Dan Roam at MIX08 Photo credit: D Begley (our photos of Dan at SXSW are too low quality to use)

Dan Roam’s presentation was one of the highlights of SXSW 2010 for me. It was an elegant combination of rigorous thinking, conversational delivery and intelligent, integrated visuals.

Rigorous thinking

Dan Roam’s central message is that we can solve our problems with pictures. He’s shown how to do this in his seminal book Back of the Napkin, and by tackling some of the most intractable problems in the world – reforming the United States healthcare system – with pictures (check out his winning slideshare presentation).

In this presentation Dan built on that message. He argued that one of the reasons why we face so many problems in the world is because we don’t use pictures. We’ve equated intelligence with verbal ability. If you can talk, you can be a leader. If you can’t talk, you’re relegated to the ranks. That reliance on talking, rather than pictures, has led to some of the messes we’re in:

Since the industrial revolution, we’ve judged human intelligence by our ability to talk. And just look at where that belief has gotten us: from politics to energy, we’re deeper in conceptual debt than ever.

The ability to visualize problems was not prized, encouraged or quantified. For example, Einstein was a great visual thinker. But he was forced to translate his images into words to explain them to the world. Famous physicist Richard Feynman has argued that that led to Einstein becoming less productive.

This argument had my brain sparking. Our culture does not value pictures. We think pictures belong in children’s story books. Is that why people find it so hard to use PowerPoint and other slideware as a visual medium?

I’ve described just the first five minutes of Dan’s presentation. For more see Dan Roam: Why Words Won’t Work (SXSW Recap).

Dan Roam’s presentation was a live demonstration of Scott Berkun’s great quote:

“Good public speaking is based on good private thinking”

Conversational delivery

Dan Roam is not a performer. He’s not passionate a la Gary Vaynerchuk. He doesn’t have to be (and nor do you!) He was conversational and easy to listen to. His presentation was compelling to listen to because of the calibre of his thinking and his evident commitment to his message.

Intelligent, integrated visuals

In my last post I ranted about the use of irrelevant images in presentations. Not so here. Every image did some work either to help us grasp his point, or making the point more memorable.

Dan Roam combines the slickness of slideware with the grittiness of drawing by drawing on his slides. As Dan says, we love to watch people draw and create – it creates curiosity and engagement. I wrote about this very early in the history of my blog in a post called The Power of the Flipchart (also inspired by Dan Roam!) But a flipchart is not scalable to a large audience, and it takes time to draw a visual from scratch. Dan combines the power of drawing with the scalability and speed of slides. You can see this in this handheld video segment of the last 5 minutes of Dan’s presentation (it takes a long time to load but it’s worth it):

And here are some stills of slides earlier in his presentation – the red pen is the live drawing:

The full video of Dan’s presentation is not yet available on the sxsw website. I’ll let you know when it is. It will be worth watching.

Garr Reynolds from Presentation Zen has highlighted several presentations from Malcolm Gladwell. Malcolm Gladwell is a master storyteller in his books. He carries that through in his presentations. Watch the video – then read my analysis below for what you can learn from Malcolm Gladwell and his presentation style.

What Gladwell did well

So what did you pick up on what he did well. Here’s my list:

1. He had a Key Message

There was one consistent theme or key message in his presentation – and all of his presentation was focused on supporting that key message. I do have a suggestion on how Gladwell could improve how he states the key message. Near the beginning he said:

“Cap rates are really low.”

This is clear and succinct but doesn’t tell us why it matters. An audience appreciates knowing why we should listen near the beginning. The way Gladwell stated his key message near the end of the presentation was much more effective:

“We are squandering our talent.”

That’s when we really get the point and why it matters.

Sometimes people are concerned about repeating their key message in the same way at the beginning and at the end of their presentation – but it works in an oral presentation. Martin Luther King said “I have a dream” eleven times.

2. He cut everything else out

Gladwell has just published a book Outliers. I’m sure he had a ton of material that he could have included in this presentation. But he resisted the temptation. He picked one point to highlight and stuck to that.

3. He had a clear structure

Here’s how I would represent his structure visually:

This is an excellent three-part structure. Gladwell picked the three most important constraints and concentrated on those. There are probably many other constraints, but again he resisted the temptation to overload his audience.

4. He supported each point with concrete evidence

Gladwell is a storyteller in his books, so it’s no surprise that he has excellent examples and statistics throughout his presentation. As I’ve done with other presenters (Al Gore, Seth Godin) I’ve analysed the proportion of evidence (examples and statistics) to points/discussion in his presentation:

In Al Gore’s presentation, 60% of the presentation was evidence, and in Seth Godin’s case 67%. These are all great presenters – take a look at this metric for your own presentations – and benchmark yourself against these guys.

