roebuck alehouse: That's Easy for You to Say! ? Public Speaking 102

That?s Easy for You to Say! ? Public Speaking 102

Guest blogger JP Voilleque, with Carmen Voilleque

In our last posting we emphasized the importance of excellent content, good organization and sound evidence in delivering an effective presentation. But, it likely left you wondering: ?What about the zazzle? The flash? The sparkle?

There are several aspects of speechmaking that we neglected in our first posting ? and a good deal of them have to do with adding pizazz! It?s all well and good for your speech to be rhetorically sound, grounded in logic, and well supported by research. But, speaking with passion, grace and fire is another thing altogether. Where?s the sizzle? What are you doing to wow the crowd?

As a general rule, the only way to guarantee that your audience is awake and engaged is to care about what you are saying. The sum total of every trick in the book will not match the simple purity of someone who?s excited about his or her subject. I?m willing to make the following wager at any time, anywhere. I will bet that your best, most technologically advanced, media-riffic presentation cannot beat a passionate Evolutionary with pen and poster paper. You can make your presentation inside an inflatable dome screen wearing LED clothing and swinging a light saber, and an Evolutionary Communicator ?will give a better speech with cue cards on an easel in a bare room with one light bulb. This is because when an Evolutionary gets up to speak, they have something to say. They are not shy about having a message to deliver. And they care about that message, the positive impact it could have on the audience and its potential to change the world. Their motive for speaking is the secret sauce.

However, since no one ever seems to believe us when we say that, we feel compelled to offer advice on some of the more prevalent presentation technologies, and suggest a right and wrong way to utilize each of them.

PowerPoint, Flash, Silverlight, and other slideshow development platforms.

photo credit minor9th via flickr

There is no greater sin than the misuse of PowerPoint. Books have been written on the subject. Some are even good. The abuse of PowerPoint is so prevalent, so pervasive, that it has moved beyond jokes about slides to the whole notion of slides being a joke. This is the sad legacy of horrible talks that relied too much on PowerPoint, created massive slide overload, positioned the presenter with his or her back to the audience so that (s)he could read the slides aloud, and other travesties of justice that remain unpunished. PowerPoint is novice speaker Kryptonite, and the sooner you reconcile your own account vis. misuse of slides, the sooner you will see an improvement in your presentations.

Here?s the thing: the more you obligate your audience to read, the less attention they will pay to what you?re saying. And, if the things they?re reading and the things you?re saying are the same thing, why are you there? Rather than stuff your slides full of content, you want to stuff them full of evocative echoes of your content, or the key points of your speech. Your tool use will improve a great deal if you maintain the mindset that slides embellish, rather than define, your speech.

Like pop culture references and California chardonnay, embellishment is best when it is kept within contemporary limits of taste. Americans, as a rule, are PowerPoint Victorians: if we can stick another embossed roof tile into the corner of the slide, we absolutely will. This is a habit that must stop. The best slides can convey powerful messages:

Without saying anything
With little or no recourse to animation
With a single picture
With a simple chart or graph
By being blank (i.e. by focusing attention back to the speaker)
With a single word

This is not to say that some slides aren?t better with more content than the above list ? only to emphasize that the best presentations do not allow the audience to lose themselves in the slide unless that ?loss? of attention is in fact a deepening of attention, calculated, planned, and executed through the visual medium as a complement to speech.

There is no higher calling than hacking slides to pieces for being wordy, for not adding value, for pulling you off-message, or pulling your audience away from the message. Be merciless. On average, an Evolutionary Communicator?s keynote will use 9-17 slides. We have clients who bring us 80-slide decks for a twenty minute speech (well, maybe only 72). If you?ve ever been in the audience for either speech, we?re pretty sure we know which one you like best.

Teleprompters

Depending on the size and import of your speech, you may be using a teleprompter. If you are, it?s something that takes some getting used to. Your formal rehearsal will probably be the first time you see it in action, and you?ll need to take some time to calibrate it to your speaking rhythm, pauses, and so forth. Ideally, you?ll have someone working the teleprompter for you so that they can adjust on the fly.

The most important thing to remember about teleprompters is that staring into the middle distance is no better than staring down at your notes. Substantial portions of your speech will be memorized, and for the rest, you?ll need to practice using your peripheral vision to track where you are in your speech as you continue to talk to the audience. If it?s distracting or annoying, don?t use it. If people insist, use it and then ignore it.

Handouts, Follow-Alongs, and other Paper

Even worse than presentation slides that don?t hew to the message are handouts that commit such sins. Now, not only is your audience being pulled off message, they?re ignoring you and staring at their laps. Nothing kills a room faster than giving someone something to read while you talk. You want eyes front, engaged listeners, action in the room when you ask the audience a question or seek comments. Handouts necessarily work against audience behaviors that keep them in your pocket. Sometimes it is inevitable that you will have some paper involved (in a meeting of executives, for example, or less formal presentation environments where you?re one of a variety of items on the agenda). However, that?s not an excuse to bury your audience in paper.

We are frequently asked for our slides before our presentations, so that some helpful minion can print them out and distribute them to the audience, with handy ruled lines next to each slide. Seems okay, right? People can write notes next to the thing that sparked the thought. These requests are increasingly common, and sometimes speakers even offer up their slides before being asked. Nonetheless, we invariably refuse, sometimes against a rising tide of dismay and panic. ?Here?s why.

If ever there were a way to destroy your link with the audience, it would be to allow them to read ahead. Consider ? who doesn?t want to see what?s coming next? But the difference between providing the scaffolding from the stage and providing it on paper is gigantic. You cede control when you hand out a paper outline. Your audience decides where to go next, not you.

To borrow from Winston Churchill,

Never give [your slides]. Never give [an outline]. Never, never, never, never?in nothing, great or small, large or petty?never give in, except to convictions of honor and good sense [and even then, don?t provide handouts 90% of the time]. Never yield to force. Never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the [client].

One last reason to avoid handouts or follow-along slide pages is that it gives you fewer things to worry about. If you simply never give your slides, then you don?t have to worry about last-minute changes to your content. If your slides are not front and center in your mind all the time, you?re more likely to focus on message, presentation dynamics, and keeping your audience on the edge of their seats with nothing more than the dulcet tones of your fabulous voice!

Source: http://www.easci.com/beevolutionary/blog/thats-easy-for-you-to-say-public-speaking-102/

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