How to Give a Killer Presentation Lessons from TED by Chris Anderson
r\ little more than a year ago, / L J \ on a trip to Nairobi, Kenya,
u usome colleagues and I met a 12-year-old Masai boy named
Richard Turere, who told us a fascinatüig story. His family relises livestock on the edge of a vast nartional park, and
one of the “âggest challenges is protecting the animals from
lions—especidly at night. Richard had noticed thai jriacing lamps in a
field didn’t deter lfcn attacks, but when he walked the field with a torch, the lions stayed away. From a young age, he’d; been mterested in electronics, teaching himself by, for example, taking apart his parents’ radio. He used that experience to devise a system of lights thatwouW turn on and ofF in sequence—using solar panels, a car bat- tery, cind a motorcyde indicator box—and thereby create a sense of movement that he hoped would sccire ofFthe lions. He in- stalled the lights, and the lions stopped at- tacking. Soon villages elsewhere in Kenya began installing Richard’s “lion ughts.”
The story was inspiring and worthy of the broader audience that our TED confer- ence could offer, but on the surface, Rich- ard seemed an unlikely candidate to give a
TED Talk. He was painfully shy. His English was halting. When he tried to describe his invention, the sentences tumbled out incoherently. And frankly, it was hard to imagHie Í preteenager standing on a stage in front of 1,400 people accustomed to hearing from polished speakers such as Bill Gatœ, Sir Ken Robinson, and Jill Bolte TaylDf.
But Richard’s story was so compel- ling that we invited him to speak. In the months before the 2013 conference, we worked with him to frame his story—to find the right place to begin, and to de- velop a succinct and logical arc of events. On thebcck 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. It was critical that he build his ccßndence to the point where his personality could shine through. When he finally gave his talk at TED, in Long Beach, you could tell he was nervous, but that only mace him more engaging—people were hanging on his every word. The con- fidence v/as there, and every time Richard smiled, the audience melted. When he finishied, the response was instantaneous: a sustainsd standing ovation.
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EXPERIENCE
Since the first TED conference, 30 years ago, speakers have run the gamut ftom 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 giv- ing presentations. Over the years, we’ve sought to develop a process for help- ing inexperienced presenters to frame, practice, and deliver talks that people enjoy watching. 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. We’re continually tweaking our approach—because the art of public speaking is evolving in real time—but judging by public response, our basic regi- men works well: Since we began putting TED Talks online, in 2006, they’ve been viewed more than one billion times.
On the basis of this experience, I’m convinced that giving a good talk is highly coachable. In a matter of hours, a speaker’s content and delivery can be tiansformed from muddled to mesmerizing. 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.
Frame Your Story There’s no way you can give a good talk unless you have something worth talking about. Conceptualizing and framing what you want to say is the most vital part of preparation.
We all know that humans are wired to listen to stories, and metaphors abound for the narrative structures that work best to engage people. When I think about compeUing presentations, I think about taking an audience on a journey. A suc- cessful talk is a little miracle—people see the world differentiy afterward.
If you frame the talk as a journey, the biggest decisions are figuring out where
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to Start and where to end. To find the right place to start, consider what people in the audience already know about your subject—and how much they care about it. If you assume they have more knowledge or interest than they do, or if you start us- ing jargon or get too technical, you’ll lose them. The most engaging speakers do a superb job of very quickly intioducing the topic, explaining why they care so deeply about it, and convincing the audience members that they should, too.
The biggest problem I see in first drafts of presentations is that they try to cover
A successful talk is a little miracle— people see the world differently afterward.
too much ground. You can’t summarize an entire career in a single talk. If you try to cram in everything you know, you won’t have time to include key details, and your talk will disappear into abstiact language that may make sense if your listeners are familiar with the subject matter but wül be completely opaque if they’re new to it. You need specific examples to flesh out your ideas. So limit the scope of your talk to that which can be explained, and brought to life with examples, in the avail- able time. Much of the early feedback we give aims to correct the impulse to sweep too broadly. Instead, go deeper. Give more detail. Don’t tell us about your entire field of study—tell us about your unique contribution.
Of course, itcanbejustas damaging to overexplciin or painstcikingly draw out the implications of a talk. And there the rem- edy is different: Remember that the people in the audience are intelligent. Let them figure some things out for themselves. Let them draw their own conclusions.
Many of the best talks have a narrative structure that loosely follows a detective story. The speaker starts out by presenting a problem and then describes the search
for a solution. There’s an “aha” moment, and the audience’s perspective shifts in a meaningful way.
If a talk fcdls, it’s almost always because the speciker didn’t ftame it correctly, mis- judged the audience’s level of interest, or neglected to tell a story. Even if the topic is important, random pontification without narrative is always deeply unsatisfying. There’s no progression, and you don’t feel that you’re learning.
I was at an energy conference recently where two people—a city mayor and a former governor—gave back-to-back talks. The mayor’s talk was essentially a list of impressive projects his city had imdertaken. It came off as boasting, like a report card or jm advertisement for his reelection. It quickly got boring. When the governor spoke, she didn’t list achieve- ments; instead, she shared an idea. Yes, she recounted anecdotes ftom her time in office, but the idea was central—and the stories explanatory or illustiative (and also funny). It was so much more interesting. The mayor’s underlying point seemed to be how great he was, while the governor’s message was “Here’s a compelling idea that would benefit us all.”
As a general rule, people are not very interested in talks about organizations or institutions (unless they’re members of them). Ideas cind stories fascinate us; orga- nizations bore us—they’re much harder to relate to. (Businesspeople especially take note: Don’t boast about your company; rather, tell us about the problem you’re solving.)
Plan Your Delivery Once you’ve got the framing down, it’s time to focus on your delivery. There are three main ways to deliver a talk. You can read it directiy off a script or a tele- prompter. You can develop a set of bullet points that map out what you’re going to say in each section rather than scripting the whole thing word for word. Or you can memorize your talk, which entails rehears- ing it to the point where you internalize every word—verbatim.