Six ways to take charge of what your audience remembers

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We ask people on our courses what they remember from the last presentation they went to. Typically they either remember nothing, or a random point or story that the presenter told.

So when you’re presenting, take charge of what your audience remembers. Here are six ways to do that:

1. Focus your presentation around one Key Message

Decide on what is the most important point that you want to get across to your audience. We call this point the Key Message. Then build your presentation around that Key Message. It’s very tempting to have more than one Key Message. But by doing this you dilute the power of each message.

2. Make that Key Message simple and concrete

Take the time to craft your Key Message so that it is easy for someone else to grasp. A traffic engineer we were working with drafted this Key Message:

Implementing urban design principles will ensure that this roading project is sustainable.

We worked with her to transform it to this:
Look for abstract, conceptual words in your Key Message and see if you can replace them with specific, concrete words that your audience can “see” in their minds.

3. Flag your Key Message

You want your audience to be alert and paying attention when you state your Key Message. You can do this by saying something like:

Here’s the most important thing I want you to get.

Then pause….then say your Key Message. We call this a flag because it’s like waving a flag to say pay attention to the next thing that I’m going to say. It’s equivalent to a teacher saying “Pay attention now because this is going to be in the exam.”

4. Match your Key Message to a memorable image

Adding images to words, aids recall. However, do make sure that there is an obvious match between your Key Message and the image that you choose. If the picture doesn’t match, then not only will it not help, it will actively distract your audience as they try and work out what the link is. Richard Mayer has extensively researched multimedia learning. He concludes that adding interesting photos which are related but not directly relevant to the information being taught, interferes with learning. In an insightful article, John Windsor of You Blog calls pictures which are not relevant to your point “visual noise“.

5. Display your Key Message on a slide and leave it up for a while

If you’ve found a good image to support your Key Message, combine your Key Message and the image on one slide. If you don’t have an effective image, just display your Key Message against a neutral background. Al Gore did this for one of his points in his latest TED presentation. His slide looked like this:

This gives your Key Message longevity. When you say your Key Message it’s been and gone in just a few seconds - leaving it up on the slide while you’re talking about it will help your audience to remember it.

6. Repeat your Key Message

Martin Luther King repeated the theme of his 1963 speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial 11 times. As a result, most of us remember “I have a dream…”, even though we weren’t there.

At the very least, say your Key Message twice, once near the beginning of your presentation, and once at the end. This will take advantage of the Primary Effect - (this is our tendency to remember things which are presented to us first) and the Recency Effect (our tendency to remember things presented last).

But you can also restate your Key Message during the body of your presentation. The repetitions are most effective when they are spaced-out over time. See John Medina’s BrainRules for more information on how memories are strengthened over time.

Review of top 10 speaking blogs at Alltop

Alltop is a site that brings together blogs from a specific niche in a way that allows you to quickly skim and scan. They’ve recently added a category for speaking blogs. The blogs are not explicitly ranked but the first 10 blogs to be mentioned will get more attention. So here’s my review of each of these blogs:

