Presenting at conferences

Here's the additional information I include as part of The PresentBetter Program.

There are 2 areas of pre-talk prep focus that will ensure you develop a more effective talk before you even begin developing it.

The first is honing in on a purpose beyond just sharing your research. Remember what you are doing is sharing your research but why you are doing it is an entirely different matter. Answering why will help transform it from a generic research presentation that likely gets lost in the a sea of others to a strategic talk that gets remembered and accomplishes a specific goal.

Ideally these goals are tangible in nature. Examples include:

1. Teaching the audience something new that shifts how they think or do something in their own work. This could be done by highlighting a result that disproves or shifts a previous understanding or sharing a novel methodology that improves a process.

2. Invitations for collaboration on future work. This could come by highlighting the future work that now needs to be done and the needs beyond your lab that make collaboration on that future work a win-win for others to join with you.

3. Increasing professional reputation through journal article downloads and citation count increases. This could be done by being specific about the importance of this work, where to find it, and what is critical for people to be citing about it for their next paper.

4. Opening professional doors for your next career step. For this think about whether your next step is within the specific field, an adjacent field or a move to industry and how do you weave your own story and your own career plans into this research sharing moment so that you've demonstrated your skills and the audience has sense for what you want to do next.

And remember, this work is usually subtle. These talks are not explicit pitches about any of these things. But having a tangible purpose help guide your talk development process will help increase the focus of your talk and help animate it in a way that makes it substantially better than just "sharing my research."

The second consideration is to think deeply about the bimodal nature of these audiences and how different parts of your talk will resonate with different groups. Don't be afraid to go super technical when targeting people familiar with your field but also don't forget there is a big segment of the audience that needs a more general, accessible understanding as well.

And remember this is an oscillating back and forth. It's not a part a and part b. If you bifurcate as part a and part b then the other audience segment will tune out for long periods. If you organically weave back and forth, the more general understandings will remind the more familiar people about the importance of the work and the more technical understandings will teach the less familiar people something they didn't know. Both groups benefit from you talking to the other and, as long as you are not stuck in one place for too long, neither group will tune out.

Next Newsletter, we'll look at Job Talks and some specific strategies to think about there.