Good talks. Content or Speaker?

Is it the content that matters, or the speaker? I think the answer is obvious, but for the sake of discussion I'll continue.

After attending many talks, listening to several seminars, giving a few of my own presentations, and finally watching a multitude of YouTube videos, the answer lies in both. A novel presentation can be ruined by a poor speaker (here I'm referring to poor flow, lack of confidence, or wrong emphasis). But similarly it seems a good speaker can still give a bad talk (again not organized, or overall lack of new, fresh content).

Here are some things I've noticed in good talks. The speaker is calm and natural, and nothing else beyond that. It's easy for an audience to detect nervousness, or something that is too emphasized, too forced. Being excited isn't bad in science, after all we're humans and not robots. But forcing excitement lacks the genuineness of an Eureka moment.

A good talk walks you through the whole process. You're not just being thrown theories, data, and results at you, being forced to absorb it. Instead you're suppose to walk through the thoughts of the speaker, run through the same procedures, and see the same results as they did.

And there's a multitude of ways this can be achieved. Sometimes it's breaking down a presentation into simpler concepts for the audience to understand. These may or may not be relevant to science, but as long as the analogy is drawn and the audience recognizes it. Other times you have to show the flow, step by step, and spoon feed your audience in a subtle manner. Make sure they appreciate the math as much as you do, rather than being intimidated by it. 

Often, the good talks come from the older professors. (I have heard excellent talks from students and post-docs, but I am simply stating an observation with the first point.) But then we have to realize how many talks they must have gave. How many "ums" and pauses they made, how many times they thought they gave a poor talk. How many times they were tongue tied, wavering their voice, or their knees shaking below them.

Public speaking comes with experience. Every opportunity you are presented with a talk, you should strive for the best. Even if it all goes wrong, as long as you have learned and taken something out from it, it was not a lost cause. As a scientist, being able to give a good talk is absolutely something we should strive for.