Taking things back to absolute basics, if we knew nothing about how presentations ‘should’ be, what might we be able to work out just from the fact they are spoken, not written?

Readers are in control

~ Readers are in control of the speed they are reading, and so the speed of the information they are receiving.

~ They are in control of how long they spend with your information.

~ Readers can re-read sections they didn’t quite get.

~ They can also skim bits they are not interested in.

~ Readers can even choose whether to read a document or not.

Listeners are much less in control.

They can’t control the speed of information, the amount of time they spend, they can’t re-listen nor skim, and they have to be in the room.

What does this mean in terms of your responsibilities as a speaker?

How can you make it so that there is benefit to delivering a spoken presentation rather than a written document?

What are the benefits of having the ‘owner’ of the information in the room?

What does this mean about structure? About tailoring your information (and the structure of your information?)

Some words that come to mind for me:

~ Pace
~ Signposts
~ Q&A
~ Relevance

Related posts:

1. Why the first question you’re asking should be the last question
2. How to explain complex topics with good metaphors
3. Qualities of a good PowerPoint slide

When explaining complex topics, metaphors are indispensable.

Understanding complex topics without metaphors is like learning a word in another language without a dictionary. It’s not impossible to find out what the word means by seeing it several times in context, but it’s much quicker to learn a word by knowing its equivalent in your own language.

Metaphors are a bridge

Metaphors are when you take a new concept and say it has equivalence in a familiar concept.

Let’s say you’re round your Mum’s house installing their new broadband (of course) and you want to explain how broadband is better than her dial-up she’s had for five years.

Grabbing the first equivalent that comes to mind, you explain that she’s been using a bicycle to get to places on the internet. Effective but very slow, and some places are just too far away.

Broadband is like driving a sports car on a highway. Fast, efficient, and you can get anywhere you want.

A nerdy grammar point for nerdy grammar people

Yes, English grammar taught you that there is a difference between ‘metaphors’ and ‘similes’.

In theory, metaphors say that something is something.

Whereas dial-up is a bicycle on the a country lane, broadband is the fast lane on a highway.

Similes use the word ‘like’.

Whereas dial-up is like a bicycle on a country lane, broadband is like the fast lane on a highway.

For our purposes, this is too specialist a description, it doesn’t make any discernable difference in spoken language. Helvetica and Verdana are different fonts, but you can still understand an article written in either. Only font nerds will notice.

NB I am both a grammar nerd and a font nerd. I am also a realist.

How to choose the right metaphor

If you can choose the right metaphor, it will allow people to access your concept much easier.

You really want to make sure your metaphor is one that is going to suit your purpose. You want a metaphor than clarifies rather than confuses, and, I would add, one that creates curiosity.

Because metaphors are so much a part of our thinking, many metaphors have been used again and again.

In fact, a particular topic often has the same metaphor used as a matter of course. Fresh metaphors are much better to keep people’s interest.

~ Think about who you are presenting to – what do you know about them?
~ What’s do you want them to be able and motivated to do after your presentation?
~ What aspects of your topic/sub-topic do you need to emphasise so that they are able to move closer to that goal?
~ Allow your mind to roam around, vaguely asking: What else in the world shares those qualities?
~ Choose something.
~ Experiment explaining your subject using the known something as a bridge – draw links (‘this in the technical topic is like this in the known image…’)
~ Evaluate. Does it make it easier to explain, easier to understand? If not, go through the process again.

Gold star metaphors

You get a gold star for your metaphor if

~ it allows your listeners to extrapolate other things about your topic
~ it doesn’t have unintended negative connotations
~ you’ve never heard anyone else using it.

Example of a good metaphor

A basic concept of systems theory is the feedback loop.

Qualities:

~ A flow coming in
~ A limit
~ A way of adjusting the flow so that it doesn’t exceed the limit

The way Dana Meadows, one of the original systems gurus, explains a basic feedback loop is it’s like filling a glass of water from the tap.

You turn on the tap. You watch the level. As it gets near the top, you slow the flow. When it is at the limit, you turn the tap off.

This is a lovely metaphor as you not only get the concept easily using an easily understandable image but you can make extrapolations from it.

For example, you can predict problems with systems from the metaphor.

