You don’t have to be theatrical to make a point

Every time I download a talk from www.ted.com I say to myself: “I bet this one will not inspire me or just blow me away”. And almost every time, I am wrong. My expectations keep becoming higher and higher, and still, I am not disappointed. This talk by Juan Enriquez is one of the best I have seen in TED, and that, as you know very well, is a very hard title to claim.

I will let you enjoy the talk as it is, because I am afraid that discussing it, might belittle it. I do, however, want to take the less obvious path and try to learn something about presentation skills from this talk.

A few weeks ago I wrote here that there is no “one right way” to give a presentation. Enriquez, in this talk, violates many of the most important rules of presentations. He is monotonic, he does not use his voice to confer his message and generally he transmits a feeling of boredom. His closing is lacking, both in rigour and in connection to the beginning of the speech. And still, I think his point is well taken. Which means, that you don’t have to magnificently control all the skills of “public speaking” in order to give a great presentation.

So what makes his talk so great? You would not believe it. The PowerPoint presentation. I know. We are used to the concept of “Death by PowerPoint” and when we imagine PowerPoint presentations we think of boring bullet lists and presenters who insist on reading to us what is written on the slide.

And then you look at talks like this and you understand the intensity and vigour that the right use of PowerPoint can instil into our presentations.

A few pointers:

• 1. Notice that Enriquez uses words scarcely in his slides. Slides are not there to be an outline of the lecture. They are supposed to amplify the speaker’s message. Especially note the fact that many times, he shows words in the slide, but does not read them at all. The audience can read. Don’t insult them by reading to them.
• 2. Use of pictures. Enriquez uses pictures that carry a message. Pictures that surprise. Picture that magnify the message. Many times they are funny (which is always a good thing), but they are always relevant.
• 3. Number of slides. I know that there are some experts who talk about the number of slides you need to put in a presentation or limit it in time. I personally don’t believe there is a right or wrong number or time (although I like the ted 20 minutes limit). In Enriquez talk we see a lot of slides that accompany the entire presentation and make each point more understandable. I think this keeps the crowd alert and uses both side of their brains. On the other hand, because there a lot of slides, we get one message per slide, thus, it is not to overwhelming or includes too much information to be absorbed.

A lot to learn!

 Elad

The story of elderly ladies on the bus

 

Photo by ellecteric

“I want our soldiers to stand up in order to make lace for elderly woman on the bus“.

When you think about it, standing up for elderly woman on a bus is a very polite behaviour. But the quoted sentence above, for me, holds much more than just good manners. When I was a junior commander of the operators of communication course in the Israeli Air-Force, our officer repeated it again and again.

What he tried to explain to our team was that he rather have us spend time on education and discipline than on teaching the soldiers the professional parts of the course. This was counter intuitive. Our task was to train Operators of communication course. But for him, making them better soldiers and persons was more important.

Today, I was reminded of this statement, while I was reading the book “Made to stick“.  Like with other management books I wrote about, this book does not need my promotion. So, in addition to recommending it, I will share a number of my thoughts:

