Tips to shine in front of your audience. A blog by Denis Francois Gravel
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Corporate speak don’t move people. Corporate speak don’t inspire people. Storytelling is. Here’s a brilliant infographic on storytelling vs. corporate speak from ishmaelscorner.com
While preparing your next speech. Keep this infographic in mind.
Source: ishmaelscorner.com via Holycow!
Posted by: Denis Francois Gravel
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Tags: Speaker, Speaking Tips
A common problem in public speaking is having too much materiel to present and not enough time. As a consequence, speakers take more time than allowed. It annoyed the audience and put pressure on the following speakers and on the organization. How can you avoid doing this?
I was a guest speaker last weekend at a Toastmaster Leadership Session for the District 61 (Quebec City, Canada). As some experienced speaker took more time than supposed, it gave me the idea for this post.
I had too much materiel myself and I struggled to respect the time. I spoke for 47 minutes instead of 45. I know two minutes is not the end of the world, but it is a two minutes that I shouldn’t have used. Mea culpa.
It could have been worst, but I have a technique to manage my material and my time. As you can see, my technique is not perfect (remember the 2 minutes I took), but it gives me a lot of flexibility.
Preparation is an element of success in public speaking. While preparing your speech, you should cut the fat, get to the point, simplify your message and cut again. At the end, you will still have too much to say for the time allow.
The secret is too have materiel for less time that you are allowed.
While rehearsing, you have to consider two things for the timing.
Again, you should plan to finish in advance of your time.
One of the fear in public speaking is: not to have enough to say and be forced to end our speech before the time limit. Think about it. Where is the problem? Is there someone somewhere who have been beaten because he finished too early? Usually, attendees have difficulty to stay awake till the end of most of the speeches.
Seriously, I am the first one that want to give enough materiel to the audience. I want them too leave the venue satisfied. I always prepare more materiel than necessary.
Isn’t this the opposite of what I said earlier? “The secret is too have materiel for less than the length of your allowed time”.
Yes! absolutely, but stay with me.
With more material than necessary, I have the flexibility to adjust my speech. I can develop more on a sub matter and cut on something else.
I can adjust to the audience. If they have more interest or knowledge on a topic, I can go more or less deeper.
So, how do I manage to respect the time?
I like to develop my speech using a hierarchical structure. This means that I have major topics to address. Each topics have some secondary topics. Secondary topics have a third level topics, and so on.
During the preparation of the speech, I decide how much time to allow to each topics. This way, I know precisely where I should be at any given time.
It is easy during the speech to skip a third or fourth level subtopics to save 2-3 minutes.
An excellent tool to build your presentation is the mind map. It is an natural way to give a hierarchical structure to your speech. We will go deeper on this another time. for now, you can use a simple list like the illustration above.
As you can see, the hierarchical structure of my speeches gives me the flexibility that I need to adjust to the audience and to respect the time. Usually, when I use this technique I am finishing exactly on time. Last weekend I let something distract me and forgot to check the time (shame on me, not on the technique).
Among the many things I love about those events, I particularly like the opportunity to meet great people.
Before the session begun, I was preparing my stuff in front of the room. Another speaker was beside me preparing for his presentation. He had a welcoming smile, I felt comfortable instantly. Of course, we chat together.
The man was Chris Ford, a retired military (he was brigadier-general). He is now a consultant in communication and leadership. He was also the president of Toastmasters International in 2007-2008.
This man reach the highest level in Canadian army, he was the top officer of the world’s Toastmasters organization and he had no pretension at all. He chat with me and make me feel “one of the gang”. Talk about accessibility.
Chris Ford is a great man. I am glad I had the opportunity to meet him.
Share with me: What do you do to respect the time?
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Tags: Fear, Hierarchical structure, MindMaps, Preparation, Presentability, Rehearsal, Speaker, Speaking Tips, Time, Toastmasters
I am not sure it was a good idea to accept this interview.
While I was driving, ideas where popping in my head. How is it possible to have something to say to fill 25 min? Will I be interesting? You know, that kind of thing.
