When i was working in Singapore, my colleague impressed upon me the importance of messaging well and making a good presentation. Then, it was about getting your point across in the simplest possible manner and driving the main points home without making your director, deputy permanent secretary, perm sec or minister feel like you were wasting their time.

I don't think I fully realized what a skill it was that my colleague impressed upon me until I came here. I've sat through a couple of bad presentations where I often felt frustrated with myself and with the individual. Conditional on the fact that the presenter has already put in alot of effort and work into their research, its sad to see their work get torn apart or dismissed because they just can't articulate their point clearly nor motivate the audience as to why their work is important.

And its an art really, to make simple the complicated things we do sometimes. The fact is that your model probably is very complicated even if it is intended to answer a simple question. Problem is you could probably make all that you're doing even more incomprehensible to the third party who hasn't invested the same amount of time in your line of research and yet has to take the time to understand what your goals and motivation in your paper are all about.

I went from one presentation to another today. back to back. and the differences were startling clear. Both knew their stuff but while the first presenter could barely hold my attention --- i was constantly checking my watch to see when it was time for her to end --- the second presenter clearly engaged me. I started thinking about the model and was even trying to see if certain dimensions of the problem were included in his equations.

That said, its not about presentation skills only. If your paper is terrible, no fancy presentation skills will be able to save it. But if you do have a good paper, you could easily turn an otherwise receptive audience away with horrible messaging skills.

There's a good reason why some professors are so popular with some students, and others not. Let's make them all get engaged, shall we?