I’ve now written two posts about how to avoid embarrassing yourself when you’re presenting at a conference or job talk (or lecture, or any other presentation where you have notes in PowerPoint). That is, preparing your slides in a way so that when they are pulled up, the audience doesn’t see your speaker notes.
 
The embarrassing moment can be avoided altogether, though, on the presentation end. It is particularly important to keep this issue in mind when you are either a conference organizer/chair, or someone who invited a speaker/job candidate and is helping the speaker set up. It is relatively easy “at the podium” to avoid the embarrassing moment by thinking about how you pull up the slides.
 
So, lots of different ways to do so smoothly, depending on the context and the equipment, such as:

• The simplest way: Don’t connect the projector until you have sorted everything out (copied slides, opened file) and started the slide show.
  
• As soon as you open PowerPoint (preferably before projecting the images), close the speaker notes. That way, even if you end up leaving presentation mode at some point, the speaker notes still won’t show.
• On my laptop, I can choose Windows-P and then choose “computer only” so that until I am ready, the screen won’t show my laptop screen. This option works well if you have to have the connection up the whole time. Just remember to undo it before your presentation begins.

 
At a conference a couple of years ago, my symposium chair was paging through all of my slides to make sure they were working, but was doing so as they were projected on the large screen. As the organizer, do think about the speakers and whether they would want everyone to see all of their slides/graphs/data before they even begin presenting (general answer = no).
 
I use a similar technique when lecturing. This past Spring I had a 290 student class, with 2 very large screens. When I arrived the screens were already connected to the built in computer, and I still had to log onto the campus system, find my slides, download them, and pull them up. I’m not a morning person, so I don’t want to risk logging in live, on screen (I did occasionally enter my password in the wrong box and it did appear on my monitor, but fortunately, not the big screen).  Luckily, on the podium there was an option to black out the screens. So I would keep screens blank until I logged in and pulled up my slides just the way I wanted them, and then could project my first slide. Much better than logging in with an audience, or showing the class all of my slides at once (of course, just in case, I also didn’t have any notes on slide 1).
 
In short, don’t just protect yourself from the embarrassing moment – protect your colleagues as well.
 
“Avoid Showing Others’ Speaker Notes first appeared on Eva Lefkowitz’s blog on July 12, 2018.”

Many academics have switched from having printed notes we used during presentations to instead using the notes feature embedded in PowerPoint. Doing so decreases the fumbling through pages in our hands and can move our gaze from down to forward (though does chain us to the podium area more).
 
But, we’ve all been to the job talk where, as someone’s laptop is first connected to the projector, or their file is first opened, we can see the notes on their first slide that may something like, “I enjoyed meeting many of you during my visit so far.” Don’t be that person.
 
Previously I discussed one way to avoid this problem – saving your slides as a show. In general, I recommend that you use the save-as-show technique, particularly if you are giving a job talk or another high stakes presentation. However, I confess that I rarely take the time to use this technique anymore. And, there is a situation where this technique is not very useful – when you are presenting on a panel and the organizer wants to pull up everyone’s slides and paste them all into one shared document.
 
An alternative technique is to save a duplicate copy of your title slide, but delete the presentation notes from the first version of it. Then, when someone pulls up your slides, it will look like this, with a blank notes page:

But when you go up to present, you can seamlessly advance to your second copy of your title slide, which has your notes on it. 
 
Very simple, but can save you potential embarrassment.
 
“PowerPoint Trick: Duplicate Your Title Slide first appeared on Eva Lefkowitz’s blog on June 21, 2018.”

In what contexts do you use the phrase “I’m sorry”?
 
I have found that people – probably more likely women, though I don’t have data on it – tend to use the phrase “I’m sorry” in contexts other than when they are actually apologizing.
 
[As a side note, I did just in a quick search find evidence that women apologize more than men do, because women believe they commit more offenses than men do. That’s relevant to my second major point here, so stay tuned.]
 
My general advice is that in professional (work) contexts, if something happens and it’s not your fault, don’t apologize. As an example, if you are meeting with a student who plagiarized, don't say, "I'm sorry this is happening to you." Even if it feels natural to say it. It's not your fault, so don't apologize. You can say, "It's an unfortunate situation" or "I know you must be feeling disappointed." But using “I’m sorry” implies that you are somehow to blame in this situation, when the student is the one who plagiarized – you are not actually sorry that you have a policy against plagiarism. Or that you plan to enforce it.
 
