When reviewing someone else’s presentation, use these lists to help.
Last night I coached a young woman who was being interviewed later this week for a $250,000 full ride scholarship to the college of her choice. She was tasked to give a 15 minute presentation and answer questions to an unknown panel. The challenge she faced is that the organizers from the admissions office gave her no guidance on what questions they wanted answered.
So she prepped a 12 minute demonstration of her robotic arm that won her all sorts of science olympiad awards and consequentially, admission into this prestigious engineering school (just the quarter-million-gulp-dollar-scholarship was on the line). The outcome of the review was that we worked hard to make her opening and closing about the college (not about her), to weave in her key message points about being creative and a problem solver, and found a few ways to interject an equally as impressive career in choir with a personal passion she had in rescuing cats. We walked away with a bit more humanism while not losing the intense technical jargon she believed they wanted to hear about her complicated robotic arm (all of which was way over my head, but I was not the intended audience, so I nodded and smiled during those minutes).
But as I listened to her talk, it brought me back to a training I did in content framing a few weeks ago for a large insurance company. My clients who sponsored the training are tasked daily with reviewing other people’s presentations and making giving them important feedback toward improvement.
But reviewing and giving feedback are hard to break down sometimes when you are busy. So I present here my definitive content review question guide – the critical questions you need to make sure are answered as you are reviewing any presentation.
As Atul Gwande taught us in the Checklist Manifesto, there are some checklists meant to be used before a task, and others, after. To that end, I have presented a “before” and “after” list for your use.
A jump start “before” list – top 5 questions to get a new presentation started:
Who is the audience you are presenting to?
What is the question on their mind?
What did they know about the topic beforehand? / What context do they need?
What is your bottom line answer?
What do you want them to do with the information after the presentation? (the goal!)
A review “after” list – what to look for after you’ve seen a presentation
Did I follow you? Did you tell me where you were headed in the first 2 minutes? Did you wander?
Do I know you / your story and why you have license to deliver the message (appropriate for new hires)?
Can I repeat your key challenge (problem) and answer to the challenge (solution)?
Did I know what you want me to do with the information?
Did each slide (if they were used) have a concluding idea, clearly stated in the header?
Did you give me anything to feel about the topic? Should I be scared? Excited? Moved to immediate action?
And lastly, do I see the intended audience inside the message? In other words, did you make the audience the central character of your story? (as opposed to the presenter being the central character).
####
As I think about the student pitching for the scholarship, the most important improvement we made was in having her ask for the scholarship, “Choose me for this scholarship and I will bring my passion and creativity to four years of academic excellence on your campus.” In the “before” version, she never stated her goal. In the “after” there was no doubt – she was not just there to share her robotic arm. She was there to be chosen and most simply, to win.
No Comments
Feedback without a License.
Wow, what a way to start the year.
I didn’t take my own advice.
Mid way through a recent assignment (an event featuring 5 different talks from the same company), I was told that I offended an executive by what I thought was a simple suggestion.
The suggestion was, “Have you ever recorded yourself?”
I love the recording devices on our phones. I’ve blogged about it here what a powerful Gestalt-like tool they can be for identifying your own problems in your speech, story or talk. You are more likely to correct the mistakes you identify versus those anyone tells you about.
And they are also great timing tools.
Sure you can use a clock, but that doesn’t help you identify where you may have gone long (or short) since you can’t hear yourself back.
His response to me was “I’ve done this a thousand times. I don’t need to record myself.” I just said, “I don’t need to hear it, but you can use it just to make sure your own timing is good.” After all, there were 5 speakers – if each of them went over 5 minutes, that’s nearly a half hour over their intended timeline. That kind of schedule oversight makes people like me batty, let alone the hundreds of folks in the audience.
So. In looking back, I ask myself: What went wrong? Was it really my suggestion? Was it the fact that he’s new to the job and doesn’t want to be questioned or appear vulnerable? Was it that I didn’t appreciate the fact he’d done it “thousands of times?” Was it that he doesn’t like feedback.
Maybe all or some of those applied, but a higher problem emerged.
He really didn’t know who I was. He didn’t know my story. He didn’t trust my advice or know that I have license to deliver it.
