Presenting at conferences – Electronically

Marc Griffiths - Lecturer, Allied Health Professionals, University of West England, Bristol

Julian Guffogg - Superintendent Radiographer Nuclear Medicine, Conquest Hospital, Hastings, East Sussex

Today’s graphical environments such as PowerPoint (Microsoft Corp) and the internet provide the potential for users to present information dynamically and effectively. Electronic presentations are utilised in a multitude of environments, including interviews, clinical audit meetings and conference meetings such as UKRC and BNMS etc
The greatest advantage of utilising an electronic format of presentation is the flexibility and alteration of your data right up until the very last minute before your actual presentation. ⁽¹⁾
Unlike conventional 35mm slides, data in an electronic format offers the potentially nervous first-time speaker a greater degree of flexibility should a mistake be recognised before the presentation.
Electronic formats for presentation, such as Microsoft’s PowerPoint and Sun Microsystems StarImpress ⁽²⁾ are globally accepted as forms of providing effective presentations to audiences large or small, with or without printed handouts.

What is PowerPoint?

PowerPoint is a presentation program which utilises virtual slides created by the user. The slides can be easily constructed and contain text, graphics and statistics data (ie charts and tables). Recent versions of PowerPoint also allow the user to publish their presentation to the Web. ⁽³⁾
The use of multimedia such as images, video and sound provide the potential to enrich your presentation and impress your audience. However, it is important that the focus remains on the subject of your presentation and not just on the presentation itself

A note on utilising medical data

Most medical manufacturers now save their data in the proprietary format of DICOM (Digital Imaging and Communication in Medicine) and data is often stored on CD or Magneto Optical Disc. The DICOM format is universal between all medical manufacturers and above all, with the correct software, converting medical data into images for your presentation can be achieved. One such application is Osiris software, which has been developed by the University of Geneva and is freely available for personal use from the internet. ⁽⁴⁾
Figure 1a demonstrates reviewing a nuclear medicine renogram studies and figure 1b demonstrates saving a computerised radiography wrist in an image format. It is important to obtain the approval of your employer before using any medical data in a presentation.

Figure 1a Figure 1b

(Images reproduced by kind permission of Osiris Software)

Preparation

By utilising an electronic form of presentation, you are more “in-control” of your presentation. Being able to review your work before your presentation is of great importance to both the audience and speaker. Don’t forget, changes can be made at the last minute if you are using an electronic format, providing there is prior access to a computer. At conferences, you usually have control over your presentation, if it is in an electronic format, usually controlled by the mouse. By preparing your presentation electronically, you are in a position to make judgement and adjustments to colour schemes, ⁽¹⁾ font and image sizes and overall content. Try to avoid complex tables and where possible convert tables to charts or simple graphs. ⁽⁵⁾ If you try to pour information into “empty vessels” during your presentation (by having too much data on one slide) people will become disinterested. From experience and student feedback, any more than five statements or bullet points on a slide creates too much data for people to interpret, especially in the time period of a conference presentation!

Tips for effective and readable slides

Ask for a second opinion on your presentation – Give a practice presentation at work, maybe during the lunch hour
Try to obtain as much feedback as possible from your colleagues. People perceive information in different ways, and obtaining a second opinion about an uncertain element will pay off at the conference.
Feedback will also give you an estimation of timings and help build your confidence if this is your first conference presentation.
It is recommended that your presentation has a font size of no less than 32 ⁽⁵⁾. If you are in doubt, try reading your presentation from a projector in a large room (if possible).
Clashing colours can make your slides unreadable
Care and attention should be taken when selecting certain colours for your presentation. For example have you considered any members of the audience who may be colour blind?
Keep your presentation simple, precise and clean. Ensure every slide in your presentation is relevant to your delivery. Masses of data produced on-screen will only take the emphasis off you and disinterest people
In preparation for the presentation on the day, have a hard copy of your work at hand. This will serve the purpose of seeing your presentation from a different perspective and allow you to keep track of the next slide during your actual presentation.

Three basic principles regarding preparing your presentation ⁽⁵⁾:

Relevance – Your presentation should be directly related to your subject matter
Emphasis – The use of certain factors such as bold fonts, brightly coloured borders around images will provide certain elements of emphasis in your presentation.
Simplicity – In the use of language and design of your slides

Tips on how to keep your audience awake!

