Death by Power Point: How to Avoid Presentation Disasters

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Death by Power Point How to Avoid Presentation
Disasters

• Tracy Kijewski-Correa
• Department of Civil Engineering and Geological
  Sciences
• University of Notre Dame

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Overview

• Organization of a technical presentation
• Examples of common mistakes and tips for
• Color Schemes Fonts
• Slide Layout
• Visual Aids
• Animation
• Flow and Transition
• Final Preparations

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Organization of a Technical Presentation

• Title slide Title, authors, affiliations
• Overview Slide Summarize what will be covered
  (optional)
• Background/Objective Motivate the problem,
  clearly state your hypothesis or objective
  (audience background)
• Methodology Explain how analysis was conducted,
  how data was collected, etc.
• Results
• Conclusions
• Acknowledgements funding, assistants

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Color Schemes Fonts
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Color Schemes Fonts

• Avoid using too many different colors for images
  and schematics stick with a scheme
• Avoid background and font/line colors that are
  close in the color spectrum
• Fonts like Arial, Tahoma and Comic Sans MS tend
  to look better than Times New Roman
• Aim for professional, crisp, simple, sleek and
  aesthetically pleasing designs
• Font/Object size can you read your computer
  screen from 10 feet away?

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Weld Orientations
PLAN VIEW LONGITUDINAL WELD
SIDE VIEW TRANSVERSE WELD 2
PLAN VIEW TRANSVERSE WELD 1
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Weld Orientations
PLAN VIEW LONGITUDINAL WELD
SIDE VIEW TRANSVERSE WELD 2
PLAN VIEW TRANSVERSE WELD 1
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Weld Orientations
PLAN VIEW LONGITUDINAL WELD
SIDE VIEW TRANSVERSE WELD 2
PLAN VIEW TRANSVERSE WELD 1
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Slide Layout

• The key to conveying your ideas

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Foundation Testing

• Foundation testing was not widespread during the
  initial construction and did not take any serious
  consideration until the mid 1800s
• With the rise of modern soil mechanics came
  experts from all over the world to try and solve
  the Pisa dilemma
• Preliminary soil core tests were done in and
  around the Tower base to determine the soil
  composition, but the data remained somewhat
  primitively analyzed until the 1970s
• While graphs and charts were used during initial
  analysis, computers were employed recently to
  plot the strength of Pisas specific soil
• Within the past 100 years, it came to the
  attention of the engineers working on the project
  that the Tower was no longer sinking, but was now
  capsizing

TIP Keep bullets short and sweet Always provide
a source for images that are not your own
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MONITORING

• Monitoring centrally consolidated in 1996
• Before sub contractors did own monitoring
• After centralized, automated real-time
  compilation of geotechnical data
• deformation, groundwater pressure, vibration,
  stress, load on temporary supports, baseline
  readings
• Threshold triggers
• 1-3 of the more than 14B cost

TIP Keep capitalization (and punctuation)
consistent
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Theory

• Consider the observed displacements of a SDOF
  system excited by input ground acceleration, ag

TIP Keep equations to a minimum if possible.
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Plate Thickness Design (LRFD p. 14-4 to 5)
TIP Keep it simple. Too much information can be
overkill.
B
fc 0.6
bf
m
d
N
0.95d
fc 0.6
m
.8bf
n
n
B
bf
m
d
N
0.95d
A2
m
.8bf
n
n
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Visual Aids

• A picture can be worth a 1000 words

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Visual Aids

• Axes should be clearly labeled with units in a
  large enough font (16 pt)
• Use Excel Charts that can be updated
• Save images without axes labels apply labels in
  PPT by overlaying text box
• Always have leading zero on decimals (0.4 vs .4)
• Provide legends where appropriate
• Select line thicknesses and style (dotted,
  dashed, etc.) that can be easily distinguished
  from one another and seen at the back of a room
• Explain what is being plotted on each axis

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TIP Labels should be capitalized, the same size
(and font) Labels should be large enough to
read Labels should not cut off parts of figure
axes
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Definition of Terms Typical Test
TIP Label key features of your plot
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Advantages of Local Data Fusion
TIP Inset graphics can remind your audience what
case is being plotted Provide legends when
applicable
Detection Rate
1 cm wide cut
Damage Width/Beam Width
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Damage Localization Capability Experimental
Results
DAMAGE LEVEL
TIP Inset graphics can even replace words
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Variation of Wind with Height
Gradient Wind, Vg
Oncoming Wind


Counter Shear
zg
TIP Simple schematics are great for explaining
concepts
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IRF/Free Vibration
Hankel Matrix, Hrs(0)
Singular values
Singular values (D)
Left singular Vectors (P)
Right Singular Vectors (Q)
Time-shifted Hankel Matrix, Hrs(k)
State Matrix, A
Output matrix (C)
Input Matrix (B)
Eigensolution
Eigenvectors
Eigenvalues
Eigenvectors
Natural frequencies And modal damping
Mode Shapes
Modal Amplitudes
Reduced Model
TIP Flow charts are powerful for stepping
through even very complex processes
Compare with Hrs(0)
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Animation Friend or Foe?

• Effective use of powerpoints most powerful
  feature

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TIP USE ANIMATION TO POINT OUT A FEATURE OF A
COMPLEX FIGURE OR EQUATION
Design Moment k-ft
Unbraced Length ft
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Classification of Filters
SIGNAL
LOWPASS (AA FILTERS)
HIGHPASS
TIP USE ANIMATION TO FOCUS AUDIENCE ON ONE
CONCEPT AT A TIME
BANDSTOP
BANDPASS
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Effective Length Without Sidesway
KL 0.7L
KL 0.5L
L
L
KL L
FIXED- FIXED K 0.5
PINNED- FIXED K 0.7
PINNED- PINNED K 1
TIP ANIMATION CAN BE USED TO REMIND YOU TO POINT
SOMETHING OUT.
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Importance of Civil Infrastructure Systems (CIS)

• US investment in CIS 20 trillion
• Construction is second in size only to health
  care
• Contributes to 10 of GDP
• 104,000 bridges are structurally deficient or
  functionally obsolete
• Monitoring can aid in more effective maintenance

TIP TOO MUCH ANIMATION (USE OF SOUNDS) CAN BE
DISTRACTING AND SLOW YOUR PRESENTATION DOWN
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Flow and Transition

• How to provide a roadmap for your talk

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FEATURE
SELECTION
ADVANTAGE
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FEATURE
SELECTION
ADVANTAGE
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Final Preparations

• Practice, Practice, Practice (memorize?)
• Pace yourself (1 slide/minute)
• Backup, Backup, Backup (memory stick, CD,
  webfile)
• Dry run presentation at the venue
• Speak to the audience, not to the slide
• Dont read from a script
• Dont use a laser pointer if youre a shaker
• Bring water

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Acknowledgements

• Support for this program is provided by the
  Department of Defenses ASSURE Program and the
  National Science Foundation through NSF grant
  EEC-0552432
• Dr. Lynn Salvati for providing many useful
  examples