The Accidental Communicator

Stop! Public Speakers Need To Step Away From The PowerPoint…

January 24th, 2012

Sometimes using PowerPoint is the wrong decision to make…

When somebody asks you to give a speech do you start thinking about the PowerPoint (or Keynote for you Mac users) slides that you’ll have to create? Do you ask the person how long the speech needs to be just in order to determine how many slides that you’ll need to make? Stop! Maybe it’s time that we all take a step back from the keyboard and those books about PowerPoint presentation tips and instead spend a moment thinking about when it’s appropriate to use PowerPoint – and when it’s not!

When Should You Use PowerPoint?

We all like to make fun of PowerPoint – have you heard the phrase “death by PowerPoint”? Even though we dread going to presentations that other people are going to be showing us their PowerPoint slides, we have no problem creating volumes of slides to use at our presentation.

This all leads to the interesting question: maybe we should all stop using PowerPoint all together? Well, maybe — but probably not. PowerPoint was created and has caught on for a reason – it’s very good at doing what it was intended to do.

What PowerPoint does well is to help a speaker to boost the importance of their public speaking by helping them to visually display information. Things that could require a long explanation in order to make our audience understand what we are talking about can be quickly communicated using PowerPoint. It gives us the ability to share graphs, charts, photos, and even videos as a part of a speech. This is powerful stuff.

When Should You Not Use PowerPoint?

With all that being said, you might be lead to believe that every speech needs to have a bit of PowerPoint added to it. Now there you’d be wrong. Many of the speeches that we give, such as motivational speeches, are really all about the speaker – you. These kinds of speeches call for your audience to use their listening skills, not their eyes in order to learn. Adding PowerPoint, or even worse the wrong kind of PowerPoint, to this type of speech can take away from your main message.

What’s going on here is that we all need to learn how to take a step back and make a decision about using PowerPoint with a speech long before we sit down at a keyboard and start to pull our next slide deck together.

The first thing that should come into your mind is the simple fact that you need to decide on what the purpose of your next speech is. What is the strategy that you’re going to use to get your message across to your audience? Once you know this, then you can consider if PowerPoint will help or hinder your ability to accomplish it.

If you do choose to use PowerPoint then you’ve got another decision to make. You’ve got to determine how many slides you want to use. You may be surprised to learn that the correct answer is “as few as possible”. You want to use just enough slides to help you get your point across and not one more. Create a slide deck and then go through it cutting out as many slides as you possibly can. When you can cut no more, then you’ve got the right number of slides.

What All Of This Means For You

PowerPoint is a powerful tool that public speakers can use to communicate information visually – after all, isn’t this one of the benefits of public speaking? However, if we’re not careful we’ll end up using it when we really shouldn’t.

If you are going to be giving a speech in which your goal is to communicate information, then using PowerPoint may be a good idea. As always, you need to take steps to make sure that your slides don’t overwhelm the message that you are trying to convey.

If instead of communicating information, you are trying to inspire or motivate an audience, then think twice about using PowerPoint. Create the strategy that you want to use with your speech and identify the message that you want to get across. Then determine how many, if any, slides you’ll need in order to accomplish this task.

As with all powerful tools, PowerPoint can either help or hinder your next speech. When asked to speak, spend your time thinking about what you want to accomplish and then determine if PowerPoint can help you do this. Not the other way around!

- Dr. Jim Anderson
Blue Elephant Consulting –
Your Source For Real World Public Speaking Skills™

Question For You: Do you think your speech could be more powerful if your audience is expecting you to use PowerPoint slides and you don’t?

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Note: What we talked about are advanced speaking skills. If you are just starting out I highly recommend joining Toastmasters in order to get the benefits of public speaking. Look for a Toastmasters club to join in your home town by visiting the web site www.Toastmasters.org. Toastmasters is dedicated to helping their members to understand the importance of public speaking by developing listening skills and getting presentation tips. Toastmasters is how I got started speaking and it can help you also!

What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

Hey speaker, how good of a speaker are you when you don’t get a chance to show up? I’m not talking about blowing off a speaking gig, rather I’m talking about that virtual stage that all of us find ourselves occupying all too often: the teleconference. You might not view this as an opportunity to give a speech, but it is!