Don’t let the slides take over – you are in charge
A good opening to capture the attention of the audience
Practice the presentation
Don’t overwhelm your audience with facts
Don’t overdo the gimmicky animations
Anticipate any problems

Utilising multimedia in your presentation

Providing a dynamic and effective feel to your presentation will assist you in delivering your subject matter at a conference. With an ever growing number of image (JPEG, GIF), video (MPEG, AVI) and sound (MP3, WAV) formats used on the internet and applications such as PowerPoint, the user has a number of options.

Images

Images can be a very useful way of conveying information and supporting literature. Computer images are composed of square pixels and can be emphasised effectively in a presentation. However images created on different operating systems such as Windows may look different on an Apple Macintosh and vice versa ⁽⁶⁾.
Electronic presentation software such as PowerPoint and StarImpress accept a wide range of various image formats. This is especially true since the introduction and development of digital camera technology. File size can however vary between different formats and if you are limited to saving your presentation to a 3.5” floppy disc then the following factors may have to be considered:

Image formats such as BMP (Bit Map) and Tiff save images at a large file size. Where possible try to either save your images in either a JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group) or GIF (Graphical Interchange Format) file format. This should reduce the file size of the image, minimising any loss of detail or resolution. Figure 2 demonstrates the difference in file size between a BMP and JPEG format. You are usually able to include more JPEG images in your presentation, compared to BMP images, especially where there is a restriction on your storage media.
Be careful when using GIF images, as this file format only supports 256 colours ⁽⁶⁾. However, this file format will provide compression of your image and reduce the file size considerably. This is a common format used on the Internet.
The JPEG format supports full colour (24 bit) images and is therefore a better choice for photographic images and complex illustrations ⁽⁶⁾. However, JPEG format does not handle images with hard edges or high contrast very well. When using this format, you have control over the amount of compression that is applied to the image. There is a balance to effectively compressing an image whilst maintaining optimum resolution.
If you are converting an image from an original uncompressed file format, ie BMP, then ensure you do not delete this image file once you have created your compressed image. If you need to further modify your JPEG image and resave the image, the quality will be reduced ⁽⁶⁾.
There are numerous image manipulation packages (Paint Shop Pro, Microsoft Photo Editor) available that will enable you to refine your images accordingly. Some programs designed to optimise images for inclusion on web pages are also suitable.
A relatively new image format called PNG (Portable Network Graphics) has been designed to replace the older GIFF & TIFF formats ⁽⁷⁾. The PNG format has the ability to compress image data, without any loss in quality. The major advantage over the JPEG format is the fact that saving & re-saving PNG images will not degrade the final image.
Use images effectively on your presentation slides. A small image and lots of surrounding text will reduce the impact of your image.

Figure 2

(Images reproduced by kind permission of Siemens Medical Solutions)

BMP – 771 KB JPEG – 42 KB

Charts, graphs, tables and dynamic text

Where possible try to keep the layout simple and effective. Don’t forget that charts, graphs and tables can usually be imported from applications such as Microsoft Excel and embedded within your presentation. It is also possible to control the timing and entrance of text (and images) within your presentation. This is a useful tool for not revealing all your information on a slide at once. There are many effects now available in Powerpoint, but use them sparingly as the audience soon get irritated with too many gimmicks.

Video and Sound

With the constant improvement in computer hardware specifications, the use of video to enhance a presentation or Website has provided the potential for users to dynamically encapsulate their work. Although it can be a little time consuming, providing relevant video in your presentation can be extremely effective in delivering information and keeping your audience interested. PowerPoint will support a number of video (movie) formats including AVI, MPEG and QuickTime.
Various medical images are clinically reviewed in a dynamic format, for example, nuclear medicine renogram studies and gated cardiac studies. This type of data would be virtually impossible to display on a 35mm slide setup. In order to display the data acquired we need to be able to show the dynamics of the clinical investigation ⁽¹⁾. Applications such as PowerPoint provide optimum conditions to project visual (dynamic and static) and written data in one electronic environment. The power of today’s computers also ensures there is a seamless connection between various files held within the computers hard drive and presented professionally to you and your audience.
However, caution is required when using video within your presentation (see finishing touches).

Depending on the audio setup at the conference, the use of sound within a presentation can be used in conjunction with video, ie interviews. Again, be aware of the file size associated with both video and sound and consider your storage options.