It took less than 2 minutes to Davender to make me feel comfortable. He does this naturally with his large smile and his sincere interest in what we have to discuss.
Screenshot of the interview of Denis Francois Gravel by Davender Gupta
We agree on some topics to discuss and we start the interview.
It runs really smooth. Like a conversation in your living room.
Finally, we are so passionate about the discussion that we have to stop it without covering everything because we’re running out of time.
Reading the post of Davender about the interview, I suppose I wasn’t so bad.
I had a great interview this morning with Denis-François Gravel, an authority on how to use presentation technologies to improve your ability to communicate.
“An authority”! Wow!, that’s good for my ego.
You will have the chance to judge if the interview is interesting, it will be broadcast on Monday January 18 at 6:00 P.M. (Eastern time) at “Radio Passion au Profit.“ The interview is in French. It wills also be available in podcast after the broadcast.
Until then, here is a video teaser (the full interview is audio only)
Thanks to Davender for his kindness and for the great comments on his blog and on Twitter.
Davender is a business leadership coach. He is involved in several regional, national and international business networks and associations including Réseau META Québec-Lévis (President), Toastmasters (Division I Governor, District 61).
For more information about Davender, you can visit his Web site, read is blog “from passion to profit” or follow him on Twitter @coachdavender
Posted by: Denis Francois Gravel
P.S. – Please update your RSS feed to the new URL so I can have some statistics. Thanks
RSS Feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/PRESENTabilityWithDFG
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Toutes mes appréhensions sont immédiatement disparues dès le début de l’entrevue pour la radio « De la Passion au Profit ».
En me rendant à mon rendez-vous, je me questionne. Est-ce que je vais figer? De quoi vais-je parler pour remplir 25 minutes d’entrevue?
Heureusement, je sais que Davender est très sympathique et que la formule de son émission est sans prétention. Ça me rassure.
Sur place, tout se déroule sans stress, Davender est accueillant (comme toujours). Il prend le temps de discuter avec moi pour que nous soyons tous les deux confortables avec les grandes lignes de la rencontre.
Et c’est parti….
Capture d’écran : entrevue Denis François Gravel & Davender Gupta
Tout ce déroule comme une conversation naturelle. Le ton est agréable, la discussion est passionnante, captivante, hypnotisante.
L’entrevue est à ce point intéressante, qu’après avoir dépassé la durée prévue, nous devons conclure même si nous n’avons couvert qu’une minorité des sujets prévus.
Si je me fie aux commentaires de Davender sur son blogue (anglais), l’entrevue semble à la hauteur.
I had a great interview this morning with Denis-François Gravel, an authority on how to use presentation technologies to improve your ability to communicate.
Je vous invite à écouter l’entrevue lors de sa diffusion. J’espère qu’elle sera aussi intéressante pour vous qu’elle l’a été pour moi.
La diffusion aura lieu le lundi 18 janvier à 18h00 (heure de l’Est) sur « Radio De la Passion au Profit ». L’entrevue est en français.
Question de vous garder en haleine jusque-là, voici un aperçu vidéo de l’entrevue (bien que l’entrevue au complet soit seulement en audio).
Je tiens à remercier Davender pour sa gentillesse, son attention et les bons mots qu’il a eus suite à l’entrevue.
Davender Gupta est un coach en leadership et il est passionné par le succès. Il est impliqué dans plusieurs organisations régionale, nationale et internationale. Mentionnons qu’il est président du Réseau META Québec-Lévis et qu’il est gouverneur du District 61 des Toastmasters.
Pour plus d’informations sur Davender :
- Blogue : La passion du succès
- Site Web : coachdavender.com
- Twitter : @coachdavender
Auteur : Denis François Gravel
P.-S. Un rappel. Veuillez mettre à jour votre lecteur de fils RSS : http://feeds.feedburner.com/PRESENTabilityWithDFG
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Tags: Astuces, Conférencier, Davender, Diapositives, Entrevue, Interview, Keynote, PowerPoint, Slides, Speaker, Speaking Tips
Most people complain about boring presentation that uses slides that looks like walls of text.
