ffolliet

ffolliet

At work I'm a Consultant Paediatric Surgeon. That involves Surgical Oncology, Neonatal Surgery and Trauma. There's also a lot of teaching and mentoring. None of this actually makes me particularly clever. I'm pretty heavily into improving presentations and long for the world to lay down the weapon of bulletpoints and embrace creative and engaging presentations. I lead presentation workshops and am currently working up a book on presentations. I did a wee thing at TEDx Stuttgart in 2014 of which I'm quite proud https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFza3W87eDg Outside all of that I struggle to keep fit, cycle a bit and the odd triathlon. I'm a father, singer, laugher, learner, sharer, blogger, thinker, strummer and much more.

The sigmoid curve of preparation

sigmoid curve

The (perceived) overall value of a presentation, the p cubed value, is based on the product of the story (p1), the supportive media (p2) and the delivery of this (p3). Mathematically I wonder if the relationship between the p cubed value…

Sparklines

The most important part of your presentation is p1 (the story). A presentation is not simply a list of facts: it is your personal interpretation of those facts for the benefit of this specific audience. The challenge for most presenters…

It’s alright for you, you’re gifted

I have been working and thinking deeply on presentations now for nearly 8 years now. Please read this post on why it is preZENtationskills. It is humbling to be invited to speak on this topic at various events and I…

I need to present more data. You don’t

A frequent question from clinicians about presentations involves “all the data I need in my presentation.” I’ve addressed this before in various posts but it bears repeating. At a scientific presentation you are not there to present your data; you…

How to use a bulletpoint…

Professor John Ioanidis from Stanford University spoke at The Cochrane Colloquia in Vienna yesterday. His opinion on systematic reviews in biomedical research is that they are unreliable. I know this because I searched on Twitter using this string ” John Ioannidis…

I wandered, lonely as a cloud.

It  is a big step in a presenter’s development moving out from behind the lectern. It allows you to engage more effectively with the audience and will significantly improve both your p3 and p cubed value overall. It is not…

Prepare for failure

SO, the Chair has introduced you and you stride up to the stage, there’s a flicker behind you and your title slide appears on the 20m high screen. You press the remote and everything goes black, for a second then…

It’s for you…

There’s a great post over on at  giving an impassioned plea from audiences in scientific meetings about what “powerpoint” is doing to medical conferences and how changing it makes a massive difference. Yet still the call from those who oppose…

Breaking Bad (habits)

Have you ever struggled to give up a bad habit? Something you knew was unhelpful, unproductive but it was just so easy to slip back into despite knowing many reasons why you shouldn’t be? Your presentation style is probably the…