The Ideal Communicator

In this 19-minute speech, Sir Ken Robinson makes an entertaining and moving case for creating an education system that nurtures (rather than undermines) creativity. Having had the pleasure of seeing him present in 2006 at a conference, I am now very excited to feature one of his talks in this newsletter. Discussion of this speech will focus on three things: His movements, what makes his content so compelling, and ways in which he links himself with the audience.

HIS MOVEMENTS — OR LACK THEREOF

Sir Ken does not move around when he speaks. In this video, you’ll see that the camera is focused on his upper body and face only, and he stays planted on his feet throughout his presentation. This is a stellar example of how it’s possible to engage an audience without moving around, gesturing, or “working the stage.” This is quite unique to Sir Ken, as most speakers feel more comfortable moving around…and there’s nothing wrong with that either.

COMPELLING CONTENT

Sir Ken uses so many core components of a persuasive speech that it’s no wonder his audiences are mesmerized. Let’s take a look at a five of them:

1. Clearly stated hypothesis, problem statement, and introduction. Within the first three minutes, he states his hypothesis (“My contention is all kids have tremendous talents and we squander them. Pretty ruthlessly. So I want to talk about education, and about how creativity is as important as literacy”). He gets to his point quickly and concisely. Read the rest of this entry »

A lot has been said about the presentation style of Steve Jobs. Numerous books have written about it, blogs, articles and other media are continually discussing and deconstructing his finesse, his charisma, his ‘get-to-the-point’ delivery. And with good reason. This man knows how to launch a product. 

Most of us are used to this more ‘typical’ product launch presentations given by a ‘business speaker’: “Here’s our new product. These are the new features… These are the improvements on the old features… Here are the benefits… Here’s the price. Please buy it.” But Jobs does what many business speakers have a hard time doing. He intrigues his audience. He has them in the palm of his hand. He turns them into passionate Apple brand advocates.

Steve Jobs is much more than a talented, above-average business speaker. He’s a product evangelist. Not content to just launch a product or persuade us of its value, he makes us salivate for it. Beg for it. He makes us HAVE to have it – NOW. 

I looked at two of Jobs’ presentations – the introduction of the iPad in January 2010, and the introduction of the iPhone 3G in 2008. Both are very similar in style, so we can see that Jobs knows what type of presentation style works for him and sticks with it. So let’s look at four techniques that the Great and Powerful Jobs uses to bring his audience to their knees, begging for his product: Read the rest of this entry »