Seek the question
A friend told me recently he was invited to speak to the Board of Trustees at his institution. We discussed that while he knew the topic well, he didn’t know the exact question he was answering.
“Does there need to be a question,” he asked?
So — You decide which pathway would bring him to a more resonating presentation:
#1 : Address the topic: The college’s role in commercialization. His likely talk: Broad, linear, maybe rambling, definitely programmatic.
#2 : Question focus (hypothetically): Why is our college’s commercialization role slipping against other universities and what can we do to regain our leading role, and furthermore, more revenue for the institution? His likely talk: audience attentive, result oriented, anecdote rich, recommendation specific, highly resonating.
So this month’s tip: seek the question, even if your audience hasn’t expressly stated it. You must reveal the primal issue tugging at their minds to assure they will listen. And not to mention, it helps to achieve some critical presentation goals:
– it forces you to be relevant today. (i.e. can’t use the old talk from last month)
– it assures your talk isn’t a conversation with yourself
– it gives your story (i.e. the answer) hope of being syndicated (i.e. repeated)
And if you don’t know the question, don’t give the talk! Your audience will thank you for it.
No CommentsHow was your summer?
In our Influential Storytelling class at ar.tic.u.la.tion, we apply critical thinking methodologies to help properly frame a story. So on our summer family vacation a week ago, I thought I’d test the logic with my 7 year old daughter. What better story to practice than “what I did this summer,” knowing she’d be quizzed upon returning to school in a few days.
We found some post it notes at our cabin (lucky us) and brainstormed every memorable summer moment. After coming up with 40 points, I suggested we try to group them in 3 themes. We came up with four different grouping options:
One set were grouped by who participated in the moments with her and her brother – us, her sitter or others.
Another group was where they did them- at home, in town, or out of town.
A third was by old things, new things and things to repeat.
The last was by activity type – sitting down, standing up or in a pool!
Before you claim I’m a horrible parent for inflicting such a rigorous overlay to my daughter’s outstanding summer, she called uncle and stopped it as it was “boring.” And it was.
We hadn’t gotten to how to weave in the great visual support for any example – such as of learning to play tee ball, learning about Cleopatra in Cincinnati, building a train with her brother in the basement art space, or watching movies outdoors at the local park. For a seven year old, the fun was in the examples, not the story structure. Fair enough for a girl still on vacation.
The point is that she won’t have time or space to report all 40 activities when she answers the question. Ideally, she’d have a great narrative rooted in three general groups that revealed a supporting example- and illustrated succinctly why her summer was so awesome. Of course I don’t expect her (yet) to understand this, but by the time our official Storytelling Class closes each time, our clients certainly should.
So, tell me, how was your summer?
No CommentsElevators rarely get stuck.
Great critical thinking, provocative storytelling, clear governing thought and memorable supporting points. All in 60 seconds. It can be done!!
How so?
Listen here to a compelling story on the ultimate 60-second elevator pitch contest that aired on This American Life last Sunday.
It may make you re-think your next pitch. And email. And voicemail. And blog post…
Enough said.
Going up?
No CommentsWhat’s your hook?
Late last year when we started paying close attention to good opening hooks, we started noting those TED talks that had particularly good ones. In this 3 minute video we produced below, we’ve spliced out 6 really notable ones, and what we consider a represenative sample of the different types of hooks you can deploy. From self-deprecating and provocative to extremely unexpected and wholly unrealistic (can you tell which one that is?), you might be inspired to try a different approach in your next talk.
See which one grab you best?
Great Opening Hooks from Articulation on Vimeo.
No CommentsThe heavy lifting is yours
A client engaged us recently to architect a brand-new signature presentation. So we got out our very sophisticated tools: some markers, flip charts and a whole bucket of post it notes.
But we find the questions we ask at every step aren’t so simple: What insight can you reveal? So what? Why will your audience care? How will these points support your mission statement? Can you find a visual example to prove that point? And are you strong enough to know that lots of these ideas will end up in the trash?
It’s a messy process. But as we always like to say, make sure you don’t leave any of the heavy lifting for your audience.
No CommentsHook ’em.
Everyone has their pet peeves. I have my pet loves. Among them, really awesome opening hooks. As in, how do you grab your audience from the first words out of your mouth. That means, ‘Thank you for having me,” or,
“I’m here to discuss an idea…” are no where to be heard.
This week at TEDGlobal, among the 12 or so talks that I got to hear live (via our TEDxLive@Columbus livestream), two grabbed me:
Pamela Meyer’s talk on Lies. She opened by accusing essentially everyone in the audience of being a liar: “The person to the right of you is a liar. The person to the left of you is a liar. And the person sitting in your seat is a liar.” (paraphrased since the talk is not published yet. I’ll link it here when it is.)