My only quibble around Gladwell’s use of evidence is that on two occasions he used a second example or statistic when we had already got the point. We didn’t need the Czech soccer team example after the Canadian hockey example. That was overkill. Second, he gave us a second set of statistics around the capitalization rate of Chinese Americans which didn’t seem to me to say anything significantly different to the first set of statistics. It confused me. The lesson here is that most points only need one example or set of statistics to back them up. Only use a second piece of evidence if it is appreciably different.

5. He used signposting to make the presentation easy to follow

Signposting is letting your audience know where you’re going, where you’re at and where you’ve been in your presentation. Gladwell told us he was going to look at three constraints and then told us as he moved from one to the next. He could have used signposting even more without overdoing it. When we teach the technique of signposting, the presenter often tells us they feel like they’re overdoing it – but the audience loves it. So don’t be afraid of frequent signposting.

6. He communicated with passion

I love the way Gladwell presents. I love the intensity that he brings to communicating his ideas to an audience. I feel like he really wants his audience to get what he’s saying.

So what could Gladwell improve?

Gladwell volunteered that he was a Powerpoint virgin – and I think he did great for a first timer. Here’s some suggestions that I would make.

1. Use your slides to state a message

The first slide was simply this:

This is a waste of a slide. Instead of a heading, state a message. Gladwell could have had a slide which reinforced his key message:

2. Use Powerpoint to show things visually

Remember the slide which listed all the Canadian hockey players with their birthdates and Gladwell reading them out. He could have added visual impact by first showing them the slide on the left, then saying “look at how many have birthdays in the first half of the year”, and then clicking to reveal the highlighting of those players – as in the slide on the right.

There were a number of concepts later in his talk where visuals would have improved my ability to grasp the point. The statistics that he used in his Chinese American example would have been easier to follow with a visual like this:

When Gladwell explained that Chinese Americans with an IQ of 100 performed as well as White Americans with an IQ of 120, a slide like this could have been helpful:

Note that if I was presenting with this I would show the two trend lines, and then animate in the white dotted lines to show that Chinese Americans with an IQ of 100 perform as well as White Americans with an IQ of 120.

3. Presenting with PowerPoint

Gladwell had some issues with keeping the slides in sync with what he was saying. For example, he showed us the hockey player slide way before he started talking about it. I suspect that Gladwell didn’t rehearse his talk with the Powerpoint slides and so hadn’t worked out when he should click. PowerPoint does add another layer of complexity to presenting – you need to work out the right time to click for each slide and then to rehearse that.

Gladwell then stopped using slides, so it would have been better if he had blanked the screen. You can do this by pressing the ‘B’ key on your keyboard while you’re in slideshow mode, or insert a black slide in your show beforehand.

4. Using notes

There’s nothing wrong with using notes, but Gladwell’s were rather obtrusive. He also only looked at them between sections of his talk – so he could have reduced their size right down. Possibly, Gladwell could have managed with one 3×5 inch card with a visual overview of the structure of this presentation as I showed earlier. That would have been enough to get him from section to section.

In summary, this is a compelling talk from Gladwell with solid content and engaging delivery. He’s great without PowerPoint, but he could also use Powerpoint effectively in his talks to explain his concepts visually.

America has elected the greatest political speaker for a generation.

You may think that there’s nothing for you to learn from Barack Obama’s speechmaking skills – that speaking to 200,000 people at Grant Park, Chicago is too far removed from the presentation you might give to your staff, to your management team or to potential clients. Here are six lessons you can learn from Obama’s acceptance speech at Grant Park.

1. Know your audience

It would have been easy for Obama to fall into the trap of talking to the 200,000 people before him in Grant Park. He didn’t. He spoke to Americans in their living rooms, he spoke to those who voted for McCain, he spoke to people watching him across the world – leaders and the poorest of the  poor. He knew who his audience was.

“And to all those watching tonight from beyond our shores, from parliaments and palaces, to those who are huddled around radios in the forgotten corners of the world, our stories are singular, but our destiny is shared, and a new dawn of American leadership is at hand.”

2. Envelop your point in a story

The long history of the campaign for civil rights in America made Obama’s election possible. Obama enveloped this point with the story of Anne Dixon Cooper, a 106 year old woman who was born the daughter of slaves, and has lived through the milestons of the civil rights movement.

“She was born just a generation past slavery; a time when there were no cars on the road or planes in the sky; when someone like her couldn’t vote for two reasons — because she was a woman and because of the color of her skin.”

That’s far more emotionally engaging than giving us a history lesson.

3. Paint pictures on the canvas of your audience’s mind

Obama used specific and concrete words to conjure powerful images in our minds. Here are some examples:

“Our campaign was not hatched in the halls of Washington. It began in the backyards of Des Moines and the living rooms of Concord and the front porches of Charleston.”

