Room Setup Preferences for Talks
Here is what I find works best for technology and setup when giving talks. Of course, not all will be feasible in any given venue, and I’m always flexible regardless of what is possible, but this is a summary of what I say when asked. Most of the ideas here are supported by social science research, and so should work for most anyone giving a talk.
Information technology
For slides, I prefer (1) a projection screen for the audience to see, (2) a laptop for me to see, hooked to a projector for the audience to see, with an up-to-date version of Adobe Acrobat Reader or Skim (PowerPoint is not necessary, but an up-to-date PDF viewer is), and (3) a clicker (to advance slides and click on links, with an integrated laser pointer) that works with the laptop so I can advance the slides (and click when necessary) without having to stand still. I will email my slides ahead of time (or give you a link to them on my website). If you use Zoom, please turn off the doorbell (i.e., “Sound notification when someone joins or leaves”). Everything seems to work out better when the speaker and IT expert are different people.
Presentation geography
I prefer to avoid podiums for the laptop when feasible (most are large edifices that stand between the speaker and the audience, tethered by cables, and often bolted to the ground set far from the audience). Much better to have the laptop on a small table in front of the audience so I can look at the laptop and over it at the audience (which is also better than speaking with my back to the audience to see the slides, as is necessary when there is no laptop at all). An unavoidable podium can sometimes be turned slightly so that I can stand next to it rather than behind it and still see the slides. Wherever I’m standing should not be obstructing the audience’s view of the slides (which would also mean that the lights would be in my eyes while I’m talking and thus I wouldn’t be able to see who I’m talking with).
[A particularly silly room geography is a big monitor behind the speaker at the front of the room for the audience and a small monitor, often too small to see on the back wall, for the speaker. Obviously, the number of people who will look at a monitor is not a good metric for how big it needs to be!]
Room arrangement
Communication facilitated by close physical distance between the audience and speaker, and among audience members (even if only to ensure that responses like laughter are contagious), are both important; they’re a big reason why live works better than video, and concerts are preferred to music downloads. As such, rooms (like dinner tables) slightly too small for the number of people are optimal. Rooms with many empty chairs, a large gulf between the speaker and audience, or with empty space between audience members, do not work well. The best audience arrangement is compact so that most audience members are surrounded by other audience members, and the speaker is immediately in front of them. A particularly bad geography, for example, is when the audience is all in a line or large half-circle so that they are only connected to other audience members on either side but not in front, back, and diagonally.