~ If your system’s flow is very fast, you’ll find it difficult to stop the flow before it gets to the limit.

~ If you can’t see the glass, you won’t be able to adjust the flow accurately. Same with your system – if you can’t judge when the loop is reaching its limit, you won’t be able to adjust the flow.

~ If you are not able to adjust the flow accurately (maybe the tap is faulty), again, the system is likely to exceed its limits.

Good, right?

The only shame is that inside the systems theory community, it’s the standard metaphor. So if you’ve read about systems before, you’ll have heard it.

~~~~

Choosing a metaphor can make your concept immediately accessible to your listeners.

If you just want to use an image to briefly bring some spice into your talk, that’s one thing.
However, if you want to use a metaphor to base your presentation around, that’s another.

If your image is going to have any kind of extended exposure, you’ll need to think more carefully.

A bad metaphor can kill your presentation – either confusing your listeners, or turning them off with cliches.

A great metaphor can clarify understanding and, potentially, last a long time.

Choose well…

Related posts:

1. How to bring people up to speed like Tom Chatfield
2. Why you must learn to speak slower
3. Seven misconceptions that are stopping you speaking slower

After working out why the hell you’d want a Q&A session anyway, we saw last time that there are some barriers to people asking questions after your presentation.

These include…

1. They are embarrassed to speak into the silence
2. They don’t have any questions
3. They haven’t had enough time to come up with a question
4. They don’t think their question is relevant/good enough
5. They don’t think the speaker actually wants questions
6. They need some seeds/suggestions for topics
7. They’re confused
8. They’ve forgotten their question

Looking at these, here are some strategies for how to get people past these hurdles.

Before your session

First off…

~ Let people know in advance that there will be questions

and

~Invite them to note down their questions

This might go something like this…

‘There’s no way I’m going to be able to cover this whole topic comprehensively in such a short time.  I’m going to keep some time over at the end for questions you’re bound to still have. Too often by the time the speaker gets around to the Q&A I’ve forgotten the questions I wanted to ask, know what I mean? Feel free to write down your questions as we go so that when it’s time, you’ve got them to hand…’

Or however that might work in your own style, of course.

When it comes to asking for questions…

~ Suggest some topics

and

~ Include words other than ‘questions’

and

~ Have some pre-question private time

For example…

‘So, that’s enough of me talking. I bet you’ve still got some questions, some concerns, some unanswered thoughts. Maybe they’re about [list some aspects of your topic]. I tell you what, turn to the person next to you, say hi if you haven’t met them before, and just compare notes for a minute or two about what might still be in some way unresolved for you about this topic.’

Then nod, smile and turn away, leaving the group to follow instructions.

After a minute or two, turn back and ask who has the first question.

You’ll find you have a lot more questions, and some of the mad/strange/extremely detailed questions will have had their edges rubbed off by having been talked over.

As the questions start…

~ Reward the first and each subsequent question

Consciously or unconsciously, the group will be looking for how you deal with the first person brave enough to stick their hand up. Make sure that you are encouraging with the first question asker, give them your full attention, smile, be warm, maybe ask a small clarification question of their question, then answer their question. This way, people understand that asking questions is a good thing…

In general…

Make sure you follow Industry Standard Question Answering Best Practice, to include the whole group and keep the question asker happy too.

***

Of course, now you have all this interaction, you may find that you have some difficult questions to answer!

That would be time to go and look over the articles in the Communicating in High Stakes category…

Related posts:

1. Eight reasons people don’t ask you questions after your presentation
2. How to answer questions professionally
3. Why your presentation needs a good Q&A

I know you’re probably familiar with them, but just on the safe side, here are industry standard guidelines on how to answer questions after a presentation.

Industry Standard Presentation Question Answering Best Practice*

*sounds official, huh?

~ Let the group know at the start of the Q&A how long you have for Q&A.

~ If you’re at all unsure of the question, feel free to clarify with the asker.

~ If the group is larger than, say, eight or nine, repeat the question back to the whole group.

~ Answer the question to the whole group, not just the asker.

~ Answer briefly. People can always follow up.

~ If the question is very particular to the asker’s situation, see if you can bring your answer up to refer to more general principles that are relevant to the whole group.