“Even as we stand here tonight, we know there are brave Americans waking up in the deserts of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan to risk their lives for us.”

“And, above all, I will ask you to join in the work of remaking this nation, the only way it’s been done in America for 221 years — block by block, brick by brick, calloused hand by calloused hand.”

4. Get personal

Barack Obama told the whole world that he’s getting his two young daughters a puppy to take with them to the White House. And the world loved it. In his first press conference he remarked that this is the most popular issue on his website.

5. Wait for weight

Obama is not in a hurry when he speaks. He waits for the audience to process and react to what he has just said. And that gives his words weight. You can do the same.

6. Light and shade

Obama’s acceptance speech had different moods – joyful – humorous – serious – intimate – determined. The contrasts keep us engaged – build light and shade into your presentations.

Here’s the full transcript of the speech – it’s worth reading in its entirety.

For more perspectives, here are other posts on Barack Obama’s acceptance speech:

Bert Decker focuses on impressive aspects of Obama’s transformational speech.

Lisa Braithwaite comments on Obama’s speech and McCain’s concession speech.

Nick Morgan praises both Obama and McCain for their speeches.

Max Atkinson analyses Obama’s rhetorical techniques.

Leo Babauta from the blog Zen Habits recently posted his Top 5 most inspirational videos on YouTube. I hadn’t come across this remix of a speech by Will Smith (the remix is by TeamJonny5 – I’ve edited it slightly). It’s only 1 min 19 sec so take the time to watch it because in this short snippet Will Smith showcases the elements of great speech design :

[kml_flashembed movie="http://speakingaboutpresenting.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/will-smith.swf" height="300" width="550" /]

OK, it’s not a corporate or business presentation. But I bet if I asked you in 6 months time “What are Will Smith’s keys to life?” – you could tell me.  That’s because it’s got great design for stickability. What makes this speech so memorable that you can use when you plan your next business presentation?

1. Key Message

Will Smith has a clear key message:

“Running and reading are the keys to life”

It’s short. It’s concrete – you can visualise running and reading. It’s easy to grasp, it’s easy to repeat. The fact that it rhymes may be the reason why. In Yes: 50 secrets from the science of persuasion Cialdini and his co-authors cite research that shows that rhyming phrases are processed more easily. That’s not unexpected – but more surprising is that rhyming phrases are also seen as more accurate!

So see if you too, can make your key message rhyme.

2. Repetition

He says his key message twice near the beginning and uses it again to wrap up. When we’re writing we’re taught not to repeat ourselves – but repetition works great in an oral presentation. In a longer presentation, you can say your key message even more often. Ending with the key message is a great wrap-up which gives the presentation a sense of completion.

3. Flagging

Will Smith tells us to pay attention to his Key message: “I want you to listen closely, I’m giving you the keys to life.” I call this technique flagging, because it’s like you’re waving a flag to your audience to say – pay attention to this next bit -it’s the most important. In a business presentation you might say something like: “Here’s the most important thing I want you to get today.”

If you don’t flag your key message, there’a a risk that it will get lost, like a needle in the haystack of your words.

4. Simple structure

Will Smith has a very simple two-part structure for this speech:

• Running – why it’s important
• Reading – why it’s important

The purpose of structure is to make a presentation easy to follow and understand for the audience. Don’t make it more complicated than it needs to be.

Of course, the speech doesn’t just have great content, Will Smith also delivers it with passion. He’s really intent on getting his message across to his audience of screaming young people.

To read a Seth Godin book is to have ideas sparked in your head on every page. Can he do the same in a presentation?

I’m going to look at a presentation he delivered at TED. Have a watch and then read my analysis for what you can learn about presenting from Seth.

My emphasis is on the content of his presentation (Garr Reynolds has commented on Seth’s great visuals on his blog). My starting point in analyzing a presentation is the key message. Seth’s key message was clear and memorable: “Ideas that spread, win.”

He tells us his key message a minute and a half into his presentation. I like that. You don’t want to wait till half-way through to find out what the point is. He supports his key message with 10 (yes,10) slides of different famous people with call-outs repeating the key message. Here are two:

As the audience we realise that not all of these people literally said “Ideas that spread, win” – but we recognise that they could have and that they were good at spreading ideas. So Seth gets support for his key message from people we respect. Could you try this idea in a presentation?

Seth repeated his key message in different ways throughout his presentation. He told us that being remarkable is what makes ideas spread. He talked about marketing to innovators and early adopters who would talk about your idea. He repeatedly mentioned getting people to talk and spread your idea. In an oral presentation, repetition works.

