This first speaker talked about a new medical technology being developed to detect a certain type of cancer. I was always an "A" student in all of my science classes in school, but this stuff just went right over my head. The presenter, who had a Ph.d. in engineering, talked about.... it was so technical I couldn't even try to describe the technology to you. And what a shame that is.
Here is this brilliant man who is working diligently on developing a technology that can detect cancer easier and faster, but no one understood what he was talking about. He is in front of a room full of investors and isn't able to get his message across effectively. I thought it was a missed opportunity.
How could this man have made this terribly technical information more understandable so that he could take advantage of the opportunity to get funding? He need to develop his CASE. A CASE is very important for any presentation, but it is critical when giving a presentation about a technical issue.
Every presentation needs some part of a CASE: Comparison, Analogy, Story and/or Example. When discussing any technical information, you need to have one of these 4 elements. For us to be able to process the technical information we need to be able to compare it to something we already do understand. For example, if we're talking about light waves and how a certain type of focused light will detect cancer better, then we might want to compare the process to knives. A sharp knife will cut faster, smother, and more accurately than a dull knife, which is similar to how light waves work in detecting cancer. With a more focused (or sharp) light we are able to hone in on the cancer more effectively; in a sense, we're cutting away the bad from the good with out new "sharp knife".
There might be better analogies, but the point is that you no longer have to go into any great depth about the exact process and science behind the project. We are now able to easily understand the basic fundamentals of the process because we can compare it to something.
In the future, see how you might be able to develop your CASE for your presentations.
