Before you just start building a bridge connecting to land masses over water, you typically ask yourself what is the goal here, the goal is not to just put a bunch of steel in the sky, the goal is to actually create a safe structure connecting to land masses, so that cars and trucks and trains can go over it safely. That's the goal. And here's one of the very hot things I find about engineers all over the world. They tend to be goal focused, which is good. They tend to want empirical evidence for what they do, which is good. They tend to want to do things that actually work.

That's good. But then they get up to give a speech and all of a sudden, all that is tossed aside, and many engineers, sorry if this sounds like a gross generalization, but I'm pretty sure you agree. Many engineers throw all that away. They think of as a speech as an opportunity to just tell people, everything they know, give them every little fact, every little detail every number about a particular project or a particular design. Where's the evidence that that works? So, I would ask you to take the very same approach you do with all your other work and start by asking yourself, what are the goals of this presentation?

Is it seeking budgetary approval? Is it seeking regulation approval? What is the goal that you're trying to do? I want you to write that down. Right now or write it down in one sentence. What is the goal of your next presentation