Another Word For It Patrick Durusau on Topic Maps and Semantic Diversity

March 20, 2013

Start with the Second Slide

Filed under: Marketing,Topic Maps — Patrick Durusau @ 1:42 pm

Start Presentations on the Second Slide by Kent Beck.

From the slide:

Technical presos need background but it’s not engaging. What’s a geeky presenter to do?

I’ve been coaching technical presenters lately, and a couple of concepts come up with almost all of them. I figured I’d write them down so I don’t necessarily have to explain them all the time. One is to use specifics and data. I’ll write that later. This post explains why to start your presentation on the second slide.

I stole this technique from Lawrence Block’s outstanding Telling Lies for Fun and Profit http://amzn.to/YTAf3C, a book about writing fiction. He suggests drafting a story the “natural” way, with the first chapter introducing the hero and the second getting the action going, then swapping the two chapters. Now the first chapter starts with a gun pointed at the hero’s head. By the end, he is teetering on a cliff about to jump into a crocodile-infested river. Just when the tension reaches a peak, we’re introduced to the character but we have reason to want to get to know him.

Technical presentations need to set some context and then present the problem to be solved. When presenters follow this order, though, the resulting presentation starts with information some listeners already know and other listeners don’t have any motivation to try to understand. It’s like our adventure story where we’re not interested in the color of the hero’s hair, at least not until he’s about to become a croc-snack.

Be honest. At least with yourself.

How many times have you started a topic maps (or other) technical presentation with content either known or irrelevant (at that point) to your audience?

We may be covering what we think is essential background information, but at that point, the audience has no reason to care.

Let me put it this way: explaining topic maps isn’t for our benefit. It isn’t supposed to make us look clever or industrious.

Explaining topic maps is supposed to interest other people in topic maps. And the problems they solve.

Have you tried the dramatic situation approach in a presentation? How did it work out?

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