Public Speaking Notes

Public Speaking

Notes from reading “Ted Talks: The offical TED guide to public speaking” by Chris Anderson.

Foundation

1. Presentation literacy

Presentation literacy is its own skill. Your goal is to be you, not a version of someone you like.

2. Idea building

Ideas are all that matter in the talk. This can be a novel idea, or a novel story or presentation of an existing idea.

Your goal is to recreate the core idea inside your audience’s mind. The language you use must be shared by the speaker and listener for it to have this effect. Focus on what you can give to the audience.

Visualise the talk as a journey that you guide the user through. Start where the audience starts. Don’t make any impossible leaps or unexpected changes of direction.

• What issues matter the most
• How are they related?
• How can they be easily explained?
• What are the key open questions? Controversies?

3. Common traps

Four talk styles to AVOID.

1. Sales Pitch
   • You should give not take.
   • Generosity evokes a response.
2. Ramble
   • Insults the audience; suggests that their time doesn’t matter to you.
3. Organisation bore
   • Your company’s structure is boring.
   • Focus on the work and ideas, not the company, products or individuals.
4. Inspiration tryhard
   • All style and no substance.
   • Comes across as manipulative.
   • Inspiration has to be earned. “Like love you don’t get it by pursuing it”.
   • Inspiration is the response to authenticity, courage, wisdom, selflessness.

4. The throughline

The throughline is a connecting theme that ties the narrative elements

• A focused, precise, unexpected idea
• Not the same as a theme
• You should be able to encapsulate it in <15 words

Trace the path the journey will take. If the audience knows where you’re going, it will be easier to follow.

Cut down the talk to keep the throughline focused.

• DON’T just keep all the content but say it in less detail. Overstuffed = underexplained
• Cut back the range of topics. Say less with more impact.
• “The power of the deleted word”.
• An 18 minute time limit is short enough to keep an audience’s attention, long enough to cover enough ground and precise enough to be taken seriously.

The overall structure can be thought of in 3 parts: What? So what? What now? In more detail, this is:

1. Intro - what will be covered
2. Context - why this issue matters
3. Main concepts
4. Practical implications

Talk about ideas not issues. Write for an audience of one.

Checklist:

• Is this a topic I’m passionate about? Do I know enough to be worth the audience’s time? Do I have credibility?
• Does it inspire curiosity?
• Will knowing this make a difference to the audience?
• Is the talk a gift or an ask?
• Is the information fresh?
• Can the topic be covered in enough detail with examples in the time slot?
• What are the 15 words that encapsulate the talk?
• Would those 15 words persuade someone they’re interested in hearing the talk?

Talk tools

5. Connection

A human connection is required before you can inform, persuade or inspire. Knowledge has to be pulled in, not pushed in. Be AUTHENTIC.

Dos

• Eye contact.
• Vulnerability, but authentic.
• Humour signals to the group that you’ve all connected.

Don’ts

• Ego breeds contempt.
• Avoid tribal topics/language, e.g. politics.

6. Narration

Storytelling helps people to imagine and dream -> empathise -> care

Key elements:

1. Character
2. Tension
3. Right level of detail
4. Satisfying resolution

If you’re telling a story, know why you’re telling it. The goal is to give, not boost your ego.

Connect the dots enough, but don’t force-feed the conclusion.

7. Explanation

Steps:

1. Start where the audience is. No assumed knowledge or jargon.
2. Spark curiosity. Create a knowledge gap that the listener wants to fill.
3. Introduce new concepts one-by-one. Name each concept.
4. Metaphors and analogies. Reveal the “shape” of new concepts.
5. Examples confirm understanding.

Knowledge is built hierarchically. Explain the structure and where each concept fits. Convert a web of ideas into a string of words.

Curse of knowledge. Revisit assumed knowledge.

Make clear what the concept isn’t. An explanation is a small mental model in a large space of possibilities. Reduce the size of that space.

8. Persuasion

Demolish the listener’s existing knowledge and rebuild it; replace it with something better. Genius is something that comes to you, not something you are.

An “intuition pump” is an example or metaphor that makes the conclusion more plausible. Not a rigorous argument, but nudges the listener in the right direction. Prime with emotion or story, then persuade with reason.

Turn the audience into detectives. Tell a story. Start with a big mystery, traverse the possible solutions until only one plausible conclusion remains.