Aside from an artfully chosen opening, her talk continued the same engaging cadence, weaving story and fact, detail and reason. Not to mention, she provided some great tips on how to spot a liar (hence the name of her book, Lie Spotting).
Now, if we believed in the rules of PERP (the sequence that helps audiences overcome the communication bias — Point, Example, Reason, Point), the next TEDTalk by Tim Harford, also a TEDGlobal speaker this week, violates them. We aren’t exactly sure what his point is since he starts with his example, and he risks losing the audience by not sharing where he’s headed at the start.
But it matters not.
His opening hook story and his engaging storytelling style keeps you rapt to want to know more. And in particular, how he’s going to weave it into a poignancy to which we’ll relate and want to hear more. Watch it here:
Lesson is: Make sure you have your opening hook planned carefully. Usually I suggest writing it last after the rest of your talk is complete. Those nervous jitters can lock you down for the first few minutes of any talk — which is when you need to be most engaged and captivating.
No CommentsYou sure you got the right analogy?
Last week during one of our Influential Storytelling trainings, a participant was proud of herself for using an analogy to get a point across to the COO of her company. It was the week the Mavericks beat the Heat, and if you aren’t into sports, that meant that the basketball season was over and LeBron lost.
Just so happens that her COO wasn’t into basketball either. “Though everyone else at the presentation was,” she claimed. “But I guess next time we need to use an example from Glee,” she admitted.
So the COO loved Glee but she used LeBron. Ooops.
The solution is easy.
Make sure you know thy audience. And really, the most important person in the audience. The one that is the decision maker.
And while she reported that he did “get it” – it did have some “rocky resonance” as I say. Sure, they may ultimately find the light but there were some clouds that could have been avoided.
So which ones do you use?
Well, first, stick with topics that you know the whole audience can associate. Homebuilding, high school, babies, food/cooking, learning to walk, driving, mother nature, NASA, checkers, medicine, Scrabble, colors, chocolate, heating/cooling, hiking, and I could go on — are all to which everyone can relate.
In the next category, I’d consider sports, movies, TV shows and books. But be careful, as evidenced by this list of the most popular movies. You might be surprised that your favorite Eastern Promises or Roshomon probably won’t be on top. Or LeBron, in more ways than one.
(Editor’s Note: This post marks my return from a break I took in June. Something had to give in the skyscraper-full list of things on my plate and in my life. Happy to be here again.)
No CommentsBullets are for guns.
I was at a meeting recently with a local township official, and when I asked about what highlights we should know about his community, he left the room. He quickly and enthusiastically returned with a huge power point deck titled “State of the Township.” All I could see was page after page of bullet points.
Knowing I wasn’t interested in the detail of how their road kill eradication was going (presuming it was one of the hundreds of points), I just simply asked: ‘Can you tell me the top 3 things we should know about your township?’
He hesitated. And then said, “Well, we really have 15 great points, I’m not sure which 3 to pick. Maybe the schools? Maybe our ranking as a healthy community? I’m not sure, I’ll have to ask around and see what other messages may resonate.”
Bang bang. His message died right there. A missed opportunity. And in some essence, an unveiling of his lack of clear vision and leadership for his community.
So on occasion, I curse the slide, as it allows people to avoid telling a story. But in this case, and more frequently, I’m blaming the bullet point.
A thousand good ideas have a place in your presentation or message when they are tightly grouped, edited and organized. But when ideas simply get translated into bullets, it shoots unnecessary holes in what should be a memorable, repeatable message and story.
No CommentsThe second time around
Do you ever wonder why ESPN Classics became so popular?
We want to know why those games were so great. We don’t see how the play is developed until the second time around.
So — when watching a great talk, do you ever wonder, what made it so great?
Sometimes it’s hard to understand why the talk was so compelling when you are listening to it for the first time.
From pixels to proteins and brainwaves to bioluminesce, some ideas are harder to comprehend than others.
So while we don’t have “Speech Classics” TV, we’ve got plenty of other channels online.
During a second review of a talk you can appreciate why they chose the visuals they did, how their story arcs with rich, vibrant, lively examples, and how they got you to well up in tears up over a set of data. You’ll see and learn things you didn’t the first time — and maybe take away a tip on how to craft your next story just a little differently.
After a week of seeing live talks at TED, I’m sure to be watching some of them over again. Especially the surgeon who printed an organ on stage…I’m still processing that one.
No Comments