The brain don’t have the ability to listen et read all that text at the same time.
According to Microsoft, the average slide shows 40 words.
The BBC published an interesting article about the subject
You think bullet points make information more digestible? Think again. A dozen slides with five bullet points on each assumes that people are mentally capable of taking in a list of 60 points. If it’s a 30-minute presentation, that’s a rate of two-per-minute.
This looks a fairly interesting visual aid
This highlights the biggest problem with slide-based presentations, which is that speakers mistakenly think that they can get far more information across than is actually possible in a presentation.
I invite you to read the BBC article.
Share with me: How many words do you have on your slide?
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Posted by: Denis Francois Gravel
P.S. – Remember to update RSS feed to the new URL. http://feeds.feedburner.com/PRESENTabilityWithDFG
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Tags: Article, BBC, Boring, PowerPoint, Presentability, Presentation, Speaker, Speaking Tips, Text
| This post is available in English | Ce billet est aussi disponible en français |
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I learned a few lessons from this week second Pecha Kucha in Quebec City. The event was held in “Le Cercle” on Tuesday night.
For those not familiar with this formulas, each speaker present his project or his ideas in 20 pictures. The pictures changes automatically after 20 seconds. So, you have 6min and 40 seconds to present your stuff. After that, next speaker.
This formula his very dynamic. We have the opportunity to share lots of new ideas and to bee touch by very different style. This week program goes from illustration to architecture to experimental music. It was a wonderful evening.
The quality of the speaker surprised me. Most of them never speaks in public and they all did a great job.
Seeing so many different speakers in so little time was a real pleasure for me. I had the opportunity to compare their style and to learn a few things (and refresh some old theory about speaking).
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Here are some of my observations:
Be enthusiastic. Your subject is important enough that you decide to speak about it. I must feel it. I must be transported by you enthusiasm..
Observing other speakers help us enhance our own ability . I will be present at the next Pecha Kucha and I will certainly learn a thing or two.
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Share with me: what did you learn by observing other speaker?
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Posted by Denis François Gravel
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| This post is also available in English | Ce billet est disponible en français |
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J’ai assisté à la deuxième soirée Pecha Kucha de Québec cette semaine. Merci au resto-bar « Le Cercle » d’acceuillir cet événement.
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Mon intérêt pour la présentabilité fut fort satisfait par les prestations auxquelles nous avons eu droit. Neuf présentateurs nous ont présenté avec enthousiasme leur travail. J’en ai tiré quelques leçons que je partage ci-dessous.
Si vous n’êtes pas familier avec la formule Pecha Kucha, vous pouvez visiter le site mondial des Pecha Kucha ou le site de Pecha Kucha Québec.
Sachez qu’il s’agit d’une plateforme d’échange d’idée et de projet créatifs. Chaque présentateur doit exécuter sa présentation à l’aide de 20 images. Chaque image s’affiche pendant 20 secondes puis est automatiquement remplacée par l’image suivante.
C’est une formule très dynamique et les présentations sont très diversifiées.
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Quelques leçons retenues :
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Pour avoir une meilleure idée de l’événement, vous pouvez visiter les sites suivants :
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Partagez votre opinion : que pensez-vous des Pecha Kucha? Assisterez-vous au prochain?
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P.S. Ouf! La photo de Mario Asselin n’est pas excellente, mais c’est déjà beaucoup mieux que celle que j’ai prise au colloque « Génration C »
PP.S. Félicîtation à Matthieu Dugal qui a brillamment assumé le rôle de maître de cérémonie. Web : miseajour.tv Twitter : Matthieu Dugal
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Auteur : Denis François Gravel
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Tags: Conférencier, Enthousiaste, Enthusiastic, Leçon, Lesson, Natural, Naturel, Pecha Kucha, Présentabilité, Presentability, Présentateur, Speaker, Speaking Tips
