Best practices in giving a presentation at the Wikimedia Foundation

Office IT welcomes your endeavor to present at the Wikimedia Foundation. This guide is here to assist in preparing the best presentation possible. The following guidelines are best practices to observe. If there are any questions please contact Office IT at techsupport@wikimedia.org.

On the day of the presentation it is important to have completely read this guide, answered all questions, and recorded any special requests. Before the presentation starts, please meet with Office IT beforehand to review the necessities of the presentation in order to smooth out any last details.

The Space, Equipment, and Tools

The Space

The Chip Deubner Lounge (henceforth just the 'Lounge') is located on the southwest side of the Foundation office at 1 Montgomery. It is designed for casual work, collaboration, and AV events.

Stage

If presenting a slide deck, the best place to stand is in between the two projectors. The camera facing the stage is in the back of the room.

AV Equipment

The Lounge has a wide variety of equipment, listed here in no particular order:

• Four handheld microphones
• Two lavalier (clip-on) microphones
• Audience camera
• Stage camera
• Two projectors
• Two retractable projector screens
• Confidence monitor for presenter
• Presentation remote
• AV live streaming system

Uses of the AV Equipment

The Lounge has a wide variety of uses, listed here in no particular order:

• Playing music
• Projecting physically connected laptops to projector(s)
• Projecting wirelessly connected laptops to projector(s) via AirPlay, Microsoft Wireless Display, or Chromecast
• Hosting Google Hangouts meetings
• Hosting Blue Jeans meetings
• Live streaming
• Any combination of the above.

Microphone Decisions

Things to think about as you prepare and work with Office IT.

• Where will the microphones need to be placed?
• Will the presenter be wearing a lavalier microphone or using a handheld microphone?
• Does the audience need a microphone? It is suggested that the audience use the provided question microphone stand.

Best Practices in Microphone Use

The presenter may use either a handheld or lavalier microphone.

• Handheld Microphone
  • Hold the microphone 3 to 5 inches away from your mouth at about a 45 degree angle.
  • The mute button is on the bottom of the handheld microphone. There is a small LED indicator that is green when the microphone is live and red when the microphone is muted.
• Lavalier Microphone (Clip-on lapel microphone)
  • A simple trick to determine where to correctly position the lavalier microphone is to touch your chin to your chest. The point where your chin touches your chest is usually a good position for the lavalier microphone.
• If using a microphone stand, take a short moment before speaking to adjust the height of the stand to a comfortable height.
• If the audience will be participating in the presentation (e.g., Q&A, comments), please remind them to use the provided audience microphone on the stand.
  • This is especially important for a Remote and Local presentation, as the remote participants/viewers will not be able to hear the audience member if a microphone is not used.

Laptops

A laptop running Mac OS High Sierra is available for participants to use while presenting and is the preferred method for presenters to display their content. Although any laptop with a functional HDMI, VGA, DisplayPort, or Thunderbolt 2 port may work, Office IT is best able to use and troubleshoot the designated presentation laptop. If a different laptop is used, support will be given on a best effort basis.

The Presentation

Will you be using slides in your presentation? Will you need to demonstrate something on your computer? Is it possible for you to use any computer for your presentation? Will you need someone to cycle through your slides or switch to other content, such as a spreadsheet?

Content

• Simple presentations with only a slide deck are usually the clearest way to communicate a message to an audience which includes remote participants.
• You may use your own computer or the presentation laptop (see Laptops).

Projectors and Monitors

Which screens will you be needing and what will be on those screens? Content may be displayed on any of the following:

• Left projector
• Right projector
• Confidence monitor

Audio

Will you be utilizing audio in your presentation?

• Audio from the presentation laptop, your laptop, or any other source can be played on the speakers. Please make sure to discuss your audio needs with Office IT ahead of time.
• There may be settings on your laptop that need to be changed in order to successfully output your audio to the room. These settings are usually found in System Preferences -> Sound.

Presentation Tips and Tricks

In order to help prepare you for our space, we have a handful of quick presentation tips and tricks.

• Be sure to perform a dry run of your content beforehand. A dry run includes flipping through your slides and/or displaying different content to screens, playing audio, testing microphones, etc.
• The two cameras are in a static position and can only rotate 180 degrees. One camera faces the stage and one camera faces the audience.
• A wireless presentation remote will be provided.
• There is a confidence monitor facing the stage for monitoring your slides and/or slide notes.
• Please remind the audience to use the microphone if they are participating in the presentation.

The Audience

Will the audience be local? Remote and local? Or Remote only?

Local Only

A Local Only audience includes only the people present in the Lounge.

• This is a simple conversation or presentation, with no remote involvement. A laptop can be attached to the projectors for visibility and microphones can be used for sound reinforcement.
• A Local Only presentation will not be recorded. Please indicate to the Office IT team if you wish to record a Local Only presentation.

Remote and Local

A Remote and Local audience includes the people present in the Lounge, remote participants in a Google Hangout or Blue Jeans meeting, and/or remote live stream viewers.

• Remote and local viewers will be able to see and hear the presenter, as well as any audience member who uses a microphone to ask questions or make comments.
• Slideshow-style presentations (such as a Google Docs slideshow or Microsoft PowerPoint presentation) will be viewable by both the local and remote participants.
• There is a hard limit on the amount of remote participants (25 in Hangouts and 100 in Blue Jeans).

Streaming and Recording

Will there be remote viewers? Will the presentation need to be recorded?

YouTube Live

Google Hangouts and/or Blue Jeans meetings can be live streamed using YouTube Live. The YouTube Live stream can be public, private, or unlisted. The recorded presentation will be posted to YouTube as soon as the event ends at the same link.