The Ideal Communicator

The “IT’S ALL ABOUT YOU” Speaker

Imagine this: You’ve just left a presentation that inspired and motivated you. The speaker made you laugh one minute, and then see connections the next. You got ideas, tips, enjoyed relevant stories and examples, a great handout, and a message that inspired you. And most importantly, the speaker seemed to talk directly to you and your needs. It was almost as if you and the speaker shared similar life experiences and values. As you leave, you are grateful that you decided to attend the presentation and promise yourself to take action based on what you learned. What a valuable use of your time it was!

And now, imagine this: You’re sitting in an audience about to listen to a speaker tell [what you hope] is an inspirational story about how they became so successful. Perhaps you’ll be able to learn some valuable lessons that you can apply to your current situation. The speaker starts with a long, text-heavy powerpoint slide that lists their credentials and qualifications, complete with fancy initials that follow their name. They boast about their accomplishments, their awards, their rock-solid work ethic, and how many businesses they had by the time they were 18 years old. You wait and hope that they will share something of value — something that isn’t purely about THEM — that shows that they care about what their audience gets out of the presentation.  But… nothing. The conclusion goes something like: “I’m so busy and successful, you would have to stand in line if you wanted to work with me.” Ah, well. There goes an hour of your life.

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 »

You have to give a presentation. You have 5 minutes to get your point across. Ignite is the place to learn how to do just that.

In my last blog post, I discussed the phenomenon of Ignite presentations. Ignite is a series of speedy presentations, where each speaker shares their personal and professional passions, using 20 slides that auto-advance every 15 seconds for a total of just five minutes.

With up to 20 speakers sharing the stage on the same night, Ignite presentations challenge the speaker to get their point across concisely, persuasively – and most importantly, memorably.  Add to that the expectation of clear and entertaining slides, a lot is riding on these 5 minutes.

With all these requirements in mind, here are 10 surefire ways to give a rock-solid, entertaining and memorable Ignite presentation: Read the rest of this entry »

I recently had the pleasure of attending an evening of “Ignite” presentations last month. For those who have not yet heard of this speaking phenomenon, Ignite is a series of speedy presentations, where each speaker shares their personal and professional passions, using 20 slides that auto-advance every 15 seconds for a total of just five minutes.

A 5-minute presentation is not very different from a 10-minute, 30-minute, or 4-hour presentation. The basic rules of public speaking is no less important in this context. As always, it’s crucially important to focus on the 3 main components of any speech: Content, delivery, and audience engagement.

With up to 20 speakers sharing the stage on the same night, Ignite presentations challenge the speaker to get their point across concisely, persuasively – and most importantly, memorably. Add to that the expectation of clear and entertaining slides, a lot is riding on these 5 minutes.

Let’s look at one particularly stand-out Ignite presentation – the 22-minute meeting, by Nicole Steinbok – and see what makes it so successful:

1. Relatable Topic – This is an issue that the majority of the audience can easily relate to. It seems that most of us have suffered through neverending, pointless meetings, and she capitalizes on this. Read the rest of this entry »

For an air-tight example of an excellent speech introduction, look no further than Seth Godin’s speech about sliced bread at www.ted.com. In a little over two minutes (from minute 0.25 to 2.35 on the video), he not only tells the audience exactly what he’s going to talk about in an concise, interesting, and engaging way, but he includes the all-important WIIFM (What’s In It For Me?) factor to really draw in his listeners.

How does he do it?  Watch the first 2 minutes of this speech for clues…

1. He immediately introduces the four specific examples that he’s going to talk about, including one of his own failures (Seth Godin failed at something?  I don’t believe it…) Read the rest of this entry »