Practical Advice on saving your presentation and associated files

Save your presentation to at least two forms of storage media. This will ensure disc corruption has less of a chance of ruining your big day. With the price of computer hardware falling in the present economic climate, storage of data has never been cheaper. Obviously, accessibility to CD recorders and high capacity discs (Zip) depends upon local circumstances either within work or at home.
The greater the number of images, video clips and sound you utilise within your presentation, the larger the file size of your overall presentation.
Table 1 outlines the disc storage capacity of popular forms of data storage. An uncompressed image file can take up many Megabytes of disc storage ⁽⁶⁾ and therefore saving to a CD via a CD recorder does allows greater flexibility and increased content within your presentation. Today the cost of a recordable CD is almost comparable to that of a 3.5” floppy disc.
If you are unable to obtain access to a CD recorder and are relying on using a laptop provided by the conference organisers, there are a number of software compression programmes ⁽⁸⁾ that may allow you to reduce the file size of your presentation to fit onto a floppy disc. This is dependent however on the graphical content of your presentation. Ensure you check that there are the appropriate resources available at the conference to uncompress your presentation back to a compatible format.

Table 1

Data storage type	Amount of storage
3.5” Floppy Disc	1.40 MB
CD – R(W)	650 MB
ZIP 100/250	100 – 250 MB
Jaz	1GB – 2GB

Where possible try to copy your presentation to the laptop you may be borrowing at the conference. The computers Central Processing Unit (CPU) is much quicker at reading and displaying text, images and video from the computers hard drive than from a 3.5” floppy disc. This is less apparent for CD media.
If you are going to utilise a Zip/Jaz device as a storage media, ensure there are facilities at the conference to read your disc. There is usually a contact name and number when you are presenting at a conference.
Above all, don’t panic. The audio-visual teams at conferences are professionals and very helpful. There is always someone ready to lend a hand should any technical hitches occur.
E-mail your presentation to yourself. Obtain an internet address, such as Microsoft Hotmail ⁽⁹⁾ or yahoo ⁽¹⁰⁾ and e-mail your presentation as an attachment to yourself. There are usually internet resources available at conferences and provided the presentation is less than the capacity of a 3.5” floppy disc and the maximum attachment limits of e-mail address, this provides another form of back-up for your precious presentation.
If you are relying on using a laptop provided by the conference, ensure you are fully aware of the version of software used. Some features of older versions of Microsoft PowerPoint may not have the same dynamic features as PowerPoint XP

When saving your presentation, images are embedded in the presentation. Thus the presentation does not rely on searching for the original image when the presentation is opened. However, this is at present not true for video files.
Ensure you save the original video file alongside your presentation, otherwise the video will not run in your presentation.

Care and attention should be taken when constructing your presentation, especially the use of images and movie clips you may have utilised. With the instantaneous availability of graphical data via the internet, it has never been easier access to information. However, one needs to be aware when using any form of data, that Copyright law exists to protect the expression contained in any original work ⁽¹¹⁾. Before you reproduce any images or data from someone else’s work, permission must be obtained. A useful place for information regarding copyright issues is the Copyright Licensing Agency (CLA) ⁽¹²⁾.
The use of medical images in a presentation usually means obtaining the permission of your employer ⁽¹¹⁾. It goes without saying that patient demographics should not be shown on any medical images utilised for presentation purposes.

Finishing touches

Provide your contact details for any correspondence as a result of your presentation. Some people don’t like to ask questions at major conferences, and although it will be stipulated which hospital or institute you are representing at the conference, contact details are crucial to post-presentation communication.
Impress your audience and provide details to an on-line version of your presentation. As the internet matures, the tools required to create your own website are becoming simpler. In fact there is no need to become au fait with the raw hypertext mark up language (HTML), as was the case four or five years ago ⁽¹³⁾. It is now possible to export your presentation to HTML web pages direct from PowerPoint.
A number of Internet Service Providers (ISP) provide free Web space which will accommodate your website. If you only want your audience to view and print your presentation on-line, you can make it secure by converting it into a Portable Document (PDF) File. There are various software programmes that will allow you to create PDF files and ensure your work remains secure ⁽¹⁴⁾. Reading PDF files is performed using Adobe Acrobat Reader ⁽¹⁵⁾.
You may however need to clarify ownership of a presentation, especially if you are presenting on behalf of an Institute, University or Hospital.
Finally, if you have transferred your presentation from a form of storage media to a conference laptop, be courteous and remove the presentation from the laptops hard drive before you leave the conference.
This article has aimed to provide some practical aspects of presenting electronically at conferences. However, the dynamics of an electronic presentation cannot be shown in an article format. There is however an on-line PowerPoint tutorial available at www.griffithsm17.fsnet.co.uk.

References for this article, and some useful websites.