Focus

Last week, I ran an Introduction Workshop for an upcoming TEDx event. It was the first time that the speakers were together, and I introduced them to the process and roadmap for our speaker development program.

I am always somewhat tense about this first workshop. It is important that I can inspire confidence with a comprehensive program and that the speakers buy into the program. In this case, I had the added concern that all of these speakers are high-level academics, and I was not involved in the selection process. It is not that I was concerned about the selection, but it just meant I didn’t know any of the speakers or their topics.

Thankfully, everything went as expected. While I have done this many times before, this was a first for all these speakers. So, I was not surprised when a number of the speakers admitted that they were not sure what their talk topic would be. This is so common and unexpected that I thought it would make this week’s newsletter an interesting focus.

Topic Anxiety

Early in my TEDx coaching career, I found it surprising, almost alarming, that speakers would sign up unsure of their topic. Now I realise this is to be expected and almost universal, with many speakers unsure but unwilling to admit it. This is why I shared a quote with my workshop.

Speakers often feel overwhelmed because of the immense pressure to deliver a compelling, engaging, and polished talk of about 15 minutes. Understanding this, we can appreciate that figuring out what goes into that 15 minutes is indeed a daunting task.

To navigate this task, it is crucial to be clear on the strategic and tactical reasons for doing the TEDx talk. Understanding what you want to achieve with the talk will provide a clear direction for your topic.

Your Audience

Secondly, you need to consider the audience. Generally speaking, TEDx audiences are highly educated and curious but usually not particularly knowledgeable about any given industry or area of research. This also informs us what a topic should and should not include.

These two perspectives narrow the breadth of your topic, whether you are preparing for a TEDx talk, addressing a conference, or giving an important presentation.

The topic needs to focus on a specific outcome for the audience, with a clear path to get them from where they enter to where you want them when they leave. Lacking this focus is the one thing that makes most talks either forgettable or entirely worthless.

In fact, TED's innovation in the communication field was popularising the short-form presentation. Prior to that, online talks were frequently 60-90-minute affairs with no greater value than a TED talk. Compressing the timeframe forced the speakers to work harder at highlighting the value and presenting in an accessible way.

Short vs Long Talks

In my opinion, it is harder to give a good longer talk than a good short talk because this element of focus is not as necessary, and the topic becomes diluted without a clear point.

Turning a tight, effective, compelling 15-minute TEDx talk into a 30-minute talk is not too difficult while still adding value. You can simply go into more depth on a couple of points, give an expanded origin story, or expand your vision for the future, and you are good.

But turning that 15-minute talk into a 60-minute talk is a nightmare; in fact, I would argue that it should not be done, or at least not approached that way. My recommendation is to create another complimentary talk, another 15-minute talk that can be given stand-alone, in this instance, added to the original one to make a longer talk.

This change of direction partway through your talk will do a lot to keep your audience’s attention as they wonder where you are going. Your final tying up of the two talks into one takeaway can have a bigger impact than you expected.

Similarly, I would ensure that a 90-minute keynote has three distinct ‘acts’ or sections with enough of a change to engage or re-engage your audience and a powerful conclusion tying all the parts together.

Conclusion

How might you achieve this? Well, this goes beyond the scope of this article, but I like transitioning to a very different topic, seemingly unrelated and then tying it in towards the end. Or I go from one perspective to a very different or even opposite perspective, creating dissonance that the audience struggles to overcome until I give them the key to combine the two.

You may be thinking that I started this article about focus, and now we are talking about different things in the same talk. But the message is the same. Every minute of your talk must have focus. Diluting your talk, giving the same value over a longer period dilutes that focus.

Creating more value by offering different perspectives can retain that minute-by-minute focus.

Snippets is a section where I comment on interesting text I encountered in the previous week.

“You should never be in a position where you have to shitify your work.”

This was written in a chat during a Zoom discussion about project work. A client (a government department) had asked us to create some updated training, and we had delivered our first batch. However, the project was put on hold because some were concerned that our delivery made the very average existing training look bad.

The client was looking into how better to integrate this into their look and feel.

This prompted my colleague's comment. I wanted to share this as I think it is a perfect example of how language evolves. If you forgive the profanity, there is no such word as “shitify,” but in this context, it makes perfect sense to everyone reading it, and in fact, I would struggle to find a more apt word now.

This is what happens when you include terminology in your talk that makes sense in the context and is then the preferred way of describing this effect or event. This is a powerful position to be in and should be pursued wherever possible.

The Power of the Tricolon

I recently read The Elements of Eloquence by Mark Forsyth, and I decided it might be useful to include some of the lessons from that book into my regular Snippets columns.

Threes have a magic in them.

Often, two things are linked by being complementary or opposites. For example, in Eat & Drink, one is solid, and one is liquid; both are ingested. But if you find the right word, you can turn it into a memorable three-word statement: Eat, drink, and be merry.

The third word doesn’t have to be particularly connected to create a memorable phrase. Good and bad are opposites, add ugly and you have a memorable phrase. The good the bad and the ugly.

And another famous Tricolon is, I came, I saw, I conquered. Which is effectively a story in three simple parts.

One of my favourites is Douglas Adam’s term: Life, the universe and everything.

These tricolons are a memorable phrase from your talk that can easily be recalled and repeated.

What Tricolon can you include in your next presentation?

Unpacking Wisdom is a weekly section in which I explore a famous (or not so famous) quote and how it applies to the Compelling Communicator.

The expert’s paradox is fairly visible everywhere on the internet. People with little knowledge of a subject proclaim with great certainty why their position on the subject is right. People who are experts in the subject are usually far less hasty to make sweeping statements about what is correct and what is not.

In my experience, this is very true of TEDx speakers. Because they have studied a topic in depth, they are aware of the number of elements that can, in fact, impact outcomes, and they are less likely, without evidence, to proclaim a specific cause for an outcome.

The problem is that this is not how audiences like to have their information. They would prefer simple laws or truths that are always right.

So how do we handle this?

Giving guidelines and rules of thumb is a great way to engage and add value to an audience. You must give caveats that this is not always the answer, but it is most times the answer, and you may want to mention any outliers that this guidance should not be applied to.

The problem is that when we see an expert speaker, vacillate or prevaricate on stage we tend not to trust them so much. So it is important that as an expert you share information that you are confident standing behind and that you clearly state any reservations and your reason from them in a clear and forthright manner.

What I am up to this week…

Professionally:

Lots of work in the Instructional Design space, and I expect an upsurge in coaching with the TEDxUoWaikato speakers.

Recreationally:

D&D remains my regular recreation, although I really do need to do something more physical.

What I am reading:

I recently finished Stone Junction by Jim Dodge, I was not a big fan of the ending, but it was a different fiction book that is worth a read. I have just started reading Win! by Donna O’Toole, which outlines the winning elements of entering industry awards competitions. I am very impressed with the book and wish I had come across it a couple of weeks ago, as we have an award submission going in this week.

What I am watching:

I managed to watch all The Hobbit movies currently offered free on TVNZ. Very well done. And my guilty pleasure is watching season 2 of The Traitors.