Mel’s Tips on Oral Presentations – Video Notes

Basics

Why are you giving this talk? 

Who are you giving it to? 

What is your idea worth spreading? 

Are you excited? Are you going to make the audience feel? think? act? 

Should you be natural?

What to do about being nervous? Drink and breathe, laugh, be prepared. 

How to begin? Wait a few seconds, smile to yourself and then hit the ground running. 

Should you tell jokes?

Practice

Should you practice reading your talk aloud to yourself?

Should you record yourself beforehand?

Should you read from my notes?

Should you memorize my talk?

Should you practice in front of people?

Presentation

Word count and timing

What about my hands? 

Should I use powerpoint/slides?

Should I change my voice during my talk?

Why, Who, and What

There are many kinds of presentations. But they all share the same common denominator. You. Your Audience. Your story.

The first question to ask is why. Why are you telling this story? Is it to spread a new idea (TED’s theme)? Is it to support a cause? To get us motivated to act upon something? Climate change? Pollution? Conservation? Politics? Perhaps you want to share ways to improve our lives. To enlighten us. To share a pain. But even if you are presenting a scientific paper, or a class to students of any age, a presentation to your team at work, to potential customers – you are still telling a story. Your story.

Do you know who your audience is? You should. They are the ones listening to you. Perhaps they have come a long way to hear you. Perhaps they have paid money to hear you speak. Perhaps they are just human beings listening to another human being. You should try to find out who they are and why they are here. After all, it is them you are addressing. Even if you are presenting in front of a camera, you should still have in mind the audience you are talking to.

These days, people have lots of choices. If it’s a live presentation, then they have chosen to come to meet you in person. Or they have chosen to see your video. Or hear your podcast. They are spending their valuable, precious time paying attention to you. Are you going to deliver the goods?

Are you motivated to give your talk? Are you excited about the subject material? Is it something you feel passionate about? If so, your audience will feel you excitement in your voice, even if it’s a podcast and they don’t get to see you in person. If you’re a teacher are you excited? If so chances are your class will be too. Even if it’s algebra.

(Professional speakers and storytellers can get excited about practically anything. Even extemporaneously. They are concise and to the point. But most of all, they are engaging. What they do is fall in love with the subject. Any subject. You can do it too).

At Tel Aviv University I took two course with the same professor. In the first course, he was obviously excited about his lectures. He had prepared them thoroughly. The subject was close to his field of research. How proteins have evolved during evolution. Cytochrome C in particular. I remember the course to this very day, whilst I have forgotten all the others. Because of the subject matter? No, because of his excitement and enthusiasm.  The same professor gave another course on biochemical thermodynamics. He was bored and so were we. He read from texts.  I remember nothing from that course. Nothing whatsoever.

Your audience has come to see you. Not to see your powerpoint presentation or your PDF (you can hand those out or send them via email). They don’t only want to see and hear your story. They want to FEEL your story.

Which you does the audience want to see and hear? Unless you’re an actor playing Hamlet, the audience wants to see you. You. Not someone you impersonate or imitate. You. But they want to see the best you. The best you is not someone else. It’s the you who have taken time and effort to prepare your talk, to deliver it with passion and gusto, who have dressed and groomed yourself appropriately. Not someone who artificially smiles because he or she is supposed to, clasps his hands, stands instead of walking or walk instead of standing, moves hands up and down because someone told you to. That doesn’t mean you don’t have practice losing your ‘you know, uh, ahem, right’. It doesn’t mean you can slouch around and stick your hands in your pockets and show up wearing p’js and slippers. You want them to see you, not someone else. But the best you.

So we have the why, the who, and the what. Now let’s talk about a certain How. How does public speaking makes you feel.

Nervous? Like you want to puke? Die? Run?

Here are several antidotes.

We are all nervous about giving important presentations. But some of us (perhaps one quarter or more) will do anything to avoid giving one. We will allow others to present our data and get promoted (this has happened to me). We may suffer hyperventilation and anxiety (happened to me more than once).