I frequently notice young women (often graduate students) apologize in these types of situations, and I don't think it helps their interactions. Of course, if you are at fault, do apologize. People often get defensive when they are actually at fault, and a swift apology can avoid a prolonged game of blame hot potato.
 
When I posted this idea on social media a few years ago, someone responded by saying that the phrase “I’m sorry” has many different meanings in the United States, and that we often use it to express compassion. I agree, but I also think that’s part of the problem. We often DO use “I’m sorry” to express compassion. And that’s fine in certain contexts where it could not be interpreted as accepting blame – for instance, if a colleague tells you they are sick and you say “I’m sorry to hear that.”  But the other meaning of “I’m sorry” Is “I did something wrong,” and that can be misperceived. Thus, I recommend avoiding it in situations where it could all be perceived as your fault, and thus, accepting any blame. That’s why it’s helpful to think of other phrases, such as “I know you must feel…” or “I imagine you are really upset about it…” Those phrases express compassion without taking on any blame.
 
More generally, I recommend avoiding apologizing when you feel inadequate. Again, apologizing makes sense if you wronged someone (e.g., you missed a deadline) or possibly if you disappointed them (e.g., you have the thesis draft for the deadline, but you really didn’t spend as much time as you should have). But don’t apologize just because you aren’t feeling confident. I initially received related advice during my first year of grad school. The four first year grad students in our cohort presented our thesis ideas at proseminar and each starting with "I'm sorry I'm not very far along" or "mine's not as interesting as hers was...". A professor told us never to start a talk with an apology, but to be strong and confident in our ideas. I believe she pointed out that we were all women standing up there starting our talks with an apology rather than presenting our ideas with confidence. Of course, in this instance, we likely all WERE intentionally taking on blame, in that we all DID feel bad that we weren’t far along or that our ideas weren’t as developed as someone else.
 
But why start a presentation, or a lecture, with an acknowledgement that you could have done better, or that you aren’t proud of what you’re about to say? That sets the audience up to think you have somehow failed.
 
I know how easy it is to default to apologizing. One year at SRCD I had confused the days of my 2 talks and had not at all prepared for the talk I was giving.  I had spent the last 2 days practicing my other talk. My instinct was to start the presentation with the story of what had happened, and an explanation/apology for not being as polished as I would like to be. But instead, I just gave the talk. It was certainly not my best presentation ever. But it also wasn’t terrible.
 
Just this week, I met with a job candidate. I was toward the end of her schedule on day two, and I imagined that my colleagues had asked her similar questions. So I automatically said something like, “I’m sorry that you probably have had to answer these questions already.” And then I realized, actually, I do not need to be sorry about that. It’s my job to evaluate this candidate, and she likely expects to answer some of the same questions in different meetings (in fact, how much harder would interviews be if each half hour meeting contained completely new questions?).  
 
In summary:

• If you have wronged someone somehow, be quick to apologize.
• When you didn’t do anything wrong and you don’t want the other person to think you are taking on blame, don’t apologize.
• When you think you are less than your best (or others’ best), try to suppress that feeling and instead be confident.

 
Follow these guidelines, and when you truly do apologize, it will mean that you are recognizing you are at fault for something, and that apology will not be empty.
 
“Don’t apologize unless you did something wrong first appeared on Eva Lefkowitz’s blog on June 7, 2018.”

La de da. Let's pretend it hasn't been an almost one year absence. And also, that I've come back to just share one small tip. That you may know already.

When I was in grad school, one of my advisors, Terry Au, drilled into us that we needed big font sizes in PowerPoint presentations and posters. I didn't fully appreciate it at the time, but I trusted her (look, she's a vice president at a major university now). Now, with my way over-40 eyes (and not quite yet over anything else), I get it.

Whoever designs PowerPoint templates didn't have Terry as an advisor because the font size defaults are really small. I have, many times, gone back through and changed the font size of each and every slide, one by one. This falls into the category of Inefficient, but too lazy to figure out the alternative.

Well, today I figured it out, and I'm sharing it here in case you ever fall into inefficient and too lazy to figure out moments. Here goes:

1. Go to VIEW at top menu
2. Choose "slide master"
3. Select the level of text you want.
4. Choose "home" from the top menu
5. Change the font size.