Tags: keynote, motivate people to take action, PowerPoint, present information, slide deck, slides, visually displaying information
Posted in PowerPoint | No Comments »

Learn How To Get Over Your Fear Of Pecha Kucha

January 17th, 2012

Image Credit

Don't let the strange name keep you away from this presentation style…

So how hip and cool are you? If you are both hip and cool, then I don’t even have to tell you what “Pecha Kucha” is because you already know. If, however, you are like the rest of us, then you might be scratching your head right about now and saying something like “I’ve never heard of it and, by the way, how do you even pronounce that?” I’ll answer your questions in reverse order. It’s pronounced “Paw-Chalk-Ahh-Cha”. Now what it is will take just a bit longer to explain…

Live Life Fast – Say Hello To Pecha Kucha

So here’s an interesting question for you: how did the last meeting that you attended in which the presenter used PowerPoint (or KeyNote for the Mac users out there) go? I’m willing to bet that it didn’t go all that well: boring slides, boring delivery, and it was probably just waaay too long. There are no clever presentation tips that are going to change this around.

The world has been dealing with this situation for quite some time now. What seems to have happened is the arrival of the ability to project a slide onto a wall has allowed “slide abuse” or perhaps I should say “audience abuse” to run rampant. Despite the importance of public speaking , the number of slides that presenters use in a vain attempt to get their point across has grown almost out of control.

The problem isn’t with the presentation software that they are using. Rather, the problem is with how it’s being used – or really overused. What we all need to do here is to take a step back and try to recapture the benefits of public speaking – we need to see if we can come up with a better way of doing this stuff.

I think that we can all agree that when we are giving presentations, less is truly more. The real question is, how much less? One slide? Two slides? 100 slides? Oh, and then there is the issue of how long we should be talking for. Some of us could go on for hours even if we only had a single slide. Hmm, if only there was some way to standardize all of this stuff. Perhaps Pecha Kucha can show us the way…

How You Can Use Pecha Kucha To Become A Better Speaker

Good news! There is, sorta, a standard for how we can improve our presentations. Now right off the bat, I need to tell you that this novel approach is not right for every presentation; however, it’s at least worth a consideration when you are asked to give your next short presentation.

The presentation technique is called Pecha Kucha. It’s designed to allow a fair amount of information to be delivered quickly. There are only two rules involved when you are giving a presentation using the Pecha Kucha technique: you can only use 20 slides and you can only spend 20 seconds on each slide. Do the math and you’ll realize that your presentation is only going to last 6 minutes and 40 seconds.

I can already hear some of you starting to complain: “No way, my material is too important to fit into that time period.” Hmm, maybe it is. However, the real question is what are people taking away from your presentations? If they aren’t getting out of your presentation what they need to be, then perhaps it’s time to consider making a change in how you are delivering the information.

What Pecha Kucha can do is to turn any presentation into a dynamic flow of information. 20 seconds is not a very long period of time. You are going to be unable to use slides stuffed with lots of words. You are going to have to trim your speech down so that you can get one point across per slide. You’ll only have 20 slides to work with so you are going to have to be crystal clear about what the point that you’re trying to make is.

Using the Pecha Kucha presentation format is not an easy thing for those of us who are used to taking our time to get our point across. It’s sorta like changing over from jogging to running a 1 mile race. Sure you can do it, it’s just that it’s so different that it’s going to cause you some getting started problems. Take the time to use this new way of presenting once and then you’ll be able to make the determination as to if Pecha Kucha is a presentation style that you should start to use more often.

What All Of This Means For You

If you liked the world the way that it used to be, sorry about that. Things change and we all have to change along with them. The Pecha Kucha presentation style has arrived and things will never be the same.

This presentation style is not right for every presentation that you might be asked to give (thank goodness!) However, its popularity should be sending all of us a clear message: our audiences are tired of having to use their listening skills and still ending up being bored. They want us to get up there, tell them what we have to tell them, and then move on.

Use this message to speed up both the flow of your speech as well as any multimedia that you use in it. Next time you have a chance to give a presentation, consider bringing Pecha Kucha to the meeting!

