Speaking at the informatology Peer Award Conference places you at the heart of a supportive community of professionals, keen to share ideas and to gain practical insights. These guidelines will help with preparing your presentation.
Day Structure
Both the morning and afternoon sessions of a seminar typically feature two or three Finalists giving their presentations and answering questions, a talk from one of the Chairs and a Peer Circle for informal conversation. At the end of the afternoon session the attendees cast their votes, and the winners are announced shortly after, at the end of the day.
Timing your session
Your session comprises a 10 minute Presentation and a 10 to 15 minute Q&A (depending on the number shortlisted for your category).
A member of our conference team will indicate when we are near to the start of your Q&A – so you can bring your talk to a close. We have found that in ten minutes you can inspire your audience, with a well planned and fully rehearsed talk, the essence of your accomplishment and your key insights, whilst maintaining energy and interest.
Presentation Structure
Make sure you address each of the key judging criteria (see the Guidelines). A framework for you to adapt as suits could be…
[30 sec] Introduction (who you and your team are, who your organisation is)
[120 sec] Overview (what you did and why)
[90 sec] Impact (the difference this has made and how you know)
[90 sec] Innovation (the new thinking you used to achieve this)
[90 sec] Insight (what you would do differently now with hindsight, and the difference this could make)
[90 sec] Inspiration (what your audience can take away from your experience and use for themselves in their work)
[30 sec] Conclusion (the one key point you would like people to remember)
This still leaves a minute for you to play with, for example to expand one or two of the above with anecdotes.
Q&A Structure
If you are attending as a team, by all means do invite colleagues to answer questions as appropriate. Aim to spend not more than a minute on any answer, to allow everyone to ask their question. Have an anecdote or two prepared to illustrate some aspect of your talk, to share with the audience if the questions are all answered.
Visuals
You can bring visuals or props to assist with your talk, such as PowerPoint, (digital) video and posters etc. You can also bring handouts for the attendees to refer to during your talk. Things that have worked very well in the past…
> PowerPointless: Just a talk, with no visuals. This can allow people to focus on the speaker and the message.
> Interactive: Some questions for, or activity for the audience.
> Pecha Kucha: Energised PowerPoint; 20 slides of 20 seconds each, running automatically alongside your talk
> Visuals like you see accompanying TED talks (notice how little text is used)
Good Practice
Please avoid PowerPoint slides with more than a handful of words, and avoid more than one slide with bullet points.
You may find these ideas helpful. Please add any of your own by posting below.
1. Cliff Atkinson: The power of telling a story
2. Humorous YouTube video:
3. Illustrating the Power of Visuals:
PowerPoint can help powerfully convey the emotional point you are making, in a way that bullet points cannot. Which of these slides would better support a talk about something that did not work well?
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Practice Practice Practice
Have some dry runs of your talk. Ideally standing up and in front of someone else. You may find this online stopwatch helpful for timing. See a 3 min. BBC clip on presentation skills here.
We are offering a series of virtual workshops in the weeks leading up to the conference, to give you the opportunity to practice your presentation in front of a representative group of conference attendees. Send us your visuals in advance, so we can upload them to a private space ready for the workshop. At a prearranged time you would give your talk, using the phone (on a conference call) or a webcam, supported by your visuals. At the end, the people attending the workshop with you, who are other Finalists (from other categories) and members of our conference team, would give feedback and offer suggestions, with the focus on how clearly and effectively your message is communicated, rather than on the content of your message as such. Such feedback can prove invaluable in helping you be fully prepared for the conference.
How the Voting works
Everyone attending will be given an evaluation form where they can note down their thoughts about each talk as the day progresses. For the vote itself, which takes place after the last Finalist’s session, each attendee will be asked to, in confidence, identify the presentations that they feel proved strongest – for the category, against each criteria and in terms of a couple of other aspects. People will not be able to vote for projects where they have a personal connection.
How we then identify the Award winner
After the votes are cast we evaluate for each Finalist the number of votes received as a proportion of the number they could have received – based on the number of people that could vote for them that attended their presentation. The Finalist with the strongest vote for the category will win the Peer Award for that category. There may also be some Special Mentions, where a Finalist achieves a very strong vote but is not a category’s absolute winner.
The Peer Award for Excellence 2012 Panel
You are invited to consider continuing to be involved in this exciting project, helping assist and support next year’s (2012) Peer Award Finalists. This is an opportunity to be part of a team, using your experience of this year’s event to help ensure that what we provide is as good as it can be next year. There’s no fee involved and you’ll be invited to attend Peer Award Panel conversations between this conference and the next conference, and you’ll be offered a special package to attend the 2012 conference.
Thank you for participating with us and sharing your ideas at our conference. We look forward to it.
Stephen Citron
informatology Chair