When we first met a few weeks earlier, I was limited to an introduction of this length:
“Hi, I’m Ruth Milligan, and I’m an executive speech coach.”
Anything more would have been frowned upon by the other 15 people in the room who had a big agenda to follow. And it was clear, at this moment of ‘said offense,’ that no one had ever shared with him what my true passion is, how I do it all day every day, how I lead with love and want everyone to reach their potential.
When we were in that script review meeting, it was to review a script (that is a story for another post). So to him, I was a writer. Or at least, if knew I was a coach, he had no ounce of willingness to be coached by me. I could have been introduced more thoroughly, surely, but the ultimate responsibility is mine.
As I have told my clients and classes for years, if people don’t know who you are, how can they trust you? And if you don’t tell them your story, how will they know the real you?
I was really looking forward to giving this executive some further feedback when the time was right. Sometimes, that time is just not meant to be. I wish him well. And thank him for this reminder that at the heart of my work, my clients have to want the feedback first, no matter how I am introduced.
The journey to give a TEDx talk: A documentary.
After the first TEDxColumbus event in 2009 at the Wexner Center, I remember thinking the day after: why aren’t I doing more of “THIS?” This being helping speakers architect their story and find their voice. And deliver what I am now calling “The Talk of Your Life.” It is what lead me to create ar.tic.u.la.tion and the work I do every day.
Now, thanks to video producer Rich Bowers and his desire to follow the success of TEDxColumbus, the journey of two TEDxColumbus 2012 speakers and my passion for coaching people through this experience, we now have this awesome documentary. In a little over an hour, you’ll hear and see the pathway that Naomi Stanford and Jan Allen took on their way to the TEDxColumbus stage, and a lot of my ramblings on how I interpret the TEDx platform, preparation process and my coaching approach.
I’d like to personally thank Naomi and Jan for their participation and extra effort that went into this project. They allowed themselves to be vulnerable, transparent and authentic through each interview. It is my hope and goal that it becomes another valuable and insightful tool for future speakers to use to appreciate the successful ingredients to a wildly successful talk and experience.
Because as Jan said, “You come out of this process a different person than when you went in.”
And here are Jan and Naomi’s full TEDxColumbus talks:
No Comments
How Kit Kat led to TED, told ala Pecha Kucha.
So a few years ago I wrote this blog post on how I thought the Pecha Kucha (Japanese for Chit-Chat) was a fun format for an audience but a really tough one for a speaker. It dictates you deliver a talk with 20 slides on a timer for 20 seconds a slide.
So last summer when I was invited to give a PK talk, I told them I’d do it without slides. They said no : I had to use slides.
So I sent a black slide and asked them to play it 20 times. They said no : I had to show slide progression.
The dot that moved 20 times.
So I sent a slide that looked like this and had the dot rotate around the circle — one dot movement per each of the 20 slides. And they said yes: finally.
My motivation was that I wanted to tell a very personal story as the guidelines are pretty loose on what content you can bring forward as long as it shows your passion. I didn’t feel that slides would augment my story, in fact, I thought they would distract. And I didn’t ever want to turn my back to the audience to check if I was on the right slide (Rule #1 of public speaking) which is what happens when the slides are on a timer.
So now that I’m watching the video (posted below, don’t judge the quality!), I see that they may have had a confidence monitor (at my feet). A confidence monitor is what we call the screen facing a speaker to demonstrate the slides playing to the audience. True fact: I never saw the monitor as I am apt to look at the audience, not the floor. And it didn’t matter, since I timed my talk to be 6:40 (the time of 20 slides x 20 seconds) and just let it rip. It wasn’t until about 5 minutes in that I even remembered I had slides because I never practiced with them or needed them to prompt my story.
A good friend wrote on my Facebook page that he thought my slides were on the fritz…until the end. So watch for yourself and see how I gave a Pecha Kucha talk “without” slides. Which allowed me to focus on the thing that did matter: my passion and my story.
How I found my Kit Kat. from Articulation on Vimeo.
No Comments
The Talk of My Life.