Magic. You can even change the font type, if you so choose. And, I'm noticing as I type, you can change the footer too - so you can have, for instance, the same footer on every slide. My mind is blown.

If you are a more visual person, you can get it directly from MS Office support, with pictures. But no annoying commentary.

“The post Change font size on all slides in PowerPoint  first appeared on Eva Lefkowitz’s blog on October 23, 2017”

At Society for Research in Adolescence (SRA) this year, two young scholars announced to me and my friend/colleague, “We’ve known each other for 7 years!” I may have audibly scoffed (sorry!) when I replied, “come to me when you can say 23 years, then we’ll talk.”

Rose is my person. We met early in grad school and worked together in the same lab for 5 years. She has been my conference buddy since our first conference together in the 1990’s. In grad school at conferences, we would scout out places to watch March Madness. Actually, not much has changed except the atmosphere of where we watch and the type of drink we consume.

Every academic needs a best friend who doesn’t assume you get summers off or doesn’t wonder what you do with all that free time between the only 2 classes you teach per week. Who in grad school sometimes made you take a break from presentations to go for a long walk or actually see the outside of the convention center (these days, I’m more likely to do that to her). With whom you have code names for other people at the conference (but not for you, dear reader, definitely not for you). Who can sleep right through your insomnia when you share a hotel room. Whom your students are excited to get to meet, and you can say, I know her. It’s so helpful to have someone in the same career and stage as you, but not at your same institution, to check in about prickly work situations. You know you will never have to walk into an intimidating reception alone because you will always have her by your side. It is in conference hotel rooms and on the streets of conference cities that we have confided in each other about many of life’s stressors, whether work or children.
In grad school, we were usually crammed 4 to a room, negotiating shower schedules and bed sharing.  These days it’s usually the two of us, going to sleep earlier than we used to, but still having plenty of time to chat and catch up. Or to ignore each other while we get work done or zone out after a long day of professional social interactions. One year we were given a suite, and we invited a friend up to hang out. When she showed up she saw us each with laptops in front of us and said, “I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were both working.” But no, that’s just us hanging out in a hotel room, reading emails between conversations about our latest administrative headache or student accomplishment.

When my kids were babies, she was the one who, even though replaced as my conference roommate for a few years by my husband and kids, immediately came up to the room after getting a text that said “help!” and entertained babies  while my husband and I packed. She’s the one who, when my kids were toddlers and I had to give a presentation, went to Reading Terminal with my husband and kids and helped chase them down when they took off in opposite directions.

When my kids were 2 ½, I attended my first conference without them since their birth. Rose was happy (I think) to get me back as a roommate. I was feeling very confident. I had presentations two days in a row scheduled, and this was my first chance in years to show competent-conference-Eva rather than scattered-Mama-conference-Eva. On the first day, I was at the front table right before it started, when I wondered, why is everyone from tomorrow’s panel here but no one from today’s panel here? Oh. I had mixed up my talks, and had not only been practicing the wrong talk, but also had the notes for the wrong talk. Rose, from the audience, immediately saw the panic in my eyes, and texted to ask what was wrong. I texted her back. And Rose ran the 1 mile back to the hotel room, texting me from the room to find the talk, and ran it back to me in the middle of our session. Not my most polished presentation, but a lot better than it would have been if I hadn’t had my person there.

I like to think I occasionally do things for her as well. For instance, there are few other people I’d do this for:

When I make a list of things that I gained in grad school, there’s writing and stats skills and professional development. But more than any of those things, I gained my person. I don’t think I could have navigated this career these past 23 years without her. It’s hard to convey to grad students the value of the friends you make in grad school. It’s not just the conferences, it’s all of the in betweens, whether work or standing up at each others' weddings or visiting with families in tow. So every year, I know I’m going to end the conference with sushi, wine, and my person. Sometimes a movie, too. But always the sushi, wine, and Rose.

“The post Find your lifelong conference buddy was first posted on Eva Lefkowitz’s blog on April 7, 2016”

I was recently out with some friends having drinks, and we started talking about PowerPoint slides (yes, we really are that nerdy). My friend told me about her colleague, Michael Alley, who argues that most of us are using PowerPoint incorrectly. His argument is that the Title/bullet point format that most of us use is mostly designed to help the speaker remember what to say, rather than to help the audience remember what was said. He proposes, instead, to use a technique he calls Assertion Evidence.