1. Presentation Zen. This blog established Garr Reynolds as the guru of presentation slide design and led to his excellent book Presentation Zen. The focus of the blog has shifted in the last few months as Garr has been kept busier by his international speaking engagements. There are fewer posts and they tend to be about his travels and presentations - but always with a gem thrown in to keep you thinking. And he’s still producing brilliant slideshows on the latest books. He has earnt the No 1 slot for his perceptive and unique take on the visual art of presenting. But if you really want to see what the fuss is about, plunge into the archives or buy the book.
2. Creating your Communications Experience. This is Bert Decker’s blog. He’s a big name in the US presentation training industry. The blog is updated every 1-2 weeks on average and the posts tend to be newsy. For example, commenting on recent political speeches, advances in technology, or a new article on speaking recently posted elsewhere. My impression is that this blog is very much a sideline for Bert- when something happens he’ll blog about it. Not sure why this blog is in the no 2 slot.
3. Presentation Revolution. This is the blog of Ethos3, a presentation training and slide design company. Scott Schwertly is the main contributor, but others post too and it’s updated daily. There’s a clear theme to the blog - drawing lessons about presenting from movies, commercials and sport. There are also regular features - a presentation critique and a presentation tips video “3 tips in 33 seconds“. Fun and irreverent.
4. Humor Power. This is the blog of John Kinde, a Toastmaster from Las Vegas. I don’t subscribe to this blog, so I wasn’t familiar with it before clicking on it from Alltop. My first impresssion was that the boring design and intrusive google ads let the blog down. John posts about twice a week. The blog is focused on funny lines and jokes that you can use in a speech. So if you’re wanting humorous inspiration, it’s a good place to go. However, this is a very narrow subniche within the speaking niche and I’m not sure why this blog is so high in Alltop.
5. Six Minutes. Andrew Dlugan loves analysis and categorisation- and his audience benefits. Andrew gives us “Public Speaking Articles: Week in Review” every Saturday highlighting the top speaking posts during the week. He’s also the author of 106 Public Speaking Blogs - an authoritative list of the public speaking blogosphere. And he can also write great posts - like this one on giving your statistics meaning.
6. Speak Schmeak. Lisa Braithwaite updates her blog almost daily and gives useful insights into presenting. Lisa lets her personal voice come through, and over time, you’ll start to feel as if you know her. The blog occasionally strays away from public speaking - but that’s part of the charm.
7. Beyond Bullet Points. Cliff Atkinson is the Powerpoint slide expert who wrote the book Beyond Bullets. His main focus now is a paid membership site and the blog seems to be used mainly to announce events for members and technology tips. The principal author is now Meryl Evans. To get the benefits of Cliff’s thinking on the use of PowerPoint you’ll need to visit his old blog Beyond Bullets. There’s also a great list of his articles here.
8. Pistachio Consulting. This is the blog of Laura Fitton, presentation trainer turned social media expert. The blog has changed with her - out of the 10 posts on the home page, only one was about presenting. The posting frequency is erratic. Some useful presentation tips but you’ll have to go to the archives to get them.
9. The Public Speaking Blog. Eric Feng is a Singapore-based Toastmaster and speech coach. He writes with energy and enthusiasm and posts about twice a week.
10. Memo to C-level Speakers. Pete Ryckman has a speech writing background and it shows. Each post is well thought out, structured and illustrated with a relevant anecdote. He posts once or twice a week.

So some of the Top 10 blogs are past their best. Who would I promote?

1. The Extreme Presentation Method. Andrew Abela is a presentation trainer with a particular interest in visual thinking - how to effectively portray concepts in a visual way. There are many excellent visual thinking resources on his blog. He supports his advice with evidence - see his post on evidence-based presenting. He doesn’t post that often but every post is worth reading.
2. The YouBlog. Some of his posts come across as a bit of a rant, but John Windsor is not afraid to challenge conventional advice. He often has an interesting visual - a combination of an image with scrawled handwriting. See his post on graphics for more ideas.
3. Dave Paradi’s PowerPoint Blog. Dave Paradi takes the principles of effective use of PowerPoint and shows you how to do it in practice. His weekly slide makeover podcasts are excellent.

The three benefits of gesturing - it’s not what you think

Why is it, that when you’re speaking in front of a group you suddenly become aware of these great clumsy appendages at the end of your arms - your hands?

Why do you suddenly wonder what to do about them?

Gesturing is natural

In normal one-to-one conversation you never think “What shall I do with my hands?”. In normal conversation, your hands are probably gesturing without you giving them any conscious thought. On our courses, the participants rehearse their presentation in pairs before presenting to the group. So they get to present to just to one other person. As I stand back and observe the room I see all these people talking with animation and energy, with natural gestures to go along with what they’re saying. That’s because gesturing is normal and natural.

There is a theory that gestures were the precursor to language - the gestural theory of language evolution. In the June 2008 issue of Scientific American there was an article on the the neuroscience of dance. It reported that Broca’s area (the part of the brain which is associated with speech production) is also activated during certain movement tasks. So it seems that speaking and gestures go hand-in-hand.

But for some people when they speak in front of group their natural gesturing disappears. I see this on our courses when people who had been talking with lots of gestures in the one-on-one rehearsal suddenly seem to lose that ability when they speak in front of a larger group. That’s because a common reaction to being on show in front of a group is to freeze and become stiff - it’s a symptom of nervousness.

It’s not what what you think

And it does matter. But not for the reason you may think.

It is not because your gestures help the audience understand what you’re saying. You may have heard that 55% of the meaning of your presentation comes from your facial expression and gestures, 38% from your tone of voice and 7% from your words. This is bunkum and arises from a huge misinterpretation of a research study by Albert Mehrabian. Click here for an enlightening discussion of the Mehrabian myth.

The three reasons why gesturing is helpful

First, gesturing helps you be fluent and articulate. There is a large body of scientific evidence to support this. In an interesting study, three groups of subjects were asked to speak under different conditions. One group had both arms immobilised, the second group had one arm immobilised and the third group was free to gesture. The experimenters found that disfluency increased as gesture was restricted. In addition, research shows that restricting hand gestures makes it more difficult to find the right words.