There are so many reasons to feel nervous about giving a presentation. Anything and everything can go wrong. You will blush (probably). Your hands will sweat (probably). You can lose track of where you are (happens all the time). You might crack a joke and no one laughs. The microphone may make you sound funny (talk without one). Your toupee might fall off. People might yawn or even leave in the middle. The audience might think that you are funny (not in the way you want them to perceive you as funny). They might think you are ludicrous. They may not like you. They may not like your talk.  Someone may challenge your premise. Are you? Many people have terrible fright in giving oral presentations.

What do all these have in common? They make you feel ludicrous, ridiculous, a joke. And from the age of four or five we learn to avoid embarrassing situations that might lead to humiliation. And public speaking sets us up for an embarrassing situation.

I have three remedies (beyond a small drink beforehand). The first is to acknowledge a basic fact. That we are all ridiculous.  “Yes, I am ridiculous. You are ridiculous. Human beings are ridiculous. We have funny faces, funny arms elbows and hands, we get dressed even when it’s hot, our feet are hilarious, our skin is puffy and a complete joke. We balance on our two feet as if we are about to fall over.”

That is why speech coaches tell the presenters to imagine that the audience are all naked. To level the playing field as it were. “You think I’m ridiculous? You’re all naked!” But it’s much deeper than just that. Anyone who steps out on a limb, who thinks differently, who dares to speak out, who takes a chance, who thinks up a new idea, invents a flying machine, is always going to be the source of ridicule. It’s only natural. If you want to present in public, you have to be prepared to take the chance.  And trust me, it’s a chance worth taking.

One good practice is to regain our childhood disregard for ‘what people might say’. So practice being ridiculous. Get it out of your system. You can practice barking, hopping around on one leg. Play “Simon Says”. Or recite silly Mother Goose rhymes in strange accents. Better yet, sing them.

The second remedy is no less important. In one word, “Practice”. We can’t eliminate all possibilities of sounding ridiculous, forgetting our lines, etc. But if we practice we can minimize slipups, improve our delivery and be more conscious of everything going on while we deliver our talk. Practice doesn’t make perfect. Practice makes better. Much practice makes much better.

The third remedy is our physical appearance. We just need to groom ourselves properly and check ourselves thoroughly in the mirror before we go onstage. I once lectured to hundreds of fellow students with my fly open. That could have been avoided by a simple look in the mirror. I will talk more about grooming later. But just let me say that when you look in the mirror you should flash yourself a huge admiring smile that you deserve. You are ready! You are brave! You will be spectacular!

Finally, I know what it is to be afraid of public speaking. For about eight years, I suffered from agoraphobia, which made it impossible for me to lecture in front of an audience, let alone two people. When you get an anxiety attack, you are sure that you are going to die. And I’ve had many of those. But you know what? You can overcome the greatest fears, and if I can make this video, and talk on TV and in front of a thousand people, anyone can. Or you can send other people to give the talks and take credit for your work, get promoted instead of you. It’s your choice.

Having said all this, audiences can be much nicer than you think. At TED, the Olympics of public speaking, speakers sometimes lose their way in the middle and have to go offstage and look at their text. Do you what happens when that happens. The audience claps their hands, and cheers them on. Why? Because of the E factor. More about that in a few minutes.

Content

So what are you going to talk about? If it’s a TED style talk, you want to focus on one idea worth spreading and talk about it for less than ten minutes. I know that TED allows you to go all the way to 18, but you tend to start losing your audience. Trust me, I was just at a TED Summit and even an avid speaker like me can lose the thread halfway through.

What is the idea worth spreading? It can be something that touches our hearts, our hands or our head. Our head? Something brilliant but intellectual, that will get you thinking. Hands? A new way to do something that you’ve never learned or considered possible. I would love to give a talk about learning to do complicated things in less than five minutes. Would you like to learn to play sax in five minutes? I can teach you. That’s an idea. Our heart? An emotional talk that will cause us to be overwhelmed with feeling. Can be the most powerful talks of all.

So what is the E factor I mentioned?

It’s empathy, when we feel something towards the speaker and the story. A special kind of emotional human bond that makes the audience CARE. That’s all you have to do! Create empathy. But like most simple things, it ain’t that easy to get it right.

Perhaps the best way is to be authentic. In the way you present, in the material you present. To know your subject material, but be open to comments and suggestions. To own your stage and topic, but not in an arrogant way. And to open the door and let the audience in. To your passion, your subject, your idea, your presentation. You.