I’m in social science, and this technique was designed for physical science and engineering. I’ve spent some time poking around the website, and I definitely see the value in such a talk for science and engineering. I haven’t decided yet, though, how well it would translate to social science, or more specifically, the kind of social science I do. Much of the background I would present in a talk would be hard to present visually. The results could be visual, though more likely graphs than images. But at a general level, I like the perspective that we are all presenting with very similar techniques, and that we should consider whether our techniques are the best way to present.

We recently had a job candidate (and soon to be new colleague, Tim Brick) visit who presented using a different program (possibly Keynote? Unfortunately I’m not sure). It was refreshing to see something that was slightly different from exactly what we are used to seeing. One thing I really liked is that at the top of the presentation, he had a few simple words that outlined what he would be presenting. Honestly, I forgot the exact words, but if it was a talk I was giving, it might have broken down like this:

Overview            Theory                  Prevalence                         Predictors                           Outcomes           Done!

As he spoke, one of the words on top would be slightly brighter so as an audience member I had a sense of where he was in the talk. I liked it.

Then there are of course flashy ways to present, like Prezi. I made a Prezi once – it was a simple one, but it felt like it took me a lot more time than PowerPoint does. Perhaps that is only because I wasn’t used to it yet, though. There are lots of others; and lots of articles suggesting specific programs/websites.

What do you think of assertion evidence? How do you give presentations – standard in PowerPoint, or something different? Share your thoughts.                               

“The post Alternatives to standard PowerPoint presentations first appeared on Eva Lefkowitz’s blog on June 23, 2014.”

You know when a speaker first opens up his PowerPoint slides, and he hasn't started the presentation yet so it's open in edit mode, and it may say something in the notes section like, "Good afternoon, thank you so much for inviting me here" or something else that he probably didn't want you to know that he wrote out?  Or it shows the first 6 slides, so you see the big punchline coming up? There's a solution for that.

You can save your slides as a Show, rather than as a Presentation. It's a simple option in "save as" under "save as type," just as if you wanted to save it as a PDF instead. If you save something as a Show, then as soon as you click on the file, it will open up your first slide in full screen all ready to start presenting, rather than opening it in edit mode.

A couple of caveats.

1. If you think you might go back to edit it again, make sure you SAVE CHANGES in the Presentation version before you save as a Show. You actually CAN edit a Show version, but it's harder to get it to open in edit mode (you have to do it within PowerPoint, rather than in Explorer or directly from a desktop/file folder). So I find it easier to work with the Presentation version, but save the Show version for the actual presentation.

2. If it's something where I'm going right into the material without a title (like my presentation tonight for HDFS Follies), then I like to have a blank slide at the beginning, so that I can open it up as early as I want but don't have to show my first slide until I'm ready.

“The post PowerPoint trick #2:  Save as a show first appeared on Eva Lefkowitz’s blog on May 2, 2014.”

For the past 4 years, I chaired the membership committee of the Society for Research on Adolescence (SRA). One of the areas we identified as a need for growth was in terms of advice and engagement for mid-career scholars. SRA has done a fabulous job over the past few years of improving professional development guidance for emerging scholars. Could the organization start to do the same for mid-career scholars?

The membership committee organized an invited roundtable for the 2014 SRA biannual meeting in Austin, TX. We were quite excited about the participants on the panel, as well as the turnout (given that it was late in the afternoon on the last day of the conference). The panelists gave excellent advice, and the audience asked really helpful questions. I wrote a blog post for SRA summarizing the advice from the scholars (and explaining why my first attempt at live tweeting was a huge failure). You can find the post here.

I did want to mention one thing that was not brought up by any of the panelists, and that is work/life balance. At mid-career, almost everyone has responsibility to a young child, or a teenager, or an aging parent. These are not unique features of mid-career, but often mid-career represents the time that these responsibilities converge. I remember a time in my mother's life when she had an active full time job, an aging father to visit at a residential facility, a husband with a degenerative disease, and a grandson in the NICU (she was a young grandmother). This convergence isn't uncommon at this point in one's career, and it's another way in which work/life balance can be challenging. I don't have all the answers of the perfect balance (even though, as my son likes to tell people, I won "Best work/life balancer at HDFS follies last year).