1. I think the most important message of the book deals with trying to find the core value of your message and a memorable way to present it. The story about my commander is a great one. I often talk about it in workshops I give about leadership. One of the challenges mangers face is how to create a message that will allow his team to make decisions when he is not around. When my officer was not around, we could have easily known what his opinion would be. Do you know what your manager wants? Does your team know what you want? Most people are not sure what the goal of their department or company is. As Lewis Carroll Said: “If you don’t know where you are going, any road will take you there”. Don’t be surprised if you or your team decide to go onto the wrong road. There is a great need for more coherence regarding the core values.  If you don’t believe me, believe the CEO of the Coca-Cola company, Muhtar Kent. A Knowledge@Wharton article says: “He explained that his first priority upon assuming the helm at Coca-Cola — based upon what he had witnessed in other leaders in business and in government over the previous 35 years — has been to develop a new broad strategic vision for the Coca-Cola brand. Kent said the leaders he is striving to emulate ‘had the ability to create a clear and compelling vision and they had the ability to articulate and communicate it in a simple way’. 
2. When you chose your core values, it is important to stick to them, especially when it comes to intuition. Not only acting against your core values hurts you and your message. The trick is, sometimes, sticking to the core values means you need not to act in ways that seem to be right. In my example, it was passing on more study time for more discipline routine, even if it meant lesser grades for our soldiers. In the book, the writers give an example of southwest airlines, which decided to be “the cheapest airline company in America”. Surveys showed that passengers want the company to serve chicken salad in their flights instead of the usual peanuts. The manager of the company, stuck to his core values, and asked: “will this make us the cheapest airline company in America?”. The answer was off course negative. You read a lot about adjusting your service to the needs of the customers. The costumer is, after all, always right. Well, sometimes, the costumer is wrong. Many times, the right thing to do is to act according to your core values.
3. Two great concepts for those of us that deal with education and presentations. The power of a good story and the importance of being concrete and tangible. Once I did not believe in the power of stories in classes or presentations. I changed my mind. It happened after I realized that the stories are what I always remember best when I attend a presentation. Think about the last presentation you attended. Try to remember what it was about? Do you remember a story told there? You probably did. A story makes what you talk about to be tangible. So many times you see a lecturer talking about something without explaining what has does that have to do with listeners. Remember, if the lecture is about them, like everybody says, you need to explain to them why what you are talking about is important to them. The best way to do it is to talk about real life consequences of what you talk about. There always are.

Elad

Never start with the slides

Today I started building a new presentation. It is an idea that has been running in my head for a pretty long time. This one is different from other presentations I built till today, because I am not quite sure I will even give it. I am trying to see if I can create something of value. I have a few ideas who to give it to, but it is still vague. Currently I am just creating it for me, to help me think about the subject, hoping it will lead to something great.

I don’t know about you, but when I think of a presentation the first thing that pops into my mind is the slides. I can see many of the slides and what will be on them – the pictures, what I will say with the slide, how it will be revealed. This makes it very tempting for me to just start of by building the slides. This something I try not do. Granted, conveying ideas using pictures is sometimes very powerful. But you can jot down the idea of the slide without building the slide itself (perhaps on a back of a napkin, also see here). Instead, I write down the ideas for the slides and start writing the actual words I will use when i give the presentation. The actual speech itself. Only when I am sure about the main theme, the story, the idea I want to convey, I move to the slides. Sometimes, when I start building the slides I will go back and improve the words, but I always start with words first.

This process helps me remember something very important about using slides. The slides are not the presentation. I am. The idea is. The story is. The words I will say will be. The slides are just a tool. You can compare it to using humor. Humor is great tool for giving great presentations. When used in the correct way, it can turn a bad speech into a great one. But it is not a must. You give a wonderful and engaging presentation without using any humor at all. The same goes to slides usage. Slides can help you convey your idea visually. But first you need an idea. The slides can’t talk for you (and no, reading them out loud does not count). You don’t go writing your presentation around a joke. You don’t go writing your presentation around the slides.

Elad

Remarkable? Depressing. Stay positive!

Today, I saw this lecture by Seth Godin. Now doubt, it is worth you’re 20 minutes.

 A few after thoughts:

1. I don’t argue with what Seth is saying, but even he has to admit that it is, after all, a little depressing. If very good is very bad, because the only way to create something valuable is to be remarkable, it sets a very high standard. Now I understand better, why when I got 98 in a test my father always asked me two questions: (a) Why did you lose 2 points? (b) How much did the other people in the class got? Seth talks about business but he says that this is true to many other areas in life. Again, that is a depressing thought. Honestly, how many things have you done in your life you can say are remarkable? I know that I haven’t than many. But the important thing is how do you feel about the remarkable things you did do… still there is optimism hidden somewhere.

2. A few days ago I wrote here about a post by Seth regarding PowerPoint presentations and how to make them remarkable. One of his points was that a presentation should not be more than 10 minutes long. I did not agree with it, Lisa Braithwaite of speak schmeak even wrote a post about it explaining why in her eyes, you should not put a time limit on presentations. In this lecture, Seth shows why this rule can not even be considered a guide line. His lecture is more than twice his recommended time. It is still quite remarkable.

3. This lecture shows us once again, that preparation, passion, originality and humor are more important to a presentation than good design or other exaggerated pyrotechnics.

