MAKING TIME TO PRACTICE OUR IDEAS

We all know that practice is important to a strong presentation, but I’m beginning to think about expanding my definition of practice to include the practice of the “ideas” or the “content” of the presentation, as opposed to just practicing delivery.  In the teaching of writing, this is usually the revision stage where we go back and polish, focus and refine our content.  When we practice delivery, we sort of assume that the content is all set (or nearly all set) at that stage, so we don’t usually build into the presentation planning time to practice our ideas or our content.  What does that mean?  Well, I think it means planning time to share and get feedback earlier in the process, so that we can try out our ideas to see if they are powerful, audience oriented and focused.  This might be an informal discussion where we go over our outline, our data, or different strategies for audience engagement, in a more relaxed, strategic and critical way without simultaneously having to worry about the dynamics of public delivery.  When we practice our delivery, it almost seems like it is too late to really be critical about the ideas.  So if we practice our content, then we can have a better chance to get the content perfect, which I believe will make the delivery process much easier as well. 

Nervous? Remember, it’s not about you. It’s all about them.

 

There has been a lot written about how to overcome nervousness in presenting.  My feeling is that it really helps for the speaker to consider the question, “why are you giving this presentation?”  The answer to that question is probably not, “to show off how good of a speaker I am” or “to illustrate my talents as a presenter.”  More likely, the reason we give presentations is that we have some valuable information we feel is important to share with our audience, so it is not really about us at all (and what we look like, or sound like).  Instead it is about our audience, their needs and our desire to help them in some way by sharing important information.  If, as a speaker, you can shift our mental focus from our own emotions, to the needs of the audience, to their emotions and to using the presentation as a way to help the audience, then that mental shift can help eliminate some of our nervousness.  Think if it this way.  If you are setting out thinking primarily about what the audience needs and how you can help them and your primary goal is to focus on their needs, then that will do a lot to help you as a speaker to shift your attention away from yourself.  Don’t think about yourself; think about your audience. 

 

This insight came to me after a presentation done by a student on celiac disease.  She was very, very nervous about presenting.  Her speech was full of important, if rather dry information and it had little audience appeal.  In our revision process, I asked the student why she had chosen the topic and she explained that she suffered from this disease and that when she was first diagnosed, she was scared.  All she could think about was what she could no longer eat.  But after having learned to live with the disease, she came to understand that is was not nearly as bad as she thought—in fact life was much better for her since her diagnosis.  She wanted to share that insight with those individuals who might feel as scared as she did when she was first diagnosed.   So we set out to revise her content and focus in this way.  This shift in focus from “giving a speech on celiac disease” to sharing her own experiences in a sincere desire to help out others, had a dramatic effect on her presentation and on her level of nervousness, because she stopped thinking of it as giving a speech and began thought of it as an effort to reach out to other people and help them.  She was still a little nervous, but it was not as overwhelming as it had been in her first try. 

 

I think it makes sense.  If the speech is all about us, as presenters, all about being judged and evaluated, then it will make us nervous.  But if a presentation is about a sincere desire to help out our audience, then it is a lot less scary.

Do You Have a WISC?

We all know what a WIIFY is (what’s in it for you), but do you know what a WISC is?  Thanks to Jacob Brier, who came up with this acronym for the phrase Why I Should Care (WISC).  That’s the question that every audience member will ask him or herself during your presentation and your job as a presenter is to make them have the WISC, make them care. 

Transformation Not Transference (continued)

Female MBAs  As an example of transformation, not transference, take a look at some slides prepared by my colleague, Richard Miscovich.  The first slide represents transference, the three that follow represent various ways of transforming the data. 

Transformation Not Transference

I’d like to build on something that I mentioned last week about making the content of presentations come alive.  I said, “We need to do more than transfer information from an outside source to our audience; we need to instead transform information by doing something with it—filtering it through our consciousness or experiences; putting it in a unique context; in other words, surprising our audience with what we do with the content and in the process telling them something they don’t already know.”  This kind of transformation helps us to make audiences care and helps them to remember what we are saying. 

 

I think that this is one of the primary problems I see with presentations in which the presenters simply gather some information from a source, say a website, and then replicate the information in their presentation.  First of all, the chance that someone else has already seen that source is pretty good, which makes the presentation rather unnecessary.  Second, this kind of transference is missing the input of the speaker, whose job it is to do something important or interesting with the information. 

 

So what kinds of things can we do to transform information?  Here are some thoughts which arose out of our class discussion last week:

 

1. Put the information in a new or surprising way by shifting the context in which we look at it.  That might mean comparing it to something else to give the audience a clearer perspective on what it means.  It also might mean changing the frame around the information so that it takes on a new meaning. 
2. Make the information personal.  Instead of just giving some general statistics, try and translate the statistics into information that has personal meaning for the audience.
3. Use the information to tell a story. Translate raw data into a personal story to make it meaningful and memorable. 