Robert Krauss from Columbia University has published many papers on this topic. He concludes one of his papers with this story:

Many years ago, my maternal grandfather told me a story about two men in his hometown, Vitebsk, Belorussia, walking down a road on a bitterly cold winter day. One man chattered away animatedly, while other nodded from time to time, but said nothing. Finally, the man who was talking turned to his friend and said: “So, nu, Shmuel, why aren’t you saying anything?” “Because,” replied Shmuel, “I forgot my gloves.” At the time, I didn’t see the point of the story. Half a century later it has become a primary focus of my research.

So by gesturing you not only unfreeze your body you unfreeze your mind.

Secondly, gesturing conveys enthusiasm and energy to your audience. Surveys of what people like and dislike about presentations consistently report that people what presenters to show passion and enthusiasm.

Thirdly, when the audience sees you gesturing they will think that you look confident. That’s because nervous speakers are often frozen and stiff. Not only that but you may also fool your mind into thinking you are confident. You’ll realise that you’re speaking in a confident, conversational manner and start to feel that way too.

So what to do with your hands?

Unclasp them (or take them out of your pockets) and let them be free. To begin with they may just hang by your sides - that’s OK. Although it feels awkward it looks fine. As you get into the flow of your talk - your hands will join in. Because gesturing is a natural part of speaking.

How to handle a difficult audience #2

In my last post, I discussed what you could do to set yourself up as the leader at the beginning of a controversial presentation.

There’s a second thing that you can do at the beginning of a presentation to reduce the likelihood of audience members getting upset and annoyed. Acknowledge the issue that people are concerned about upfront. Barack Obama did this with elegance and a touch of humour at a speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee last week:

Before I begin, I want to say that I know some provocative e-mails have been circulating throughout Jewish communities across the country. A few of you may have gotten them. They’re filled with tall tales and dire warnings about a certain candidate for President. And all I want to say is, Let me know if you see this guy named Barack Obama, because he sounds pretty frightening.

You may be concerned about revealing a weakness to a potentially hostile audience. But so long as it’s not a major weakness it may increase your credibility in the eyes of the audience. A study of juror behaviour reported in the book Yes!: 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive showed that when a lawyer revealed a minor weakness in their case before it was revealed by the opposing lawyer, the jury would trust them more and they would receive more favourable verdicts. So be upfront, acknowledge valid concerns that your audience may have. You’ll reduce the likelihood that the meeting will get out of hand.

How to handle a difficult audience

We work with many public sector agencies who are often in the firing line in meetings with the public. Knowing how to handle concerned and angry people in the audience is an important skill.

Remember back to your school days. You can probably remember a teacher who you and your fellow students respected. There was no way that you would play up in their class. There was probably also a teacher who you knew you could run rings around (or if you weren’t that sort of child - your classmates could).

You want to be like the former - teachers who were instantly respected and seen as leaders. So set yourself up as the leader from the first moment of the presentation. Here’s how you can do this:

Establish ground rules

Choose just one or two issues to set ground rules about. Here are two possibilities:

1. Cellphone use - ask people turn their cellphones off
2. Questions - let the audience know when you will be taking questions.

But note that the exact issues that you choose to set ground rules about are not important. The important thing is that you have set some clear rules about how the meeting will run. This lets the audience know that you are in charge and that you know what you’re doing. You will have set yourself up as the leader and as a result they will be less likely to challenge you.

6 ways to do Audience Analysis online

In the comments of a recent post we discussed the importance of knowing your audience.

Many presenters ask their audience at the beginning of the presentation what they’re most interested in. That’s a waste of your audience’s time. At a recent training course, I listened to 22 other people say what they wanted from the course. Half-an-hour of my time listening to information which had little interest for me - and was often a repeat of what other people had said.

In a recent post, Tom Antion suggested:

Phone as many attendees as you can before the program and ask their opinions.

Good advice but it’s a lot of work. It’s easier online. Here are some ideas:

1. Invite members of the audience to fill in a questionnaire on your website. For an example see www.effectivespeaking.co.nz/generic-tna.html.
2. Send members of the audience an e-mail asking them to answer a couple of questions.
3. If you’ve got a blog, write a special blog post for your audience and then invite them (via email) to visit your blog and respond in the comments section.

You don’t always have to research the actual audience. You can ask people who are similar to the audience you’re going to be talking to:

1. If you’ve got a blog, ask your readers to give you feedback in the comments area.
2. Visit forums where people similar to your audience hang out, and ask them. If you’re new to the forum do introduce yourself and ask respectfully. I used to belong to a forum for people with lifestyle blocks (small hobby farms). People wanting to start up businesses servicing this sector would sometimes come along and peremptorily start asking questions. People on the forum felt taken advantage of and would tell them so… sometimes less than politely.
3. Ask a blogger who has an audience similar to the one you’re going to be talking to, if you could guest post or ask them to post the questions on their blog. This also has to be done with care and sensitivity. See this post on ProBlogger on building relationships with other bloggers.

