The Podcasts
Each podcast contains two parts,
1) a funcast featuring a cast of characters: a human, a virus, and a robot. It usually lasts 2 minutes and is intended to bring a smile on the face of the overworked scientist prior to going into the presentation skills segment.
2) a profcast featuring the interview of a prof or luminary sheding light on how-to, what-not-to-do, why-do, and other interesting topics related to scientific presentations.
Here are the themes of the profcasts.
01 - What does the audience remember
02 - David Peebles’ argument
03 - The chairperson and the presenter
04 - Keeping to time
05 - Attitude of audience towards presenter
06 - Presenting Limitations of Research at conference Talk
07 - Dealing with Accent
08 - Presenter Mistakes
09 - Not so expert audience with distracting laptops
010 - Powerpoint and Shakespeare
011 - Benefits of Presenting
012 - Pearls of presenter wisdom
013 - Three audience irritants
014 - Core Competitive Advantage
015 - Personal credibility
016 - Questions from experts and head hunters
017 - Presenting patents and formulas
018 – Sequencing the scientific talk
019 - Dancing around outputs and outcomes
020- Telecom metaphor to excel in scientific presentations
021 - Presenting to a lay audience
022 – The TED presenter
023 – Speech synthesis and the presenter
024 – Speech synthesis and the ESL presenter
025 – Alternative Q&A techniques
026 – Comments dismissing your work
027 – Speech first computer second
028 – Convinced yes but of what?
Since each funcast is a little play with its actors. Here is the synopsis of each play.
001 – The virus helps create an audience but things get a little out of hand.
002 – The virus inattention, due to its inadequate anatomy, starts a battle of references.
003 – A chairperson is not a chair person – as the virus soon finds out.
004 – Time shuts the window, with a rather loud bang.
005 – The virus demonstrates culture in a gross sort of way.
006 – Prison cells have bars but bars don’t.
007 – Homophones create massive miscommunication between the host and the virus.
008 – The virus is accused of facilitating apoptosis.
009 -The live virus dreams of being a computer virus.
010 – It is a good thing our virus never played Hamlet on stage.
011 – The virus manages to send our host to the Pasteur institute for a rabies check.
012 – The virus creates a sobering limerick.
013 -A quiz on collective names leads to a lie.
014 – The competitive advantage of viruses may not apply to presenters.
015 – The host tries to stop our virus from spilling the beans.
016 – The virus supports women’s rights.
017 – The host turned psychologist exposes the virus’ freudian slip.
018 – The virus gets under the skin and into the delusional brain of the host.
019 – The virus outsmarts the host attempting to get rid of it.
020 – The virus masters the art of metaphoric language.
021 – The host upsets the text-to-speech agents and begs for mercy.
022 – The host is up and running… to save his hard disk.
023 – The Virus takes a back seat and plays second fiddle.
024 – The virus gives a lesson on cheese and pedantic knowledge.
025 – The virus calls on the Geneva Convention to protect its rights.
026 – The virus in Hollywood mentions the Virus oscar awards.
027 – The virus promotes unethical sponsoring.
028 – The virus believes it is in control of the host.
