How to effectively present in English in the 21st Century

Today, I was going to write about Chris Anderson’s presentation at TED, but Garr Reynolds over at Presentation Zen beat me too it and posted a post about the presentation to which I entirely agree. In particular I agree with the way Chris delivered the presentation, in a passionate, but not over the top way.

So, instead I want to write about another TED presentation I saw today. This talk was a 6 minute talk given by intellectual property expert Jay Walker. This talk is about “English Mania” and how learning the English language is growing rapidly throughout the world.

The first thing I noticed about the talk was the way that Jay Walker spoke. He spoke slowly and clearly, and this made it very easy to listen to. Quite often great presentations are spoilt because the speaker speaks too fast. They allow their passion to drive their speed of speech and this often means that an audience are struggling to keep up with the speaker.

The second thing I observed was the way images were used. Jay did not put any words on the slides. All he used was images and sound effects. However, his message got through for two reasons.

1. Because the speed of Jay’s speech was slow he was able to stress the words he wanted remembered. I still know that 2 billion people around the world are learning English and that 80 million Chinese students have taken the three day test.

2. The sound effects used were fantastic. They created the atmosphere that allowed his audience to ‘feel’ the situation he was talking about. Often we forget that we can create the appropriate image in our audience’s mind by using senses other than visual senses. We have the chance to use sound with static images as Jay did. If you remember the clips of Chinese people learning English – these were not video. These were static images with a soundtrack running over the images. It was powerful because it captured the emotion on the faces of the students.

Finally, Jay tells stories. He tells stories about Chinese people learning English by shouting and chanting the phrases, he tells stories of third graders doing a three day exam, 25% of which is in English and he tells the stories of those two billion people around the world learning English so they can have a better life. Stories really do make a difference when you present. It is stories that make your presentation memorable.

And the third presentation…

You probably thought I had forgotten the third presentation. Well, no. I didn’t.

Many of my regular readers will know by now that I am a big fan of Seth Godin. Seth Godin is an author and business guru and is an amazing presenter with his own unique style. In this 2006 talk, Seth asks the question “why are so many things broken?” watch the presentation to find his answer.

Seth Godin at Gel 2006 from Gel Conference on Vimeo.

Seth Godin’s style is captivating and humorous. It is his own style and it is unique. The thing is – it works.

One of the most common presentations people do is presenting their company. Like most things there are some guidelines you should follow. Sadly, most companies prepare a 40 to 60 minute presentation detailing things such as company management structure, financial growth over the last few years and a detailed explanation of each individual factory and office. This is simply far too much information.

A company introduction should last between ten and fifteen minutes. Anything longer is too much detail. It should include four things. These are:

Brief history

What you make or do

Who are your customers

What makes you unique and or different

When you are talking about your company’s history, rather than put a bullet pointed list of important dates on a slide, your audience is far more interested in the stories. For example introducing Hyundai would be a dream because there are so many stories around the founding of Hyundai. For example selling rice on the streets of Seoul in the 1920′s and repairing cars in the 1930′s and 40′s.

By telling stories of your company’s foundation you immediately create an interest in the company. Apple and the early days in Steve Wozniak’s parent’s garage, Microsoft’s first meeting with IBM and Richard Branson selling second-hand records from the basement of his parent’s house. All these stories are fascinating and audiences love them.

When you come to talk about what you do and who you sell to, don’t go into detail about contract sizes or individual components. Talk about unique technology in your products, give a couple of examples of your customers and how they feel about you.

Finally, telling your audience what makes you unique and different from your competitors sets you apart from your competition. Remember, your audience might not be attending your presentation only, they may be going to see your competitor tomorrow. So you need to stand out and impress now.

Short, simple, story filled introductions will always beat long, detailed factually based introductions.

There is one exception to this rule.

If you are introducing your company to new employees – then you can put in more detail, but personally, I would stick to the simple version and create an interest and a pride in the new employee.