In my Al Gore case study I said that it’s evidence (examples, case studies) which makes your presentation credible and engaging. Al Gore’s presentation was 60% evidence. Seth Godin’s presentation was 67% evidence. Many of the examples were funny and intriguing. Great.

But there were 30 of them. That means that Seth spent an average of 22 seconds on each example. Not long enough. I didn’t get the point of many of the examples the first time I watched the presentation. Even after watching the presentation three times there were some examples that I found hard to relate to the point that Seth was making. Why was the hospital crib remarkable or the nail polish?  It went by too fast for me. Many of the examples I won’t remember.

This presentation was at TED with an 18 minute limit – probably shorter than Seth’s normal keynote. I suspect that rather than editing his examples, Seth simply raced through them. I didn’t have time to process the examples and think how they might apply to me – I was busy just keeping up with the stream of information.

So here’s what you can learn from Seth’s presentation:

• state your key message early in your presentation
• link back and repeat your key message at every opportunity
• use evidence to back up your points
• ensure you link each example to the point you’re making
• have one or two well-chosen examples for each point
• make each example count.

Al Gore’s TED talk is chock-full of evidence to make his point. I’m using the word evidence here loosely to include all the techniques he uses. There’s stories, examples, analogies, quotes, metaphors, and statistics.

I did an analysis of how much of the body of his talk was composed of evidence. Here are the results:

So that’s about 60% of his talk. It’s the evidence which makes a presentation engaging and interesting to listen to. It’s the evidence which makes a presentation credible and persuasive. How much do you use in your talks? How would your presentations stack up against Al Gore’s?

Effective presentations have a structure and flow. An effective way of building the structure of your presentation is to imagine yourself answering the audience’s questions. This is what Al Gore did in his latest TED talk.

First you need to craft your Key Message. Then consider what the audience’s questions might be once you’ve stated your Key Message. Let’s do this exercise for Gore’s talk. To paraphrase, Gore’s Key Message was “We must  take action”. Here are the thoughts audience members might have on hearing this message:

Gore organised his speech to answer each of these questions in turn. You could summarise his structure like this:

Do we have to? Why is this so urgent?
By discussing the problem first, Gore persuaded us that action is necessary and urgent. Although most of his audience would have been familiar with this issue – revisiting the issues and making us aware of the latest information had us ready to listen and take action on what was coming next in his presentation. The lesson to take from this is that making your audience highly aware and sensitized to the problem is a critical element of persuasion.

OK. So what should we do?
Gore then told us that there are solutions and gave us his perspective on them. The listing of these solutions is straightforward.

But it seems so hard. Can we really do it?
But he’s very aware that people are often stopped from taking action and implementing solutions because the problem just seems so big and so tough and the so the essential third part of this presentation is focused on inspiring us, to show us that it is possible and to look past the short-term hardship. He gives us the 1,000 year view! That’s the final and necessary step in persuading and motivating us to take action.

An effective way to plan a presentation is to start by crafting the Key Message. The Key Message is the one thing you most want your audience to remember.

You could also think of it as the five second version of your presentation.

Al Gore’s latest talk at TED provides some great learning for crafting a Key Message. This presentation represents his latest thinking on how to progress action on climate change.

If you’d like to watch the video on the TED site try this link. This is an  excellent presentation and there is lot to learn about planning effective content – but in this post I’m going to focus just on the Key Message (in future posts I’ll explore other aspects of this presentation). An effective presentation will be built around one Key Message (the term “key messages” is a contradiction in terms). I thought there were two messages running though Al’s talk and that this weakened the impact of the presentation. The first Key Message that I got was:

We can be optimistic – we can solve the climate crisis.

I think this is the one he intended to be his Key Message as he titled the talk ”How dare we be optimistic?”

But the message that came through more strongly for me was this:

It’s important to change the lightbulbs – AND it’s important to change the law.

Because both of these messages were running through his presentation, they diluted each other. Neither was as strong as they could have been, if they had stood alone. The lesson is that having one Key Message is more powerful.

I prefer the second message, it’s more concrete and therefore memorable. It’s also simple and unexpected. You may recognise these concepts from Chip and Dan Heath’s book Made to Stick (this book is a fantastic resource for creating presentations with great content -see Garr’s summary).

It’s concrete - I can visualise it in my mind – it’s very specific about what we have to do. Contrast this with Al’s first message which is vague and conceptual.

It’s simple – that means I can immediately grasp it. This is particularly important in a presentation – as the presenter you want to be able to say your Key Message without stumbling or looking at your notes. As a listener I want to be able to get it first time and not puzzle over what it means.

It’s unexpected because of the contrast in the two actions – changing a lightbulb and changing the law.

Concrete, Simple and Unexpected – those are the characteristics of a great Key Message. And possibly although Al didn’t intend this message to be the Key Message, it came through stronger for me because of these sticky characteristics.