- Dr. Jim Anderson
Blue Elephant Consulting –
Your Source For Real World Public Speaking Skills™

Question For You: What types of presentations do you think that Pecha Kucha would not be appropriate for?

What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

Tags: 20 seconds, 20 slides, 20x20, Astrid Klein, chitchat, dynamic, Mark Dytham, Pecha Kucha, presentation style, six minutes and 40 seconds
Posted in PowerPoint | 2 Comments »

Learn To Write Better Speeches In 5 Simple Steps

January 10th, 2012

Image Credit

Use these tips to get your ideas across to your audience

You’ve just had the best idea that you’ve ever had for a great speech. You can see it in your mind’s eye so very, very clearly. Now if only you could write a speech that would allow you to get this idea across to your audience as clearly as you see it. Hmm, perhaps there is a way. I’ve got 5 speech writing tips for you that just might help you turn your idea into your audience’s idea…

Don’t Change The Way That You Speak

When we go to write a speech, we often change both the vocabulary and the tone of the words that we use. We start to write to impress, instead of focusing on trying to inform our audience. The next time you write a speech you need to be careful to not do this – no matter how good your audience’s listening skills are, they won’t be able to pay attention to what you are saying if you use the wrong words.

Instead, try to use the words that you normally use in conversation and make the flow of your words match the way that you normally talk. Doing this will make your speech sound more natural to your audience and it will be that much easier for you to read it.

Use Understandable Words

More important than any presentation tips that you use, your ability to connect with your audience is going to be based on the words that you use in your speech. Since you have a limited amount of time to both give your speech and to keep your audience’s attention, make every word count.

When you are writing your speech use precise words. Back up the statements that you make with concrete data. Doing this will make it easy for your audience to understand and to accept the points that you make.

Build On Your Audience’s Experiences

The audience that sits before you during a speech probably shares something in common – that’s why they are there. Take the time while you are writing to picture your audience and ask yourself what it is that ties them together.

Once you know what this is, work it into your speech. Use their shared experiences as a building block for the points that you are going to be making. Doing this helps them to more easily accept what you are saying.

Variety Is Your Friend

The importance of public speaking is something that we all take for granted – it’s important and so that’s why we’re doing it. This also means that the one thing that your audience doesn’t want to be is bored. Take the time to make your sentences different from each other. This means that you need to make your sentences different lengths, and they need to use different structures.

The one thing that you need to be very careful about is introducing too much variety when it comes to the words that you use. If you make your audience have to think about what a word means, then they’ll spend their time doing that and not paying attention the message that you are trying to get across to them.

Write An Invisible Speech

Finally, the best kind of speech is the one that your audience can’t even see. If you do a good job of writing your speech, then your audience won’t be able to remember that they are listening to a prepared speech, they’ll just think that you are up there talking to them.

The key to doing this well is to go light on the number of facts that you include in your speech. Too many facts and you’ll end up reminding your audience that you are reading a speech to them. Just enough facts and they’ll accept you as an expert in the area that you are talking about!

What All Of This Means For You

Speakers who want to connect with their audience need to write speeches that will clearly communicate the points that they want to make – this is one of the benefits of public speaking. In order to make this happen, the next time you write a speech you need to use the 5 tips that we discussed here.

These include writing the way that you speak, you should use precise terms, you should build on the experiences that your audience has had, make use of variety, and write in a way that your speech doesn’t get in the way of your message.

Take the time to use these suggestions the next time that you are writing a speech and you’ll create a masterpiece that allows you to truly connect with your audience and change their lives.

- Dr. Jim Anderson
Blue Elephant Consulting –
Your Source For Real World Public Speaking Skills™

Question For You: What’s the best way to test a speech that you’ve written to see if it will really work with your audience before you give it?

What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

Tags: audience's experiences, concrete data, facts, inform, instruct, message, simpler vocabulary, variety
Posted in speech writing | No Comments »

5 Secrets To Writing A Better Speech

January 3rd, 2012

Image Credit

Before you can give a great speech, you have to write it

We’d all like to be seen as being great speakers. We imagine ourselves as the next Tony Robbins, standing in the middle of a huge stage with a large audience hanging on our every word. I fully support your dream, but perhaps we need to have a talk about how you are going to go about achieving it. Before you can give a great speech, you are going to have to learn how to write a great speech.