Much of this thinking is derived from Heath and Heath’s fabulous book, Made to Stick, which does an amazing job of exploring how to make people remember what you say.  My goal for an upcoming post will be to provide concrete examples of all these things, since examples are another way to make people remember.  Any suggestions?   

Presentation Planning Part 2

I think this is where Aristotle’s rhetorical triangle comes in—because in Aristotle’s understanding of rhetoric, credibility is connected to two things, the message itself (or the content) and the speaker’s ability to tap into the needs of the audience.  So if we are not lucky enough to have some kind of reputation that precedes us in a presentation, then we have to do some hard work to earn credibility for ourselves.

1. Innovative Content That We Know Very Well.  Two things here—first we have to know our stuff (no reading from prepared notes) and second, we have to make some effort to bring information into the presentation that is innovative in some way.  We need to do more than transfer information from an outside source to our audience; we need to instead transform information by doing something with it—filtering it through our consciousness or experiences; putting it in a unique context; in other words, surprising our audience with what we do with the content and in the process telling them something they don’t already know.  To do that, we need to be creative and innovative in our thinking and presenting.  This takes time and research and planning.
2. A Deep Understanding of Our Audience and Their Needs. In order to decide whether information going to inspire our audience, we need to spend quite a bit of time understanding and exploring the world from their point of view.  Of course, this also takes research and planning, but it will help us speak to the audience’s needs and interests and to frame our content in a way that is relevant and meaningful to them. 

Presentation Planning

I’ve had enough of grappling with the philosophical question of what makes a good presentation—I’m a little dizzy.  Instead I want to move on to more practical matters. So I’m thinking a lot about what good presentation planning should include.  Here are some ideas:

1. Rhetorical Genuiness (or an appropriate topic).  One of the big differences between the work we do in the classroom and the work we do in the professional world is that in the real world, we don’t typically have to “pick” a topic; instead the topic is determined for us by the event or because of our area of expertise or both.  So in an academic arena, is it not unusual to find students giving presentations about things they don’t know a lot about or about topics that are kind of random—in other words, topics that are not rhetorically genuine.  In the professional world, this is not as much of a problem since most of us speak about what we know. 
2. Strong Credibility:  The need for rhetorical genuineness presents a real problem for those of us without a lot of experience or expertise because we know that a central ingredient in a good presentation is credibility and if the speaker is not experienced with the topic then it is more difficult to earn or build credibility with the audience.  That’s why, though it is interesting to watch very established public figures give presentations, it seems unfair to use them as models for the rest of us, because these presenters begin with a huge advantage—they walk in the room, usually, with an already established credibility because of who they are and what they have done in the past (or because of their mesmerizing personal stories or experiences as in the case of Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor http://www.ted.com/index.php or Randy Bausch (see link in previous post).)  So where does that leave the rest of us?  At a distinct disadvantage because if we don’t have an inspirational story or an established reputation, we have to “earn” credibility in the process of speaking.  How do we do that?  (to be continued . . . )

What makes a good presentation (again)?

I’ve been watching many interesting presentations lately on the internet.  Check out the Toastmaster’s world champion of public speaking at this link:  http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=UpnGvCMstWg&feature=related and check out the amazing array of presentations from the TED conference here:  http://www.ted.com/index.php

As I search for useful models (because I am teaching students about how to give a good presentation), I continue to ask “what makes a good presentation?” and struggle with how to come up with criteria against which to evaluate presentations.  Also check out this list of the top 10 presentations of all time. http://www.knowhr.com/blog/2006/08/21/top-10-best-presentations-ever/   [In a particularly insightful moment last week, I decided that the only criteria should be that the presenter makes the audience listen and care—nothing else matters. Oh, and add to that that the presentation style has no obvious distractions that detract from the message getting across clearly.]

I’m thinking all this in the midst of our presidential campaign and all the media discussions about the persuasiveness of Barack Obama vs. Hillary Clinton (heart vs. head, inspiration vs. information, collaboration vs. competition) and I seem, instead of getting closer to an answer, to be getting farther away from one.  That’s because, in the case of each presenter, what I like about each of them is different.

I like Barack Obama’s style because he has charisma (more about that later) and because he talks a lot about collaboration in government (that would be a nice change) and working with people as against to working against them.  I don’t like Hillary Clinton’s style as much because it is not as inspirational, though I do respect her experience and her command of the information she presents—she really seems to know her stuff.   I have a huge amount of respect for John McCain’s political background and his experience as a prisoner of war.  In every case, there seem to be more differences than similarities, differences which relate to the source of the speaker’s credibility–what makes the presenter trustworthy, believable, likable?  Aristotle called it ethos.  In some cases, it could be their innovative thinking (see Seth Godin at this link) http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/28 or because of their inspirational message (see Rick Warren here) http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/71 or because their personal story makes them more credible (see Randy Pausch here) http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8577255250907450469&pr=goog-sl All of these speakers have different messages and styles, but they all have a high level of credibility, the source of which varies from one to another. 

