Proposals and Oral Presentations

1. Proposals and Oral Presentations Created by Bing C. Wang Modified by John A. Chandy Engineering Design

2. Introduction • Communication is key to • Manage your project • Getting your project funded • Sell the merits of your project • Communication skills required • Oral presentations • Written proposals Engineering Design

3. Outline • Oral Presentation • Know your audience • Organization and Focus • Presentation Style • Time Management • Proposals • Know your audience • Proposal requirements • Proposal structure Engineering Design

4. Oral Presentation: Know your audience • Clearly identify the audience’s depth of knowledge • Do not derive semiconductor physics to investment bankers • Do show fundamental understanding of engineering to whoever is giving the grades ! • Clearly identify the audience’s interests • Investment Bankers want to make $$$$ • Your professors want to make sure you understand engineering • Everyone likes to be entertained! Engineering Design

5. Know your audience • Do research on your audience. • What does the audience want to hear?? • Venture Capitalists? • How you’re going to make them money • Naval Research Managers? • How you’re going to improve their ships’ capability to communicate Engineering Design

6. Outline • Oral Presentation • Know your audience • Organization and Focus • Presentation Style • Have fun! Enthusiasm is contagious • Proposals • Know your audience • Proposal requirements • Proposal structure Engineering Design

7. FOCUS • What is the point? Why am I here? • oral presentations • For long talk, can lose audience easy • Avoid lengthy equations • Unavoidable in most ECE lectures • A picture is worth a thousand words • NOT, a picture with a thousand words Too Many Details for most talks Engineering Design

8. Focus • Remind audience of important points. • Detailed Technical figures may be unavoidable in engineering presentations • If detailed picture is absolutely necessary, emphasize important details visually Conditions Important! T=25C Engineering Design

9. Organization: Provide outline of talk • Oral Presentation • Know your audience • Organization and Focus • Presentation Style • Time Management • Proposals • Know your audience • Proposal requirements • Proposal structure Engineering Design

10. Organization • Easy for audience to lose big picture • Get lost in details • Useful tip: redisplay the talk outline for each topic • Highlight present topic • Remind audience the organization of the talk Engineering Design

11. Organization: Basic Structure • Start with Introduction • Motivations • Why is this interesting • Provide outline of the talk • Can be redisplayed to show topic progression • Background material as needed • Your new ideas • New and better ways to do …….ship2ship communications, make $$$$, lose weight, etc • Defend your ideas • Examples are helpful • Conclusion Engineering Design

12. Organization • Powerpoint Rules • Keep it simple • Cut clutter • At the most two font families • No more than one or two charts or figures per slide • 666 rule • 6 words per bullet • 6 bullets per page • 6 word slides in a row • Be consistent Engineering Design

13. Organization • Powerpoint Sins (Joseph Sommerville, http://entrepreneurs.about.com/cs/marketing/a/7sinsofppt.htm) • Slide Transitions and Sound Effects • Standard clipart • Presentation templates • Text-Heavy slides • Text and images are too small • Reading the slides • Faith in technology Engineering Design

14. Outline • Oral Presentation • Know your audience • Organization and Focus • Presentation Style • Time Management • Proposals • Know your audience • Proposal requirements • Proposal structure Engineering Design

15. Talk to the audience • Obtain and maintain interest • Make eye contact with people in different parts of the room • Use examples • “We will build an optical communication network using dense wavelength division multiplexing with polarization division multiplexing to transmit Terabit bandwidth telecommunication signals” BORING! • “Doesn’t it drive you nuts when it takes you 20 minutes to download the DOOM3 trial version?” • “We will build a network that will download it in 10 seconds using optical fiber!” Engineering Design

16. Dress Code • Depends on the setting • Conferences can range from shorts/t-shirts to suits • Find out ahead of time what the prevailing dress code is • Always err to the more conservative • At a minimum - dress slacks and dress shirt • Proposals • Usually suits - at a minimum blazer with tie Engineering Design

17. Humor • Be appropriate! • Invited talks, lectures, okay to use some jokes. • People are more awake if they’re laughing • Proposal talks, i.e. asking for money in a competitive bid, be more serious. • Humor maybe misconstrued as not taking the task seriously Engineering Design

18. Outline • Oral Presentation • Know your audience • Organization and Focus • Presentation Style • Time Management • Proposals • Know your audience • Proposal requirements • Proposal structure Engineering Design

19. Time Management • First rule of presentations • KNOW HOW MUCH TIME YOU HAVE!!! • Nothing irritates an audience more than a presentation that runs long - especially if its boring • Keep a watch or clock easily visible • Know ahead of time which slides you can skip if you are running long • Skip implementation details • Show results - that’s what impresses people • Good rule of thumb - 1 to 2 minutes per slide Engineering Design

20. Time Management • Best way to judge time is to practice ahead of time • Do a run through as a team and with your advisor • Practice as if you were doing the actual presentation • You can catch places where you may not be expressing the material clearly enough • Use the notes feature to help you • Practice enough times so that it is natural • You should be able to know what the next slide is so you can transition naturally Engineering Design

21. Outline • Oral Presentation • Know your audience • Organization and Focus • Presentation Style • Time Management • Proposals • Know your audience • Proposal requirements • Proposal structure Engineering Design

22. Proposal: know your audience • Research projects • Proposals to government agencies are all peer reviewed. • National Science Foundation funds 10-15% of submitted proposal • Other external proposals also undergo competitive reviews by panels or individuals • Judged on strength of ideas, quality of writing, ability to deliver, and team’s prior record • Interested in advancement of science and/or engineering • Need to convince agency your ideas advance science/engineering • If there is a specific question, ANSWER IT! • $$$ for ways to improve spectral efficiency of optical comm, etc • So answer HOW you’re going to do that. Engineering Design