 Elad

Not to use PowerPoint and the taking of notes during a presentation

Seth Godin writes today an interesting piece about: “Nine steps to PowerPoint magic“. In it, he gives nine tips about how to use PowerPoint to deliver great presentations. I want to talk about 2 of these tips, one I agree with very much, and the second, I am not quite sure about.

The first and most important tip Godin gives is not to use PowerPoint at all. In his words:

Don’t use Powerpoint at all. Most of the time, it’s not necessary. It’s underkill. Powerpoint distracts you from what you really need to do… look people in the eye, tell a story, tell the truth. Do it in your own words, without artifice and with clarity. There are times Powerpoint is helpful, but choose them carefully.

Today, you can see many organizations that have fallen in love with the format of a PowerPoint presentation. There are some organizations in which it is expected (or worse – mandatory) to deliver information using Powerpoint. Many organizations created templates and rules about how to use this instrument which have nothing to do with giving a good presentation. PowerPoint usage has become a standard. Usually a bad one.

The problem with PowerPoint is that it is a tool that does not always fit the circumstances. Talking to an audience differs depending on the circumstances. Giving an inspirational speech about an idea and teaching something is not the same. Talking to 100 people is not the same as talking to 3 people. Not mentioning the differences in subject matter.

I remember when PowerPoint was starting to be used for giving classes in the one of the schools of the Israeli Air force where I was serving (yes, near the end of the last millennium). The commander of the unit was so impressed with intertwining new technology into the curriculum that he ordered every department in the unit to take at least three classes and build a PowerPoint presentation for them. I was talking to the officer in charge of guidance development and he told me this was an erroneous order, because PowerPoint should be used only if it can contribute to the class and improving it. It should not be a default setting.

I think it can be explained very easily if you think about a megaphone. Sometimes, a megaphone helps in making the crowd hear you and understand you. It is a great tool, if you are standing outside and talking to a large crowd. But if you are in a small room trying to talk to a small number of people, it would just seem ridiculous. The same is true with PowerPoint. Sometimes, it just makes you seem ridiculous.

If PowerPoint can contribute to your message or there is something visual you need to show your audience, use it, other wise you should think twice about using it. If you chose to use it, think carefully how to do it. PowerPoint can be used in different manners not only in the standard format we a used to seeing. For example, see here for using PowerPoint for presentations in small groups.

In the last weeks I have seen two great presentations that did not use PowerPoint at all. They did not need it. One is Malcolm Gladwell’s speech “Genius: 2012“. The second is Sir Ken Robinson’s speech “Do schools kill creativity?“

The second tip Godin talks about deals with note taking by the audience:

Too breathtaking to take notes. If people are liveblogging, twittering or writing down what you’re saying, I wonder if your presentation is everything it could be. After all, you could have saved everyone the trouble and just blogged it/note-taken it for them, right? We’ve been trained since youth to replace paying attention with taking notes. That’s a shame. Your actions should demand attention (hint: bullets demand note-taking. The minute you put bullets on the screen, you are announcing, “write this down, but don’t really pay attention now.”) People don’t take notes when they go to the opera.

Not that I have a problem with it, but I think Godin sets the bar a little high this time.

First, even if you are the best presenter in the world and have the most compelling message, there will still be some fluctuations in your presentation. And it is Ok that people write down things while during these fluctuations. Most people can write an idea down and continue to listen at the same time.

Second, Godin claims that a presentation should not be longer than 10 minutes. I am not sure that is always possible. But even in a 10 minutes presentation, the important idea is much shorter and usually repeats it self a number of times, because we all know the importance of repeation in presentations. The second time the same idea is presented – don’t you want your audience to write it down.

Third, I know that for me personally, when I feel like I have something to write down, it means the presentation is interesting and contributes to me. In the two aforementioned presentations I watched, I felt the urge to write some of the ideas down for later use during the speech.

Fourth, and more importantly, as Godin himself says – “We’ve been trained since youth to replace paying attention with taking notes. That’s a shame” – Maybe it is a shame. But that is the way people work – when you are presenting you should take that into notice. The all point of presenting is to create value for the listeners. I prefer they write own my main idea and remember it than having their full attention all the time and than having them forget my message afterwards because for some people the opposite of forgetting is writing.

 Elad