So maybe that’s the answer—that the magic ingredient to a powerful presentation is that the speaker has a high level of credibility and that the source of that credibility can be different for each speaker, as long as he or she has it with the audience.  If you are really lucky, as Barack Obama seems to be, the primary source of your credibility can be your charisma (see an interesting discussion about charisma in today’s Boston Globe editorial “The Power of Charisma” by H.D.S. Greenway.) http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2008/03/11/the_power_of_charisma/  If you are not so lucky (that’s most of the rest of us), you have to rely on other ways to build and gain credibility.  If you have a reputation which precedes you, the reputation will go a long way toward building credibility with your audience, though the presentation must reinforce or support the audience’s prior assumptions; in other words you have to deliver on your reputation.    If your audience does not know you at all, you have a more difficult task, which means you have to rely other ways to build credibility and you also have to work against an audience’s tendency to make quick judgments (i.e. they don’t like the tone of your voice or the style of your skirt or the color of your hair) by building credibility in the process of giving the presentation.  Is that what I am teaching my students, then—the various ways to build credibility in a presentation, by either being somebody important or by saying something important (providing persuasive data or information) or by making the audience feel important (establishing a strong personal rapport with an audience or entertaining the audience with wit or humor)?   I’m still not sure . . .

Do people listen to presenters to decide if they like the person? or to decide if their message is persuasive (regardless of how we feel about the person delivering it)? Or does the persuasiveness of a message depend on its source?  or do we expect to be entertained? to get some valuable new information?  to determine if the presenter thinks like we do?  If we’re watching to decide who to vote for in the presidential election, it could be any of the above.  Some people vote for candidates simply because they like them.  Some people vote for candidates because or their records or their affiliations.  It all depends on the person listening.  So where does that leave us?  Back to audience analysis, to continuing to explore who we are speaking to and what their needs, interests and motivations are and how to build credibility with them.  I guess that’s as good a place as any to end for now. 

Is content king . . . or is it delivery?

I’ve been watching a lot of presentations lately and so I’ve been thinking about the relationship between content and delivery.  Up until now I have tended to think that content is more important in putting together an effective presentation than delivery.  (Admittedly, we’d like to have both excellent content and a strong delivery, but that goes without saying).  To be more specific, I have always felt as if the way to improve a mediocre presentation is to work on the content, to make it more engaging, more focused and more audience-appropriate.  Focusing on content seems, in most cases, to take care of problems with delivery because most delivery problems, in my view, have to do with the presenter’s inexperience with or disconnect from the material.  If the presenter really knows his material, has worked hard to package or frame it in an interesting and exciting way and has addressed that content to the needs of the audience, then the presenter will have gained some confidence about the material itself and hopefully, also a strong desire to share his or her material with the audience.  That strong desire to share the material, wanting to talk to people about something, to connect with the audience, seems to alleviate many delivery problems.   In addition, minor delivery problems don’t bother me as much if the content of the presentation is logical, dynamic and engaging.  

Maybe I feel this way because it seems easier to help a speaker improve her content than her delivery.  Of course, we can address the obvious things like eye contact and developing rapport, but somehow I find that those things are hard to teach because they seem like natural outcomes of a person’s strong desire to share ideas.  (Extreme nervousness is a different issue, one which seems like it needs to be overcome in the realm of psychology rather than rhetoric.  But even that can be alleviated by making presentations routine—it becomes easier to face an audience when we do it every day and when we know our stuff).  

However, I’ve had several occasions to rethink this lately.  I’ve seen several presentations which were very dynamic in the delivery, but only mediocre in content—not very logical or consistent, for example.  (Maybe I’ve been listening to too much talk radio; or too much of Alberto Gonzalez’s recent testimony on Capitol Hill.)  But that lack of logical content in many cases (not all, I know) seems easily overshadowed by powerful or a very smooth delivery.  Clearly, many others have noticed and commented on this but in some less public cases I seemed to be only one of few to notice.  If so, what does that mean?  I’ve heard the statistics that say the most important part of a presentation is not what we say, but how we say it and I don’t want to believe it, that appearance, the way a person looks and sounds is more important than what she says.  But fear I may be in the minority here.  Is this the dreaded Curse of Knowledge at work?

Link crazy.

I hope to get back to this page to explain what these links are and why I think they are so useful, but for now, check these out: 

http://www.presentationzen.com/presentationzen/2007/03/a_few_weeks_ago.html

http://www.presentationzen.com/presentationzen/

http://www.bertdecker.com/experience/2006/06/the_five_bigges.html

http://www.bertdecker.com/experience/2005/09/five_key_princi.html

http://presentationzen.blogs.com/presentationzen/2005/09/whats_good_powe.html

http://www.gapminder.org/downloads/presentations/

http://ted.com/conference/flashpage.cfm?conferenceKey=2007

http://presentationzen.blogs.com/presentationzen/2005/07/in_may_tom_pete.html

http://www.knowhr.com/blog/2006/08/21/top-10-best-presentations-ever/

http://www.identity20.com/media/OSCON2005/oscon_videos/oscon_sm.html