Traci Nathans-Kelly, Ph.D., currently teaches for both eCornell and on campus in Cornell University’s College of Engineering. As a member of the Engineering Communications Program, she interacts daily to help engineers to hone their technical messaging, whether it be via presentations, on paper, in meetings and teams, or online channels. Dr. Nathans-Kelly has worked with practicing professional engineers, technical experts, scientists, and related field experts for over 20 years, helping them to strengthen their abilities to become impactful contributors in their organizations. She served as the editor for the IEEE Professional Communication book series for Professional Engineering Communication, with 12 books on the shelves for the series. Dr. Nathans-Kelly’s book, Slide Rules: Design, Build, and Archive Presentations in the Engineering and Technical Fields, was co-authored with Christine G. Nicometo. Aside from campus teaching, Dr. Nathans-Kelly conducts workshops and training for such entities as The Boeing Company, Flad Architects, IEEE-USA, Wolters Kluwer, and a host of others. In the past, she has trained practicing engineers and technical experts at At&T, CN Railroad, FedEx, GE, Google, Harley Davidson, IBM, Intel, John Deere, Johnson Controls, Kohler, Kraft, Lockheed Martin, Medtronic, Mercury Marine, Motorola, NASA, Ocean Spray, Sanofi Pasteur, Sirius, SkullCandy, US Bureau of Indian Affairs, the US Department of Defense, the US Army, the US National Security Agency, the US Navy/Nuclear Submarines, and many more.
COURSE OVERVIEW
As a person working in a technical field, you most likely have to give talks or presentations to different audiences, some of whom will be non-experts or decision makers outside your sphere of expertise. In this course, you will look at your own current practices for giving talks as a technical expert and establish a set of action items for improvement. You will look closely at your old habits and establish new ways to design, build, and deliver effective in-person and virtual presentations for an array of internal and external audiences. You will also examine, reevaluate, and apply best practices for engineering, technical, and scientific presentations, and explore current and past presentation practices that do not achieve the intended goals and results. This examination will help you refine your ability to deliver an effective message.
Specifically, you will perform an assessment of presentation techniques, both personal and at your workplace. From that starting point, you can reengineer your presentations to meet specific technical communication needs. Most importantly, you will have an opportunity to discover and articulate your organization's presentation culture, identify areas for improvement in your own slide design and presentation skills, set goals for leveraging effective new presentation habits, and formulate a detailed action plan for improvement. Throughout this course, you will read various selections from Dr. Traci Nathans-Kelly's book “Slide Rules,” which contains helpful insights and examples that you can apply in your own presentations.
Furthermore, you will prepare for a specific work-related talk and define the needs of co-presenters, audience members, subject matter experts, and other stakeholders.
- Articulate the shortcomings and strengths in your presentations
- Formulate a plan for improvement
- Prepare for a specific work-related talk, identifying and documenting the needs of your audience, SMEs, other stakeholders, and co-presenters when there is more than one speaker
How It Works
Course Author
Who Should Enroll
- Engineers
- Technology professionals
- Business leaders
- Entrepreneurs
- Educators
- Consultants
- Anyone interested in effectively conveying ideas to a professional audience
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