PRESENTATION GUIDELINES FOR sc'MOI

Conference NORMS: Typically, everyone goes to all the sessions, and a wonderful
conversation develops from day to day. Most folks arrange meals together,
and this is optional. You should have lots of opportunities to mix and mingle.

Presentation STYLE:
We strongly encourage CREATIVE, PARTICIPATIVE formats in place of traditional
Presentations. We have had theatre, line dancing, Tai Chi, sing-alongs,
And lots more, so be creative and FUN! Everyone can read your whole paper later!

Technology: (as little as possible!)
We prefer a storytelling style, NO POWERPOINTS FULL OF WORDS,
We will have a computer and projector for PowerPoint but please use it
For graphics, photos, images, and not dense printed pages.
We will also have an overhead projector, tape recorders, and speakers.
Our emphasis is on DISCUSSION not presentation.

Presentation TIME:
We ask that you keep presentations to under 15 minutes to allow
at least 15 minutes for discussion. For some sessions where topics are
closely related, we may have all “presenting” in the first 45 min to allow
for a 45 min discussion period.

Presentation CONNECTIONS:
We ask that you aid discussion by linking your topic to the others in you session,
and to what has come before in the conference.
Dress: business casual; you will see an occasional tie, but fewer ties than blue jeans.
Wear whatever you feel most comfortable wearing, we are a diverse group.
Check the weather forecast before you finish packing, and be aware
that often the Las Vegas hotels are freezing cold inside!

Meals:
Breakfast: a deluxe continental breakfast is provided by the conference,
and they will leave the food throughout the morning.
Lunch & Dinner: on your own, but groups usually gather at designated
times and places, so no one needs to eat alone!
NOTE: scMOI does NOT have a Sunday breakfast, the scMOI Sunday brunch is
Optional, just another opportunity for folks to get together before departing.
But STORI folks WILL have a workshop breakfast in the meeting room,
Both Saturday and Sunday, and you will have assignments to do both days.

Contact me if you have questions—
Hasta Las Vegas!!
Grace Ann
575-532-1693 or email garosile@nmsu.edu

FOR FIRST TIMERS:

If this will be your first sc'MOI presentation, there are some things you need to know. Our conference is on purpose not like other Academy presentations; ones where several presenters read notes from the screen, and take up all the air time so the audience gets no time to process the event. So first off get with the other presenters and allow sufficient time for audience comment. Sc'MOI audience expect to be involved; they are the discussants to your event. Sc'MOI is like a three day conversation among participants.

Serial Monologue: Please do not fall into the trap of serial monologue. Serial monologue occurs when presenters do not weave in responses and parallels to other presentations in their own. Your presnetation can respond and answer previous sessions. Serial monologue occurs when several presenters talk without noticing there are others in the room (other presenters, and the sc'MOI audience).

Dialogue: The purpose of your presentation is to provoke dialgoue and debate among the audience members. When serial monologue occurs, oftentimes the presenters have not left sufficient time in the session for audience interaction. Often the presenters are not in dialogue.

Storytellers: The roots of sc'MOI are in storytelling. We encourage presenters to tell the story of why their presentation has personal meaing. We encourage co-construction, a kind of stroytelling that is dialogic or invites dialogue, rather than monologue. In some storytelling conferences, using props, notes, and technology is strictly taboo. There is a concern among storytellers that technology is the death of imagination, that it is a way to subvert co-construction, and a way to kill dialogue.

Technology. Sc'MOI takes a middle way with regard to technology. We do not encourage PowerPoint. We have no arrangements for PowerPoint. Yet, if someone brings thier own projector, then PowerPoint occurs. Some of us Art-Luddites are not sure PowerPoint is conducive to storytelling. Some wonder if PowerPoint is killing dialogue. The reason is that PowerPoint is a linear process, a sequential way of telling. It does not allow for changing the order, skipping slides, going with the interaction of an audience. On the other hand, a PowerePoint of images, picutures of people, etc. can be quite stimulating to audience discussion. However, when PowerPoint is just the words the speaker is verbalizng, and speaker and audience are staring at the screen, then there is a deadening effect on dialogue. A Luddite ban on technology is not realistic. Somehow ways of using technoglogy that is not deadening to imagination and participation by the audience must be found.

Overheads: Overheads with photos, images, charts, or figures are OK. But, if you can do without them, some prefer to use their imagination to proactively engage with your ideas. There will be an overhead transparency projector. However, we recommend, as much as possible, words be verbalized rather than projected onto a screen. Presenters in other conferences put their speaking notes onto the transparency, then turn their back to the audience while they read from the screen. We discourage such practices. Why? Such a style destroys the face-to-face contact. Instead presenter and audience look at the screen. That means, that teller is no longer reacting to the audience. an alternative to doing any overheads is to put your essential images or diagrams on a piece of paper and give it to the audience.

Death of Dialogic Imagination: For storytellers, the verbalized images of the teller are re-constructed in the mind in the listener. For storytellers, the use of props (including technology) is a cruch.When words and lots of images are projected onto a screen, the listener no longer engages in active imagination. The presentation becomes passive; listening becomes passive; a lot like watching TV. The dialogic imagination is teller and listener co-telling. In co-telling images spoken by the teller are simultaneous with the images the listener constructs in their imagination. Dialog between the presenter-teller and the listener-telling in their head, can produce a variety of interpretations. This variety can lead to stimulating conversation in the room.

Reading vs. Telling: In some societies and Academies, presenters read their paper to the audience (or read their PowerPoints). There is a difference between reading and telling. In telling, the presenter's eyes are in contact with the audience. In telling, the teller is alert to signals from the audience. In telling, the story told is fine-tuned to the beat of the audience, and to what other presenters have said. In telling, there can be more spontaneity, more improvisation.

Theatre: At sc'MOI there is a long tradition of theatrical presentations. Every presentation is a bit of theatre. Tellers change the pitch, tone, and pace of their voice, become voices of different characters, and move about the stage. In more postmodern theatre, the invisible 4th wall between the actors and the spectators disappears. The spectators are invited onto the stage, and become spect-actors. Sometimes this is inviting audience members to participate; oftentimes it is a bit of experiential interaction with the audience. Sometimes it is a kind of theatre where the audience participates in dialogic imagination.

We hope this gives you an orientation into ways of sc'MOI presenting. Our ways of being dialogic with other presenters, and iwth our audience, is our distinctive sc'MOI competence. Help us build that competency.