23. Proposal: know your audience • High Tech Start-ups • Proposals to Venture Capital firms are reviewed by firm’s partners • Most venture capital firms fund <1% of proposal • VC firm may hire experts or consultants for due diligence • Judge on strength of team members, market appetite for the ideas, and quality of ideas • Interested in making money. • What are the chances of this company going public? How soon? • What are the chances that a large corporation will buy this company? • Need to convince VC that the idea will make money Engineering Design

24. Proposal: know your audience • Internal project proposals • Proposals will be reviewed by various levels of management • Management may or may not be technical • Final project proposal may need sign off from different divisions of the company including sales, marketing, support, manufacturing, etc. • Proposal needs to make a business case • Does new project/product align with current business? • Do the projected revenues justify the associated costs of project development? • Are there available resources within the company to complete the project? - money, people, equipment, etc. • If pure research, how does it advance the long-term goals of company? Engineering Design

25. Outline • Oral Presentation • Know your audience • Organization and Focus • Presentation Style • Time Management • Proposals • Know your audience • Proposal requirements • Proposal structure Engineering Design

26. Proposal Requirements • Some proposals have multiple stages • First cut: white paper, or pre-proposal • Second cut: proposal • Third cut: on-site presentation • Page requirement is indication of how much the funding manager wants to read!! If agency require 5 pages, and you write 50 pages. Yours will be read last….if at all! • Proposals require resumes of applicants • Often not necessary for white papers • You address very specific questions. Engineering Design

27. Proposal Requirements • Only in school will you get a letter grade, A, B, C, D, F, on your proposal • Everywhere else, it’s $$$$ or no $$$$ • School grades you on basic metrics, i.e. organization, ideas, preparation, results • Everywhere else, it’s competitive bidding. There are no B+ or A-. You just won’t get a dime. Engineering Design

28. Outline • Oral Presentation • Know your audience • Organization and Focus • Presentation Style • Time Management • Proposals • Know your audience • Proposal requirements • Proposal structure Engineering Design

29. Basic Outline • Title • Summary • Background • Solution [technical proposal] • Project phases, timing, milestones • Budget • Information about personnel and collaborators Engineering Design

30. Introductory Elements • Attractive but meaningful title [title page typically includes agency to which proposal is submitted; contact point] • Summary [clear statement of what is proposed] • Background [statement of the problem to be solved including importance]. Engineering Design

31. Technical Proposal • Body of the proposal • Theory [clearly explain relevant theory] • Approach [clearly state your solution] • Preliminary experimental results • Very helpful! Engineering Design

32. Project Plan • Phases • Timing • Milestones [what are the key intermediate accomplishments] • Graphical presentation works well here. • Break down the work into modules. Look for a logical organization. What tasks must be completed before subsequent phases can be undertaken? Which tasks can be done in parallel? Engineering Design

33. Budget • If you can, try to find out what the funding agency is willing to spend • Typically, funding agencies have detailed instructions on Budget • Should be reasonable for what you propose to do • Typical categories - Salaries [include indirect costs] - Equipment - Supplies - Travel - Administrative - Overhead [40-60% universities, >100% companies] Engineering Design

34. Conclusion • Oral presentations; • know your audience, • organize and focus, and • talk to your audience. • Proposals for funding - Know the funding agency government or commercial interest? - Present you case clearly and concisely - Answer the question - competitive process Engineering Design

35. Proposal Presentation Schedule • October 7: • Team 193 Sikorsky "Wireless Instrumentation" - Bonner, Grogan, Rusch, Vold • Team 194 CT Corsair - Bertrand, Mosch, Sweat, Tartaglino • Team 176 Physical Inspection Technique - Guerrera, Nesbit, Stevens • Team 177 Virtual Lab - DiFederico, Tobey, Ward • October 9: • Team 175 Command and Control of UAV - DeJarnette, Sullivan, Zhang • Team 184 Coordinated Command and Control of UUV - Domrese, Khare, Maddocks • Team 195 Autonomous Control of Vehicles - Henry, Wilson, Wood • Team 185 Underwater Acoustic Communications Security - Grate, Gilbert, King, Samir • Team 182 Lenze - Aldrich, Huang, Norman, Trombetta • Team 186 Hardware-in-the-loop Testbed - Eaddy, Gobin, Pence • Team 187 Hybrid GoKart - Blake, Calkins, Ojha Engineering Design

36. Proposal Presentation Schedule • October 14: • Team 178 UTC Carrier - Heng, Leask, Qeriqi, Raghunathan • Team 191 iDevices - Dinh, Garrard, Guster, Rizvi • Team 188 Miniature Near IR Imaging System - Capuano, Dhanakaran, McMenemy, Miller • October 16: • Team 180 Koffee Karousel - Adamson, Barnett, Duffy, Okafor • Team 192 Sikorsky "Stand Alone Flight Display System" - Radlbeck, Cai, Hammerman, Wan • Team 179 Phonon - Crespo, Rowe, Trapp, Ulatowski • Team 181 Trans-Tek - Meyer, Soto, Williams, Wolff • Team 183 Qualtech - Farley, Felekey, McLean, Zaborowski • Team 189 Integrated Thermo-electric Photovoltaic - Wang, Weiss, Xenophontos • Team 190 Linear Induction Machine - Hackney, Rarey, Yela Engineering Design