Keep It Short!

The first rule that you’re going to have to both learn and live will be to change how you write your sentences. How long should you be making your sentences? Speech writing author Philip Yaffee suggests that you shoot for sentences that are between 15-18 words. He points out that some of your sentences can be longer than this, but on average this is the size that works best for audience retention.

Keep It Simple

When you are choosing the words that you are going to use in your speech, make sure that that “word of the day” desk calendar is nowhere that you can see it. You don’t want your audience to have to work to understand what you are saying. Instead, you want your words to be immediately understood and your ideas absorbed.

Keep It Familiar

This one is pretty simple – don’t go getting all fancy with your speech just because you can. Yeah, yeah – they’ll know what the word means, but it’s going to come out of you sounding funny – they’ll be wondering what boarding school you went to.

Keep It Lean

When we are writing speeches all too often we get into a mode where we stop writing to be heard and start writing to be read. Nobody is ever going to read your speech so don’t do this. Trim out all of the fat – drop any word that is not absolutely necessary.

Keep It Active

When you are giving a speech, you want to be able to reach out to your audience and motivate them to come around to your way of thinking. If this is going to happen, your words are going to have to motivate them to make a change. This means that you’re going to have to use a lot of verbs – this is going to make your message very, very clear.

What All Of This Means For You

In order to become a great speaker, you are first going to have to learn how to write a great speech. The good news is that this is something that any of us can learn to do if only we follow the rules.

When writing your next speech make sure that you write your speech to be heard, not read. This means that you’re going to have use short sentences, keep it simple, keep it familiar, cut out the fat, and make sure that you use a lot of verbs.

It’s not that hard to write a speech that will create results. Follow these five rules and you’ll be well on your way to writing speeches that people really want to remember long after you are done.

- Dr. Jim Anderson
Blue Elephant Consulting –
Your Source For Real World Public Speaking Skills™

Question For You: What’s the best way to find out what words can be eliminated from the speech that you just wrote?

What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

Tags: actions words, active verbs, be concise, complex, cut the fat, familiar, short sentences, simple
Posted in speech writing | 2 Comments »

Dr. Jim Anderson To Be Featured On Iowa NPR Radio Show “The Exchange”

January 2nd, 2012

Iowa NPR Show The Exchange - "Inspirational Presidential Speeches"

On the day of the 2012 Republican National party’s caucus in the state of Iowa, Dr. Jim Anderson will be participating in a discussion of political speeches, past and present.

Here’s how the Iowa NPR radio station describes the discussion:

Do inspirational words of the past fit into the politics of today? We attempt to answer that question by examining some of the most influential presidential campaign speeches of the 20th century. Ben’s guest is Michael Cohen, whose book Live from the Campaign Trail brings to life the words that have shaped American politics over the last century. Consultant Jim Anderson joins the conversation to reveal the science of successful speech writing.

You can listen to the program both live (Tuesday, January 3rd, 2012 at 1:00pm – 2:00pm EST) or in recorded format. Click here for the link.

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

The Accidental Communicator

Stop! Public Speakers Need To Step Away From The PowerPoint…

When Should You Use PowerPoint?

When Should You Not Use PowerPoint?

What All Of This Means For You

What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

Learn How To Get Over Your Fear Of Pecha Kucha

Live Life Fast – Say Hello To Pecha Kucha

How You Can Use Pecha Kucha To Become A Better Speaker

What All Of This Means For You

What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

Learn To Write Better Speeches In 5 Simple Steps

Don’t Change The Way That You Speak

Use Understandable Words

Build On Your Audience’s Experiences

Variety Is Your Friend

Write An Invisible Speech

What All Of This Means For You

What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

5 Secrets To Writing A Better Speech

Keep It Short!

Keep It Simple

Keep It Familiar

Keep It Lean

Keep It Active

What All Of This Means For You

What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

Dr. Jim Anderson To Be Featured On Iowa NPR Radio Show “The Exchange”

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