Capecci Communications provides training, consulting, and advanced writing services
to help clients communicate with clarity, confidence, and impact.
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Finding Your Story's Focus
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The anatomy of a TED talk
Every speaker who uses personal storytelling to advocate for a cause eventually meets the same challenge: condensing a life's experience into a few meaningful minutes. That's what Becky Blanton faced this summer as she prepared for her first "highly public speech" at the TED Global
Conference at Oxford.
If you are not yet familiar with TED Conferences, spend some time at their website soon. TED is a
nonprofit organization devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading, and a rich source not only
for ideas, but also for examples of presentations that are persuasive, courageous,
inspiring, funny, and informative.
In 2006, Becky was one of America's working homeless, living in
a Chevy van with her Rottweiler and cat in the parking lot of a Denver
Wal-Mart. A former journalist,
Becky wrote about her experience in an essay that won her the opportunity to tell her story at TED Global. She had never given a formal, prepared talk to a large group before.
For the blog Six Minutes, Becky writes about meeting the challenges of the TED directive to give "the talk of your life," and how she specifically focused her story for the presentation.
TED speakers are asked to do
six things:
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Distill your
life's work or experience into a 3-, 6-, 9- or 18-minute talk.
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Be
authentic.
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Convey one
strong idea.
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Tell a story
that hasn't been told before.
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Tell and not
sell.
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Absolutely and
positively stick to the time limit.
During her two-month preparation, Becky turned to a number of
sources for help, and received valuable tips:
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Spend the time focusing
and crafting each idea you want to express, then pick the most compelling. Becky: People are not where they live, where they sleep, and what they are doing at
any given moment. People are their dreams and visions.
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Put yourself in
the audience's place: What would they want to know if they hadn't heard this
story before? Becky: I'd want to know how I escaped. What got me out of the
van and homelessness and back into an apartment?
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Consider how you frame the story and yourself. Becky wanted to present a different narrative about homelessness, to resist victimization or playing on emotions.
She wanted her audience to identify with her, not feel
sorry for her. Becky: I focused on the facts, not on the trauma of the pain or the emotion. Tell the story and let the readers or listeners make their own choice.
- Link to key messages and themes. The theme of TED Global 2009 was "The essence of things not seen." Becky: It summed up my year of being invisible as a homeless woman. But now that year of being invisible to society has the potential to educate and inspire.
You can view Becky's first time on the speaking platform (manuscript in hand, a little wobbly, but committed to staying focused on her story and her main point), here.
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The Presentation-as-Document Syndrome
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One more way to critique the use of PowerPoint
I was a speech nerd in
college. Okay, in high school, too. Most of my weeknights were
spent writing and rehearsing presentations, and most weekends found me on some
other high school or university campus, delivering a speech before oratory judges.*
Those were the
pre-PowerPoint days. If we used visual aids at all, they consisted of poster boards on easels. We spent hours Xeroxing images, pasting them flat with
SprayMount, carefully adding titles in Cooper Black with LetraSet rub-on letters. There was no mistaking these posters for what they were: aids to be
used during a specific oral presentation. I couldn't send them to the judges in
advance, or to anyone who missed the presentation. (This was also
pre-Kinko's.)
One of the common complaints against the use of PowerPoint is that it encourages speakers to treat their visual aids as graphic substitutions for their presentations. According to Jerry Weissman, however, the fault lies not in PowerPoint itself, but in how modern presentation styles and practices have become conventionalized. Long before PowerPoint was created, this fundamental misuse of visual aids had already been institutionalized: The Presentation-as-Document Syndrome.
Skip back to the 1950s, when
small groups (of men) congregated around a flip chart on an easel. The flip
chart took visual focus as a place to capture and present ideas. More
significantly, however, it provided a means of documenting ideas that could
later be ripped off, copied, and distributed to those who didn't attend the
presentation. The sheets of the flip chart, then, did double-duty: as a display during the meeting and as a document that
could be copied and shared afterward. That double-duty gave way to the now dreaded Presentation-as-Document Syndrome--misusing a presentation aid as a document.
In the 60s, the medium of choice was the clunky overhead projector with its transparent Mylar 'foils'; through the 80s, it was 35mm slides. For anyone who could not attend an overhead or slide presentation, foils or paper print-outs of slides became the substitute. They also became 'send-aheads' and 'leave-behinds.' The habit persisted of producing visuals that could serve a double purpose, making presentations practically equated with their visual 'support.'
By the time Microsoft came on the scene in 1990, the
Presentation-as-Document Syndrome was already formalized
in corporate culture; the popularity of PowerPoint only helped spread the practice.
When asked to do double-duty, PowerPoint--or any visual aid--is not an effective presentation aid, nor document. So, if you opt for PowerPoint in a presentation, ask: does anything in the content or layout imply that this 'slide' is suitable for distribution or is meant to substitute for your presence? If so, then chances are it contains those elements we associate with mind-numbing visual aids:
- dense text, small fonts
- highly detailed tables, charts, and graphs
- a table of contents, footnotes, an appendix
- teensy little page numbers
*High school and college forensic programs--competitive oratory--remain an important training ground for tomorrow's
educators, lawyers, politicians, performers, and communication
professionals. Please support the program in your school or alma mater.
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WordForum: Communication Training
for Design Professionals |
Applying Design Principles to Speech and Text
The WordForum Series is a collection of communication workshops created specifically for design professionals to improve writing and speaking skills. #1: Finding and Expressing Your Key Messages
#2: Organizing Clear and Compelling Presentations
#3: Using Visuals Cleanly and Effectively
#4: Making Language Work for You
Developed in partnership with writer and landscape architect Adam Arvidson of Treeline, WordForum is the only communication training series designed by and for design professionals such as architects, landscape architects, interior and exhibit designers, engineers, or city planners. Instruction applies the design process to the crafting of text and speech, and incorporates examples drawn from actual design projects. Each one-hour workshop focuses upon an essential aspect of written or spoken communication, and can be customized to meet designers' skill levels, learning objectives, and schedules. For more information, contact Adam at adam@treeline.biz (866.859.7593) or John at john@capeccicom.com (612.229.8896). |
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Conciseness
Everyone has a story. Can you tell yours in six words? It's a great exercise to find a core narrative.
Dreams still persist. So will I.
Married by Elvis. Divorced by Friday.
Cursed with cancer. Blessed with friends.
Speech nerd in college, thank god.
Courage
Gilda's Club is building support for a location in the Twin Cities--one important story at a time. These nationwide centers provide free support to anyone living with cancer, including friends and family members. View this effective use of personal narratives.
Control
Um, at the end of the day, y'know, I wish I had one of these.
Color
A useful and free online graphic toy, Wordle automatically creates colorful 'word clouds' from any block of text. It's handy for summarizing brainstorming sessions.
Clarity
Starting to create your presentation in PowerPoint (or Keynote) before you know your main points and organization is like a movie director hiring actors and starting to film before there is a script. (Cliff Atkinson)
Core Readings
You've got compelling data, now what do you do with it? This free ebook is full of examples of how advocacy groups can tell their stories visually.
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Come see what we're working on this week at capeccicom.com
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Capecci Communications provides training, consulting, and advanced writing services
to help clients communicate with clarity, confidence, and impact.
612.229.8896
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