# Use Storytelling to Improve Technical Presentations and Memory

DevFeed: [Use Storytelling to Improve Technical Presentations and Memory](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/how-i-remembered-roshambo-2-0-rock-paper-scissors-lizard-spock-25309.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://kau.sh/blog/presentations-are-easy-just-tell-stories/>)

Author: Kaushik Gopal

Published: 2013-06-07T07:00:00Z

Content type: opinion

Language: en

Sources: [Kaushik Gopal's Site](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/kaushik-gopal-s-site.md>)

Topics: [Development](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/development.md>), [data](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/data.md>)

Tags: [data](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/data.md>), [dev](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/dev.md>), [tech](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/tech.md>)

## AI overview

The article argues that storytelling can make technical presentations more engaging, personal, and memorable. It also uses an example about emergency data to illustrate that information may become valuable later, when circumstances change.

## Source excerpt

The title was just to grab your attention. The tl;dr version of this post is: get good at story telling. It'll help you with two things: Becoming a better presenter. Improving your memory. I urge you though, to read this post in it's entirety. You might some of the stories interesting: Presentations are generally looked at with much anxiety and trepidation (within the tech community at least). There are two ways to combat this: Practice like crazy (joining a group like Toastmasters helps) Have something interesting to say. Obviously, you have to do both to become a good presenter, but I want to focus more on the latter point. You know what most human beings find interesting? Stories! Even crappy ones. We're wired from birth to like stories. If i heard two presentations, both of mediocre quality, i would definitely prefer the one that had a story to tell. I think stories make your presentations more personal and relatable. Heck, it doesn't even have to be your own. People relate more easily to stories because they feel they can associate themselves with your pain/experience. A post on ninjasandrobots (how cool is that domain name!) talks about leading with pain. It boils down to telling a story. Using stories to captivate ## If you tell a great story, then it sticks. I have a professor here in CMU, that uses this tactic and boy is it mesmorizing. It totally helps that he's got the experience (MIT, previous CTO of the research dev labs of a tech giant that makes phones etc. Hint: if you've used a mobile phone in the past 5-8 years, you have definitely used his ex-company's phones). We were working on a project with him on collecting sensor data. He gave us an example of how data is always valuable. The only problem, is that the value of that data is realized at a different time. He gave us this example: the fire department had a service where people could call in emergencies, along with pictures of the site. You can't really control the inflow of data with the public,