Post-tenure, it's a bit easier to think long-term. If a manuscript gets submitted one week later because your child is home with the flu or because you spend a week visiting your parent in a hospital, it doesn't feel as career threatening as it might pre-tenure (though obviously, one week is rarely career threatening for anyone).
Work-life balance also involves things like exercise, healthy eating, and time with friends. I've mentioned before that I put exercise blocks on my actual calendar because if I don't, it doesn't happen. But exercise gives me more energy and makes me a generally happier person, so it improves my work/life balance. In addition to putting it on my calendar, I work it into my daily life -- I try to walk my kids to school and then myself to the office, and this week, I started trying an exercise ball in place of my chair (yes, I get many strange looks as people walk by my office). So work/life balance is sometimes about responding to things outside your control (babies who don't sleep all night long; responsibility to a parent's finances;  partner's illness), but sometimes about finding the balance you need to be a sane and happy person.

Can you do something balanced for yourself today?

“The post Professional development advice at mid-career first appeared on Eva Lefkowitz’s blog on April 9, 2014.”

Caveat: I have never live tweeted at a conference. So I won’t be offended if you stop reading now (also: I won’t know). I have, however, read about live tweeting at conferences, and enjoyed reading tweets about a talk I gave at the Society for the Study of Emerging Adulthood last Fall. And I’m in Austin at SRA, and for the first time (at least that I’ve noticed), the #SRA2014 hashtag seems quite active and engaged, so I expect lots of live tweeting to happen. I want to be ready.

Profhacker has a great post about live tweeting conferences. The best tips I take from that post, and others I have read, are:

In the audience:

Be respectful. You may disagree with the presenter, and there are ways to do that politely. But the 140 character maximum is quite limiting, and subtlety can be lost with brevity. Err on the side of respect.

Consider people who are not attending the conference. You likely have more followers not attending than attending the conference, and that’s certainly true for the session. Make sure your tweets make sense for people not sitting in the room.

Don’t overtweet. When someone in my feed is at a conference and is tweeting minute-by-minute, I tend to get overwhelmed and wish I could turn them off.  It may be okay for one session you’re particularly excited about, but not 8 hours a day for 3 days.  

Clearly attribute. Maybe no one has been brought up on charges for plagiarism on twitter. But make sure that if you are directly quoting, you provide quotation marks, and that even if not quoting, you acknowledge the speaker either by username, or if not on twitter, by full name.

First character matters. It’s common for people to begin a tweet with someone else’s username, as in: “@ClaireKampDush explains her strategy for being a productive writer pre-tenure: https://u.osu.edu/adventuresinhdfs/2014/03/06/work-and-family-and-one-night-a-week/ “. Did you know when you start a tweet with a username, only people who follow you AND the other person will see it in their feed? Profhacker recommends starting the tweet with a period (.) beforehand, so all of your followers can see the tweet.

Hashtag. If you want people beyond your followers to read your tweets, use the conference hashtag.

Easily use the conference hashtag. Typing a hashtag each time is awkward. Profhacker recommends text expansion, which could work for you. If you’re lower tech, simply create text and copy it, so you can paste it straight in each time. You can create one simply for the conference (#SRA2014), or if live tweeting a particular talk, you can include the name of a presenter as well, including the . at the front (.@MimiArbeit #SRA2014). Then for each tweet, simply paste it in at the start.

Type quietly!

Think about your prior and subsequent tweets. Twitter is a very public forum (unless you have your account set to private). If you are live tweeting with a conference hashtag, other conference attendees are likely to check out your twitter account. Graduate students in particular need to think about impression management (though of course everyone should think about it). Don’t have your tweet right before the session read something like, “Didn’t think I could drink that many margaritas and still make it to an 8:30 talk! #multitasking”).  

As a presenter:

Provide your username on your slides. If someone live tweets your talk, s/he can attribute it to you easily if you tell them how.

Post a tweet right before you present, with, if you create one, a hashtag for your session.

Try to respond to tweets after you present.

“The post Live tweeting conferences first appeared on Eva Lefkowitz’s blog on March 19, 2014.”