Content is key. Content is king. You should be an expert in your material. Have you experienced what you are going to talk about? Were you the one who was stranded for ten days on a mountaintop? If it’s a friend or someone you read about, why are you the one who is telling the story? There could be a very good reason. It could prompt you to become more caring, more loving, more daring, less daring, change professions, leave for Hawaii.

Perhaps you’re giving a professional talk. Then you should have researched your subject thoroughly. Is the audience mainly professional people in your area, or the general public. If you don’t know beforehand then it might be a good idea to mingle in advance with some of the attendees. Actually, this is usually a good idea.

 Should you Write your Talk?

Only if it is important. Only if there is the slightest chance that it might be important. To you, to someone in the audience. The truth is that any talk you give or listen to can change your life. Your perspective. Your thoughts. Your plans. So I guess every talk is important. So I guess you should write your talk first. I’ve written this presentation, by the way. Just so you know.

When you write your talk, you get to plan all the aspects. Let’s start with the name. When people go to movies, they also want to have a general idea about the movie from the name,. If your talk is about cabbages, don’t call it “The latest horticultural methods for growing cauliflower.” Even though most people prefer cauliflower. Entice the audience but don’t misrepresent your talk. It’s not Authentic – you’ll lose empathy.

Consider starting your talk with a paragraph or even better, a sentence that explains what your talk is about. What you want to cover. What you want to persuade them. Your story. That will give the audience a bearing, a mental compass point so that they know where they are and can take off together with you.

The middle section of a talk often has three parts, but that is not written in stone. You can give three examples of the subject you’re talking about. You can give three methods to do something. You can talk about how something happened, how you dealt with it, and the lessons you learned.

The final part of your talk is a summary of what you have said during the talk. This is important so people can take your main message home with them.

Now, some technical items

Should you tell jokes?

If it comes naturally, or if you explain to the audience that it doesn’t come naturally, but you are going outside your comfort zone and giving humor a try (always a good idea to try).

Should you count the words?

Of course you should. A minute’s speaking is about 125 words. If your talk is ten minutes long and you’ve written 12,500 words, well, you know what to do.

Staying within the time limit is key. Going overtime is bad manners and will lose you E points. Very often poorly planned talks end up covering 40% of the material in the last 10% of allotted time. Sometimes the most important part of the talk is hurried through. You don’t want to do that. Pacing is key.

Should you read your talk aloud?

Only if you want it to be a great talk. Reading your story out loud is what all writers do, especially of poems and children’s books. You will make all kinds of corrections and additions that you would never have thought of.

Should you record yourself beforehand?

Only if you want it to be a great talk. Recording yourself is a great way to improve. When you have your final draft (sometimes I will write ten or twenty for an important talk), you can listen to yourself like a podcast.  You should also video yourself to see whether you walk around excessively, flail, drool, repeat gratuitous words (like, you know), or fail to look at the camera.

Should I read from my notes?

No.  You should be looking at and engaging the audience. You can have them in your pocket or offstage in case you get lost.

Should I memorize my talk?

Only if you want it to be a great talk. We teach our presenters to learn their talks off by heart, and then ‘forget’ them. Well, not forget them, but not extract them from a memory center.

Should I practice in front of people?

Incessantly. Family, Relatives, Strangers, you will improve each time.

Should I use powerpoint?

Only if you really need to. Remember that people come to see you, not tables which you can give them in handouts. If you need to show a few pictures, that’s ok, turn the lights down and back on so the audience can see you. If you really need to use it, prefer graphics and figures over tables tables (no one will remember them, trust me), make sure you have no more than six lines per slide. Avoid bullets. Do you see me using powerpoint here?

Have a look at your favorite TED talks? Sir Ken Robinson? How many slides did he show in his entire talk? Any tables? Any bullet points. To date, 58 million people have seen his talk. His show, actually.

Isn’t a good talk a show? A story put to words? That you write, direct, present. What could be better? What are you waiting for?

Should I change my voice during my talk?

Only if you want people to remain attentive. Enunciation is important throughout. Mix up speed, volume, timbre, volume. You can also mix it up and sing!

https://www.ourboox.com/books/mels-ten-tips-on-oral-presentations/

https://www.ourboox.com/books/mels-ten-tips-for-an-amazing-tedx-presentation/

Hebrew

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