examples…

If you are presenting to…

Other Techies:

These folks speak your language, they are your tribe, and they will likely groove with seeing code. You’ll be able to show off the “cool” parts of things – like how and why you extended jQuery. If you are new to presenting, this the audience to start with. A good place to get practice talking to other techies is at user groups. Many organizations have regular brown-bag lunch presentations to spread technical knowledge around the group – get up and talk!

Senior Executives:

These folks are very different animals. Focus on financial benefits, cost savings, market advantages etc. They do not speak techie, and don’t care about lamba’s or reflection. Skip the details of how you’ve extended jQuery. Performance is maybe worth mentioning, but make it comparative to something they know. Use buzzwords, but don’t get into the weeds – i.e. “It’s an Ajax enabled site”.

Marketing:

Similar to the executives, while these people understand your business, they tend to have a very different view than you. Buzzwords are good, technical details are bad. Focus on how you can help them sell/brand/expand market share, as that’s what they care about.  Start of with “How to Take Over the World”, and you’ll hit about the right tone.

The Public:

These are some of the hardest presentations to give. You need to hook them early, and keep them interested. It’s ALL about them, and they likely have no idea who you are, or why they should care. A kick-ass slide deck will help here, but it will only get you so far. I’d avoid talking to the general public until you are pretty comfortable talking to

Children:

Perhaps the hardest group of all. With attention spans in the minutes, and a completely different world view, this will keep you hopping. Again, keep things relevant to their experiences. Use Elmo in your slides, and have something real they can interact with – such as a globe if you are talking about GIS.