9. Revelation

Three approaches to revelatory talks:

1. The wonder walk
   • Reveal a succession of inspiration images
   • Obvious throughline with accessible language and silence
   • The message should be “how intriguing is this” not “look what I achieved”
2. Demo
   • Initial tease, background context, demo, implications
3. Dreamscape
   • Create a world that doesn’t exist but someday might
   • Paint a bold picture of an alternative future
   • Make others desire that future
   • Emphasise human values not just clever tech, otherwise the audience might freak out at the possible negative implications of the technology

Preparation process

10. Visuals

Slides can distract. If you do use them, make sure they add something.

Visuals should:

• Reveal - set context, prime, BAM!
• Explain - one idea per slide with a clickbait headline not a summary. Highlight the point you’re making.
• Delight - show impressive things and let them speak for themselves. Don’t need to explain every image/slide.

Don’t let the slides be spoilers for what you’re about to say. The message loses its impact, it’s not news anymore.

11. Scripting

The goal is to have a set structure that you speak naturally and authentically about.

Both approaches have the same result:

1. Script and memorise until natural, or
2. Freestyle around bullet points and rehearse until structure is set

Being read to and being talked to are very different experiences

• Dictating the speech rather than writing it can help make sure it comes across how you would speak rather than how you would write.
• Don’t end up in the uncanny valley between reading and speaking
• In some cases, reading is powerful if it’s clear that this is a poetic, written piece. Abandon the script for an impactful finale.

What you are saying matters more than the exact word choice.

Rehearse your impromptu remarks.

12. Run throughs

Practice speaking by speaking!

Rehearse in phases:

1. Editing and cutting
2. Pacing and timing
3. Delivery

Aim to use <90% of the time limit. results in tighter writing, and time to riff and enjoy the reaction.

13. Open and close

You have the audience’s attention at the start, then it’s yours to lose. Opener has to capture attention and keep it. 2 stages:

1. 10 seconds to capture attention
2. 1 minute to hold it

Opening techniques:

1. Drama
2. Curiosity - more specific questions are more intriguing
3. Compelling slide/image - “the next image changed my life”
4. Tense but don’t give away - show where you’re going but save the reveal

The closer dictates how the whole talk will be remembered.

Closing techniques:

1. Camera pullback - big picture and implications
2. Call to action
3. Personal commitment
4. Inspiring values/vision
5. Encapsulation - neatly reframe the main idea
6. Narrative symmetry - callback to opener
7. Lyrical inspiration - poetic conclusion

On stage

14. Wardrobe

• Choose an outfit early
• Dress like the audience but smarter
• Dress for the people in the back row

15. Mental prep

• Embrace the nerves and draw attention to it. Vulnerability humanises you.
• Pick friendly faces in the audience and speak to them.
• Backup plan - have a story ready to fill in during unexpected technical issues
• Focus on the message - “THIS MATTERS”

16. Setup

Visual barriers between the speaker and audience can create a sense of authority but at the expense of a human connection. If they can see you, you’re vulnerable. If you’re vulnerable, they can connect.

Referring to notes is fine if done sparingly and unambiguously. It humanises you if done honestly. It appears sneaky and dishonest if you try to do it secretly.

17. Voice and presence

Speaking style adds another stream of input parallel to the words themselves. It tells the listener how they should interpret the words.

Six voice tools. Vary each of them depending on the meaning and emotion.

1. Volume
2. Pitch
3. Pace
4. Timbre
5. Tone
6. Prosody (singsong rise and fall)

Speed should be a conversational pace, approx 130-170 words per minute.

• People often worry about speaking too fast
• Speaking too slow is a more common problem (overcorrection?)
• Understanding outpaces articulation, the listener is “dying of word starvation”

Speak, don’t orate.

Body language

• Stand and move intentionally.
• Stop to make a point then walk to the next point.

18. Format innovation

Add too many ingredients and you risk losing attention. What you say can just be signposts for what you show - set it up, show it, shut up.

Reflection

19. Talk renaissance

Knowledge of specific facts is becoming more specialised and commoditised. Understanding how everything fits together is becoming broader, more unified.

Concepts of specialised knowledge are outdated, stemming from industrial age thinknig. Modern thinking values:

1. Contextual knowledge
2. Creating knowledge
3. Understanding of humanity

As people become more interconnected, innovation becomes crowd-accelerated.

Happiness is finding something bigger than you and dedicating your life to it. Nudge the world - give it questions to spark conversations. “The future is not yet written, we are all collectively in the process of writing it”