Successful Speaking for Technical Professionals

Technical people are often frustrated with how management or marketing teams may prioritize style and polish over the actual content or data.   This style and polish can feel superficial to technical people who value substance and accuracy. The key to an excellent technical presentation is to find the right balance between style and polish and substance and accuracy To balance style and polish wit...

  Technical professionals are often asked to explain complex information under a time constraint. You can effectively condense complex projects or data in a short time while maintaining critical technical information by employing the following strategies:  visual communication, executive summaries, modular documentation.  

“People who know what they’re talking about don’t need PowerPoint.”   -  Steve Jobs, American businessman, inventor, and investor best known for co-founding the technology company Apple Inc.     While this might sound a bit extreme, the essence of the Steve Jobs quote is clear: to truly engage, you must focus on more than just slides—you need to connect with your audience. This can be challenging...

"By visualizing information, we turn it into a landscape that you can explore with your eyes. A sort of information map.”  -  David McCandless, writer, designer & creative director living in London Technical people delivering technical presentations have an additional burden which non-technical speakers don't have to worry about– how to represent data on their slides. Regarding data...

As a technical professional, you may often experience specific frustrations related to the complexity of content in your presentations. In this podcast episode, we will explore three frustrations you may have experienced and what to do about them:  overwhelming detail, audience knowledge gaps, and balancing technical depth and clarity.  

Welcome to “Successful Speaking for Technical Professionals,” the podcast dedicated to helping you shine in the spotlight and deliver your technical expertise with flair. I’m your host, Frank DiBartolomeo. In each episode, I will draw from my over 40 years experience as an engineer and over 30 years experience as a Toastmaster to explore the nuances of presenting complex information in a way that...

Forbes Magazine tells us the number one fear of people is public speaking. This is unfortunate because speaking intelligently to an audience, engaging them, and leaving them with something that will improve their personal and professional lives will do more to advance your career than anything else. Some people believe technical expertise is what companies prize. They do, but it is much easier to...

Why do people still go to the movies? Because everyone loves a story. In these weekly articles on public speaking, I have often talked about the power of story in your public speaking. However, do you also use stories in your technical presentations? When you use stories in your technical presentations, you demonstrate how the technology is used in the real world. Using stories in your technical p...