At Prosper!, the Dames Bond conference last week, I was asked to give a TED-like talk entitled “In my own words.” I chose the subject of answering the call – however it might come – and eventually calling upon yourself to recognize your true interests and strengths and pursue them. I’m not usually one for motivational-type speeches (giving or hearing them), so I did what I know best – I picked three stories in my past that lead me to how I’m living out my passion today. And this represents the first time that I come out publicly that (egads!) I was quite a mediocre student growing up. But I wouldn’t re-write that part as it opened doors, er had calls, I wouldn’t normally have had.
1 CommentBefore and After: Ariel Garten
Ariel Garten, CEO of Interaxon Computing, delivered a TEDxToronto talk in 2011 to great reviews (top video), including 250,000 views on TED.com. She was invited to speak at TEDxSanDiego in December, 2012 where we worked with her on the “re-do” of her talk (below) which was to be 6 minutes shorter with a tighter opening, story arc and transitions. See if you can tell the difference, and which talk resonates with you more.
No CommentsThe apple doesn’t fall far.
As I was working on my goals for 2013, I got this email fromTodd Kleismit, Legislative Director at the Ohio Historical Society. He has been researching he esteemed Ohio Congressman William McCulloch, who, among other things, was instrumental in the civil rights movement. He was a friend of my dad’s back in the 50s and 60s through politics — so when Todd came across this letter that Dad wrote to one of his relatives he thought to share it.
It wasn’t a surprise to get the letter, my dad wrote letters and memos ALL the time. And quite frankly, thinking about the work for which I am passionate, the main content of the letter wasn’t a surprise either.
Dad’s attention to the oratorial art is one I clearly inherited. As I go back and finish my goals for 2013, I’ll make sure to keep the “no ahs” at the top of the list as well.
No Comments
Bringing closure to the year, and your talk.
As we close out 2012, I have produced another ‘best clips’ video (you may remember the first one on opening hooks), this time, on great closings. As a speechwriter friend of mine told me once, the hardest part for her clients was “Getting into and getting out of the talk.” So here’s some inspiration to bring your great ideas to a close.
How to close a great talk. from Articulation on Vimeo.
No CommentsLive from San Diego
Dr. Kaweh Mansouri at rehearsal for TEDxSanDiego, practicing to show his contact lens that will detect glaucoma.
Last weekend I assisted with prepping some of the speakers for TEDxSanDiego, a wonderful TEDx run by Jack Abbott, a longtime marketing executive in the area. Jack invited me to work with four specific speakers in preparing their talks and then to the rehearsal to help gently guide any other speakers in need of help.
I got handed the four speakers who were dealing in “chips.” Technologies that are almost science fiction-like, but are being tested and refined to go to market in the very near future. They included:
– Thought Controlled Computing: Using a headband that reads your brainwaves and then allows you to control various devices (and or/other behaviors) just by thinking.
– Single blood test for all cancers: That’s right, one drop of blood they hope will screen for all cancers.
– Contact lenses to detect glaucoma: To date, the only test for glaucoma is the “puff” test you get once a year. These new lenses send a wireless signal to capture the data around eye pressure, which is the indicator of glaucoma onset.
– Epidermal Electronic Tattoos: No more wires on preemies or on their mother’s belly before they are born. Monitoring and scanning patches that affix to your skin and that allow you to capture (again, wirelessly, see the trend?) data without being connected to any wires.
These scientists, Ariel Garten, Raj Krishan, Kaweh Mansouri and Todd Coleman didn’t know each other at all. But they all shared a few commonalities on how they were preparing for their big talks:
– They were armed with incredible data about their discoveries, but each had to work extra hard to incorporate stories to bring them to life.
– Each had to really carve out time to work on their talks — most of them ended up using weekends to write, edit and rehearse.
– Speaking of rehearsal, it was a make-or-break time for each of them. One had never used a confidence monitor before (the screen that sits in front of you that projects your slides) and so he spent most of his time looking backwards (yikes!); two of them had technically challenging demonstrations that took a team of folks and extra effort to work out; and all of them greatly benefited from me recording them (just on my iPhone) and playing back the “tape” to see where improvements could be made.
I’m personally grateful for the opportunity that Jack and his awesome team at TEDxSanDiego gave me to work with these massively talented researchers. Nothing like a good dose of intense science, technology and sun to kick off the holiday season!
1 Comment