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STAC Summit Guide - Tech Brief Slide Prep

 

This portion of the speaker guide is for the team or person that is creating the slides.

ACTION: Submit your presentation here by the following deadlines:

Technical Briefs

We prefer that you submit a draft presentation or outline well in advance of the event, according to a schedule agreed with STAC. If you don’t know your deadline, please contact events@STACresearch.com right away.


STAC will review presentations for adherence to the presentation rules below, potentially ask for revisions, and upload them to the presentation machines. Slides are driven by an AV technician at the back of the hall. The technician will switch to each presenters slides as each speaker arrives on stage. Speakers will have a wireless presentation remote (aka “clicker”) at the podium and can drive the slides once they’re displayed. The presentation will be visible on the confidence monitor in front of the speaker. Speaker notes on slides will not be visible.

Slides should be provided in PowerPoint or PDF format using 16:9 aspect ratio. DO NOT use the following, as we cannot guarantee the features will work in the presentation environment:

  • embedded media
  • Internet links
  • slide timings
  • bright colors (especially yellow)

  • other complex PowerPoint features

It is recommended that you keep slides as simple as you can; use pictures where possible and large text.

When creating the slides, please keep in mind that STAC will distribute a PDF version of the presentation to our global membership after the event. Slides with many overlays and build effects do not work well in PDF form. You may provide an alternative PDF version if you would like.  If you prefer that we do not share your slides, please let us know. The STAC community would be grateful to view them, but we will respect your confidentiality. 

SUBMITTING SLIDES

We ask that slides are submitted by the event deadline, which is usually 1 week before the event. Multiple submissions create delays and disrupt preparation, so only one revision is permitted, which must be submitted no later than 48 hours before the event. Since slides are preloaded on our systems, we cannot accept any revisions after this deadline.

PRESENTATION RULES

Users and vendors value STAC Summits because they have a high substance-to-hype ratio (as well as high substance-to-FUD). To maintain those ratios, we have a few simple rules. 

Because there is very little time to make revisions after slides are submitted, we reserve the right to modify or remove slides that do not adhere to these rules. We encourage you to contact us if you need help interpreting these rules for your case. These rules were developed for vendor sponsors, but may also be relevant for non-sponsoring firms.

  • No slamming other products.  Fact-based claims of superiority versus the competitive field are OK but must not be directed at a particular vendor.  Note that a negative about a competitive product can almost always be rephrased as a positive about your own product.
  • How to use benchmarks:
    • It's OK to use STAC Benchmark results to make a comparison, if the report with the results is published and publicly accessible, you clearly identify what was tested, and you quote the SUT ID and Spec ID for each result (legible footnotes are fine).
    • If testing was just completed and a report could not be published in time for the event, STAC will present the results in our segment. You can refer the audience back to the results in our presentation, but may not present the results in your presentation.
    • Even if using STAC Benchmarks, a comparison should NOT be directed at a single named vendor. There’s too much room to tell only part of the story about the results or the systems tested. The exception is a comparison that appears as part of the Summary section of an audited STAC Report, provided the comparison is cited with the full context included in the Summary.
    • Non-STAC benchmark results must be clearly labeled “NOT STAC BENCHMARKS,” may not be compared to STAC Benchmarks, and may not be the basis for competitive comparisons, since the quality of non-STAC Benchmark results is open to question. If they are not labeled, we will do so in the final slides. Also bear in mind that if you present non-STAC Benchmarks for workloads that are covered by STAC Benchmarks, the audience will wonder why.

We encourage you to rehearse your presentation to ensure you can finish in the time allotted.