Conceptualizing and framing what you want to say is the most vital part of preparation. There’s no way you can give a good talk unless you have something worth talking about. And while my team’s experience has focused on TED’s 18-minutes-or-shorter format, the lessons we’ve learned are surely useful to other presenters-whether it’s a CEO doing an IPO road show, a brand manager unveiling a new product, or a start-up pitching to VCs. In a matter of hours, a speaker’s content and delivery can be transformed from muddled to mesmerizing. On the basis of this experience, I’m convinced that giving a good talk is highly coachable. We’re continually tweaking our approach-because the art of public speaking is evolving in real time-but judging by public response, our basic regimen works well: Since we began putting TED Talks online, in 2006, they’ve been viewed more than one billion times. It typically begins six to nine months before the event, and involves cycles of devising (and revising) a script, repeated rehearsals, and plenty of fine-tuning. Over the years, we’ve sought to develop a process for helping inexperienced presenters to frame, practice, and deliver talks that people enjoy watching. Since the first TED conference, 30 years ago, speakers have run the gamut from political figures, musicians, and TV personalities who are completely at ease before a crowd to lesser-known academics, scientists, and writers-some of whom feel deeply uncomfortable giving presentations. When he finished, the response was instantaneous: a sustained standing ovation. The confidence was there, and every time Richard smiled, the audience melted. When he finally gave his talk at TED, in Long Beach, you could tell he was nervous, but that only made him more engaging- people were hanging on his every word. It was critical that he build his confidence to the point where his personality could shine through. On the back of his invention Richard had won a scholarship to one of Kenya’s best schools, and there he had the chance to practice the talk several times in front of a live audience. In the months before the 2013 conference, we worked with him to frame his story-to find the right place to begin and to develop a succinct and logical arc of events. And frankly, it was hard to imagine a preteenager standing on a stage in front of 1,400 people accustomed to hearing from polished speakers such as Bill Gates, Sir Ken Robinson, and Jill Bolte Taylor.īut Richard’s story was so compelling that we invited him to speak. When he tried to describe his invention, the sentences tumbled out incoherently. The story was inspiring and worthy of the broader audience that our TED conference could offer, but on the surface, Richard seemed an unlikely candidate to give a TED Talk. Soon villages elsewhere in Kenya began installing Richard’s “lion lights.” He installed the lights, and the lions stopped attacking. He used that experience to devise a system of lights that would turn on and off in sequence-using solar panels, a car battery, and a motorcycle indicator box-and thereby create a sense of movement that he hoped would scare off the lions. From a young age, he’d been interested in electronics, teaching himself by, for example, taking apart his parents’ radio. Richard had noticed that placing lamps in a field didn’t deter lion attacks, but when he walked the field with a torch, the lions stayed away. His family raises livestock on the edge of a vast national park, and one of the biggest challenges is protecting the animals from lions-especially at night. Instead, keep working until you have an idea that’s worth sharing.Ī little more than a year ago, on a trip to Nairobi, Kenya, some colleagues and I met a 12-year-old Masai boy named Richard Turere, who told us a fascinating story. So if your thinking is not there yet, he advises, decline that invitation to speak. In fact, it’s fairly easy to “coach out” the problems in a talk, but there’s no way to “coach in” the basic story-the presenter has to have the raw material. Put it together (play to your strengths and be authentic).Īccording to Anderson, presentations rise or fall on the quality of the idea, the narrative, and the passion of the speaker.Plan the multimedia (whatever you do, don’t read from PowerPoint slides).Work on stage presence (but remember that your story matters more than how you stand or whether you’re visibly nervous).Plan your delivery (decide whether to memorize your speech word for word or develop bullet points and then rehearse it-over and over).Frame your story (figure out where to start and where to end). In this article, Anderson, TED’s curator, shares five keys to great presentations: For more than 30 years, the TED conference series has presented enlightening talks that people enjoy watching.
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