But are all these methods less personal than the individual phone call advocated by Tom Antion? We used to phone every person attending our public courses. But it was very labour intensive. So we decided to have them complete the questionnaire and then follow up with a short phone call. Much less work for us AND course participants started commenting on how much they appreciated our pre-course research. They had never commented when it was just the phone call!

What other ways could you do audience analysis online? Use the comments section to offer your suggestions.

The five word presentation challenge

If you were only allowed five words in your presentation - could you do it?

That was the challenge facing winners at the 2008 Webby Film and Video Awards on Tuesday night. A five word limit on their acceptance speech.

This five word limit forced people to be focused, simple and concrete. Just like a longer presentation should be. Here are some of my favourites:

“Make films from the heart.” The Los Angeles Film School

“Blog your photos - save trees.” PENTAX Photo Gallery

“Games are good for you.” Discovery Channel >> I Videogame

“Design is changing the world.” Design for the Other 90%

“Encourage kids to be creative.” The Los Angeles Recording School

“Together, we’ll make reading obsolete.” Onion News Network

“Don’t take your organs to heaven.” Heart Transplant Procedure

Take the five word challenge
If you’re just starting to design a presentation, work on expressing what you want to get across in five words. Yes, it will be a struggle, but your presentation will be focused and memorable as a result.

Want to improve an existing presentation? Develop the five word version - then cut out everything that doesn’t support your five word version.

See also my post on crafting a Key Message for your presentation.

PowerPoint slide design - adding elegance

In my last post, I gave some basic advice on PowerPoint slide design. Now let’s add some elegance.

1. When you add text to a photo, make sure it is easy to read. You can add a mask (a rectangle of partly transparent colour) between the text and the photo. In the example below right the transparency is on a gradient so that it fades seamlessly into the photo.

2. Make blocks of colour more interesting by adding a subtle gradient and removing the line round the outside.

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3.  Use shapes with rounded corners. A book on the technical aspects of blogs that this was a “Web 2.0 design sensibility”! I think they just look more classy.

4. Experiment with asymmetry. As a non-designer, I used to think that everything had to be symmetrical - often centred on the page. But symmetry can be boring. Compare the two slides below.

So you don’t have to be a designer to be able to design good PowerPoint slides. These are just some of the techniques that I’ve gleaned from looking at other people’s slides that I’ve liked. You can do the same. If you’ve got some design tips, do share them in the comments.

PowerPoint slide design - the basics

I am not a designer. I was awakened to the possibility of improving the design of my PowerPoint slides by the Presentation Zen blog. Since then I have observed and analyzed examples of good design, even read some design books - and of course read the Presentation Zen book.

These design tips are not for bullet-point slides. I’m assuming you’re beyond that (if not start reading Presentation Zen).

These design tips are for the Assertion-Evidence format - this is gaining ground as the brain-friendly yet easy to put together alternative to bullets. The assertion-evidence slide format was developed by Professor Michael Alley. At the top of the slide is the assertion - a simple sentence which expresses the message of the slide. The rest of the slide is the evidence to support that assertion - expressed in a visual way. Ellen Finkelstein calls it the Tell ‘n’ Show slide format. Dave Paradi is using the format for his excellent slide make-overs.

This post will cover the basics - in the next post I’ll explore how to add some elegance.

1. Use a neutral background - either dark or white. You can add interest to the background by adding a gentle gradient or other subtle effect. Gentle and subtle are the key words here. Most PowerPoint templates are too busy to work well with graphics.

2. For any text, use a sans serif font such as arial or verdana. Choose a contrasting colour to the background.

3. Make photos fill the whole of the slide.

4. Use good quality photos without clutter. I use istockphoto as my first port-of-call when I’m looking for photos as I can be sure that they will look good and it’s fast. If you search for “sparkler” on istockphoto, the first page brings up many good quality photos. The same search on the flickr creative commons page only turned up one photo that I might use - and it’s not quite as good as the one above. John Windsor has an excellent post on ensuring your images are relevant. See also this post from Presentation Revolution. Research on e-learning by Richard Mayer has shown that images which are there simply to provide some light relief actually harm learning.

In the next post, I’ll look at how you can add some elegance.

Other resources

Ellen Finkelstein’s post on 5 steps to slide design for non-designers