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When we run our Presentation Skills training courses one of the things we hear quite often is that these creative techniques are all very well, but there is serious information to be presented and you can’t use a pretty picture instead.
And that is absolutely right.
When I talk about presenting nowadays a strong image often comes floating back from my past life as a teacher.
Standing close to a large ruler… a look of serious concentration on my face… goggles safely on… arm outstretched… holding tightly onto an elastic band. I have a volunteer gradually add weights…
50 grams! 100 grams! 150 grams!
As each mass was added the elastic stretched and the new length was entered as a data point by another student. The results were plotted instantly and projected on the wall.
The mass kept increasing… 1.1 Kilos! 1.2 kilos!
The students can see the line on the graph behind me is levelling off. They know what is about to happen but they can’t know when…
We all know about the importance of key messages. It’s one of the first questions we ask ourselves when we agree to a “public speaking” engagement. Or it should be.
Quite often the question comes out as:
What shall I speak about?
That’s great. To sort out a theme. To know if we will be talking about dogs, or moon landings, or ballet, or chandeliers…But it doesn’t answer the key message question. For that we may need to ask something like:
What’s my point?
Because any one of these subjects might be artfully used to illustrate a particular point. An angle. An argument. A belief. A passion.
The theme is not the point. The theme is the conduit for the point.
The point is the point. Read more