The Art of the Talk

I’ve given dozens of talks over the years, yet I still feel like I have much to learn about pub­lic speak­ing. The act of pre­sent­ing an idea to a large au­di­ence in per­son is in­tim­i­dat­ing for me, as I imag­ine it is for most peo­ple.

Preparing for my up­com­ing talk at WordCamp US has me stop­ping to re­flect on what I al­ready know. To re­call the ba­sic prin­ci­ples that turn a good talk into great one.

Conveying an idea ef­fec­tively is a pow­er­ful skill. It can help get peo­ple on your side and di­rect them to your point of view. Hu­mans are be­ings that thrive when they build and main­tain strong re­la­tion­ships with each other. Good com­mu­ni­ca­tion su­per­charges that process.

Here are my bold ideas for how to pre­sent ideas well, in no par­tic­u­lar or­der.

Convey Exactly One Idea At a Time

A com­mon prob­lem peo­ple run into when they draft a pre­sen­ta­tion is not a lack of ideas: It is that they have too many.

People adore talk­ing about them­selves or their ideas. A nat­ural con­se­quence is that peo­ple have a predilec­tion to stuff a pre­sen­ta­tion with more in­for­ma­tion than they need to make their point. Make sure to al­lo­cate time to take stuff out.

The more stream­lined and clear you make your point, the more re­cep­tive your au­di­ence will be.

Use a Story

The hu­man brain is wired for sto­ries. We’ve been telling them for thou­sands of years. Peo­ple re­mem­ber them far bet­ter than they do ar­bi­trary in­for­ma­tion. In fact, that is ex­actly how com­mu­ni­ties used to do record­keep­ing: by telling sto­ries.

By weav­ing a tale into your pre­sen­ta­tion, you can prime the au­di­ence to re­ceive your idea, and make that idea more mem­o­rable.

Explain the “Why”

The “Why” should be the first thing your au­di­ence hears from you. Why they should lis­ten. Why your idea is im­por­tant. Why your in­put can help them in their pro­fes­sional or per­sonal lives.

Chris Anderson, the Head of TED, says, “Style with­out sub­stance is aw­ful”.

In other words, you can have the fan­ci­est, most vi­su­ally ap­peal­ing slide deck and all the con­fi­dence in the world, and you can still have a mediocre pre­sen­ta­tion. Find a topic or idea that you gen­uinely care about, and ex­plain why the au­di­ence should care about it too.