Thought­work

In public speaking, you often hear that you should include both facts and emo­tions (sto­ry­telling) in your speeches. To appeal to dif­ferent types of per­son­al­i­ties. But don’t facts also trigger emo­tions? “Today will be the hottest day of the year” might trigger joy in some lis­teners because they want to spend the after­noon at the beach. Others are not so happy about it because they have to work out­side. So does a fact create its own story with each person in the audi­ence as the pro­tag­o­nist? Wouldn’t it be much more dif­fi­cult for us as speakers to con­trol these indi­vidual sto­ries to trigger the emo­tional response we intend?

The bigger the audi­ence, the more pathos is accepted and even demanded. So does it mean the smaller the audi­ence, the less pathos we should inte­grate into our speech? Could we pull off an “I have a dream” moment in a one-on-one con­ver­sa­tion? … without it being awkward?

To market their pre­sen­ta­tion tool, Prezi uses the fact that 90% of all infor­ma­tion we take in comes through our eyes. Does a beau­tiful font per­suade you more than a soothing voice? A simple chart more than an alluring fra­grance? Does the quan­tity of infor­ma­tion beat the quality of it?

Music is the silence between the notes. On stage, it’s the pauses that make our speeches spe­cial. Only our pre­sen­ta­tions inter­mit­tently light up the room. Here’s a crazy hypothesis:

Pre­sen­ta­tions are the dark­ness between slides. … ?

How often do you use the “black” button during your Pow­er­Point? How many black cards do you put in your deck?

When designing pre­sen­ta­tion slides, we usu­ally never care about the screen size on loca­tion. True to the motto “One size fits all”. But does it really? Does a Pow­er­Point in a con­fer­ence room on a big screen work the same way as during a web conference?

Sus­pense is the antic­i­pa­tion of the out­come of a future event. This event does not always have to be in the future, but has to be resolved in the future. Common busi­ness pre­sen­ta­tions rarely use sus­pense in their slide designs. Yours as well? What would your slide deck need to be more suspenseful?

According to research, the ending of a story has a huge impact on the memory of it. Shouldn’t we then put a lot more effort into our final pre­sen­ta­tion slides? Is a “Thank you for your atten­tion” enough to dec­o­rate the memory of our time on stage? How do you cel­e­brate the ending of your presentation?

Movie posters try to cap­ture a film’s spirit into one single visual. Like a book cover, it can have an impact on our buying behavior. Imagine the event man­ager would like to print one for your speech or pre­sen­ta­tion as well. What would we see on that poster?

Chap­ters in books are a smart way to group infor­ma­tion ele­gantly. For a chapter title, often a whole page is being sac­ri­ficed. This usu­ally cre­ates a visual break for the reader. These pages are per­fect for taking a mental pause. To use it as a starting point for the next reading ses­sion. How much time do you as a speaker spent with your audi­ence on your title slides? Does your slide deck even include any?