Lars Pind

internet software, coaching, and entrepreneurship

Lars Pind - internet software, coaching, and entrepreneurship
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Practice and theory

June 10, 2005 · See comments

Listening to Ben Cerveny at reboot7 reminds me that for me to understand, examples are really helpful.

Communicating a theory is a good thing. But theories are designed to explain facts in the real world. So when you leave out concrete, practical examples of these facts, then your audience have to think them up for themselves, and it’s hard to know if you got the right ones, and really understand it. You don’t get “Aha!” you get “Aha … I think …”

So please, practice, then theory, then practice, then theory, then … let it be a dance back and forth. That way we can follow you.

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Comments ↓

  • 1 Ben Cerveny // Jun 10, 2005 at 06:06 PM

    mea culpa. i agree that i could use a bit more grounding in my presentations. This is, in part, how I earned my nickname neb [thanks to my 'nebulous' style of offering up freestyle brainstorming]. The problem, of course, lies in a need to stay flexible. I don't talk from a script so I never know which examples I'll need. I've tried to 'compose' a set of example resources to draw from in the past, but demoing NintendoDS, console games, MMOGs and whatnot all in realtime can get pretty scary, and screenshots never tell the story. But, yes, I always err toward the theoretical. Ya got me. :)

  • 2 Christina Wodtke // Jun 10, 2005 at 06:26 PM

    You must have some idea of what ideas and topics you want to cover. Maybe an outline of key ideas? So you can choose a few examples to illustrate. Even if you don't use ppt, you can at least use anecdotes to cover ideas, or have a beg of preexisting examples. And try screencasts rather than screenshots to explicate...

  • 3 Christina Wodtke // Jun 10, 2005 at 06:29 PM

    shoot, I meant bag, as in bag of tricks...

  • 4 Ben Cerveny // Jun 10, 2005 at 06:36 PM

    Oh, I had powerpoint, but I always present using a phrase or single word per slide as a pivot point around which my rant trajectory is bent. That format was also a guideline [conveniently for me] for all presenters here at Reboot. I actually offer up this ambiguity as a feature, not a bug, truth be told. I actually find it more provocative [as my goal is more a philosophical inquiry than a howto] to leave the audience thinking "aha! i see... i think". This state of affairs is an open mode, where inquiry can proceed in a number of directions.

  • 5 Lars Pind // Jun 10, 2005 at 06:43 PM

    I actually appreciated the minimalistic slide style a lot ... I think the "read aloud from powerpoint" style of presentations, like Doc Searls did, makes it hard to follow, too. So kudos for that. But I still think you can fluctuate more between the concrete and the abstract. And I wouldn't worry so much about leaving the audience with an open mind ... we're not that easy to push around, and it's more helpful for us to get a clearer mental picture of what you're trying to say, and then we'll try to balance it with our own, with that of other presenters, through conversation, etc.