Dancing pointers, preachers, sweating slides and other distractions during talks

Sometime ago, I wrote on the topic of acknowledgements after a talk (JCS 112, p. 3193), but I realized that speakers have many other idiosyncrasies that distract me from their talks. Here are a few more.

In The Stone Age, it was necessary to get near to your data with a long stick in order to point to specific parts of a slide (and you thought that you’d never touch anything with a six-foot barge pole!). I’ve also used an umbrella, golf club, billiard cue and a fire poker. It was quite an art to wield one of these pointers in the direction of the slide while not decapitating those in the audience seated in the front row (Fore!). But now we are turned into Jedi knights with laser swords to cut through the dark. But, please, just use it occasionally. Don’t leave it on all the time. Nervousness makes the hands tremble and, as a consequence, the laser pointer jumps and swirls around the slide – quite distracting for those in the audience who did not have the presence of mind to take Demerol before the lecture.

Most stages are still equipped with a lectern, but speakers are not sure what to do with it. Some stand beside it (or more often prop up against it as if they were at a bar), while others place their water on it and stand unaided. However, there are other speakers who seem to be anchored behind the lectern, unable, or unwilling, to move away. The lectern seems to be a shield to hold back the snarling hordes in the audience. In those cases, the weirdest and most distracting effect is when the lectern light reflects upward onto the speaker, making their face into a ghoulish mask – it’s difficult to shake the notion that the data are not just a scary ghost story.

And then there are others who stand behind the lectern and read the text of their talk from written notes. Some can be quite forceful and eloquent in their oratory, also gripping the lectern on the sides, bounding the surface for effect, rocking back and forward and lecturing the audience as though they were reading from the scriptures. Hallelujah! I believe! I believe!

Call me ‘old-fashioned’, but give me plain, simple backgrounds to slides. Again, in The Stone Age, the only colors available for use were white or blue. But, I digress. The advent of Powerpoint and ‘millions of colors’ has allowed speakers to express their artsy side by using multi-colored backgrounds, different-colored text and font sizes, graded shading, and landscape pictures. In general, I find that the complexity of the background to a slide is inversely proportional to the quality and significance of the data being shown.

I like a joke as much as anyone, and spontaneous, off-the-cuff comments during a talk can be very funny. What I dislike is the staged joke, which often takes the form of a humorous story directed at a small group of insiders in the audience, who laugh appreciatively at their collective notoriety – unaware that the rest of the audience has been left out in the cold. Way to go, chump! You’ve managed to alienate 99% of the audience before you have shown one data slide. Get out, and take your stand- up comedy act somewhere else!

“Is that in focus? I can’t see from up here. Could you try to focus, please? A little more. A little more. No, that’s too much. Go back. More. More. No, stop, that’s too far. Back, again. Look, try to focus on this point on the slide. That’s it. A little more. Yes, that’s great. Next slide, please!” You get the picture!

It starts with the appearance of a small black smudge in the middle of the slide. The smudge grows and grows, and then disintegrates into smaller clusters – the whole process takes several minutes. The first time I saw this effect, I thought that we were in for an exciting talk because the slide and the projector were about to catch fire. But then I realized that the slides were ‘sweating’ from the heat of the projector. Even with this knowledge, I still think that the slides are about to melt.

The number one cardinal sin in public speaking. I say, “Bring back the shepherd’s crook, the trap-door in the floor of the stage, and the stun-gun”. What could anyone possibly think is so important that they need more than an hour of our time? The worst case is when a ‘big shot’ speaker is asked to give a 20-minute talk, but then still loads an hour or more’s worth of slides into the carrousel! What amazes me is that the person who introduces the speaker becomes completely impotent as the time for the end of the talk approaches and then passes. At best, they weakly admonish the speaker with “five more minutes, please”, only to be rebuffed with “I just have a few more slides to show, and then I’m finished”. Sure, exchange carousels and start the second one!

Next slide please, and pay attention in the back!

Caveman