~ Before moving on, check with the asker that you’ve answered their question sufficiently.

~ If you say you’ll get back to someone… get back to them, eh?

~ As you’re getting to the end of your allotted time, let everyone know.

There are plenty of situations where you might want to vary these, but if you do, make sure you have a particular reason.

These guidelines won’t necessarily make you shine (for that, start here), but you will come off, at the very least, as professional.

Related posts:

1. Eight reasons people don’t ask you questions after your presentation
2. Why your presentation needs a good Q&A
3. What do you do if you only have three minutes to make your point?

So you finish your presentation.

What’s next?

You ask, ‘Any questions?’

And then… silence.

Church bells. Crickets. The howl of the wind…

Bah!

Lack of questions is totally fixable.

First thing you need to do is to think about why you want questions in the first place.

If you do indeed want there to be questions after your presentations, the next step surely is to think about what might be getting in the way of people speaking out.

Barriers to people asking questions

1. They are embarrassed to speak into the silence

First off, it might be the silence. They might be not confident to speak in front of a group. Just think about how nerve-wracking it is as the speaker. You got to plan your session, and still having all those eyes on you can be hard. Same thing might be true for your listeners.

2. They don’t have any questions

It might be that there aren’t any questions to ask. This is likely to come from two factors. Either what you spoke about was totally irrelevant to them (unlikely, but possible) or you were just too comprehensive. If you have genuinely given them everything they need to know, there really might not be any questions left to ask.

3. They haven’t had enough time to come up with a question

If you go straight into the Q&A directly after your presentation, sometimes people haven’t had enough time to process the information and find the gaps. I notice that as a listener I need a few seconds to come up with exactly what I might want to ask about. Often, speakers give up after just a few moments of silence, which might not be long enough.

4. They don’t think their question is relevant/good enough

If there is silence, people might not be sure if they have a question that’s ‘good enough’. They might not be sure if it’s too personal to them, or that they might be revealing their own ignorance. Instead of embarrassing themselves, they keep their question to themselves.

5. They don’t think the speaker actually wants questions

Sometimes the spekaer’s attitude as they ask for questions seems to signal that they would much prefer if the group didn’t ask them questions. Either they just want to sit back down and have the experience over with, or they have a kind of forbidding attitude, where people daren’t ask questions. If people follow the body language more than the words of the offer, they might back down from volunteering a question, thinking that it’s not going to be received well.

6. They need some seeds/suggestions for topics

If you’ve talked about quite a broad topic, people might not be able to choose which question to ask you. This is the opposite of not having any questions to ask. Still means you don’t get any questions, but maybe easier to solve.

7. They’re confused

In theory, being confused should be a reason to ask questions, but, in truth, if people are unsure, it might be that they stay silent.

8. They’ve forgotten their question

Maybe they had a great question but by the time you’ve got to ask them, they’ve forgotten. Used to happen to me as a listener a lot until I worked out how to fix it.

Seeing the barriers leads to solutions

Now we’ve spent five minutes thinking about the problem, I bet you’re already seeing some ways of fixing it, right?

I have some ideas about strategies too (there’s a surprise), but we’ll save those for next week…

Next article: What you can do to encourage interaction after your presentation.

Related posts:

1. Why your presentation needs a good Q&A
2. How to make your presentation relevant by focusing on outcomes
3. How to challenge people’s mindset like Elizabeth Gilbert

Before we come to strategies for The Dreaded Q&A, I think it’s important you ask yourself as question:

Why the hell do you want people to be asking you questions anyway?

Aren’t some of your worst presentation memories about not answering a question well? Isn’t it just opening the floodgates to difficulty and embarrassment? Wouldn’t it be easier if you said, ‘Any questions?’, and then everyone sat silent for a few seconds, and then you just sat down?

I know you might actually be saying, ‘Yes, YES, it would be better.’

However, once you think about how the Q&A fits into things, it can help you to refocus on the purpose of your presentation.

Q&A and the purpose of presentations

If you’ve been planning from outcomes, you will have realised that as soon as you think about the response you’re looking for, things become much clearer.

Generally, the short/medium-term outcome for a presentation is conversation. The reason you’re giving the presentation is to spark that conversation and set the frame for it. And by conversation I mean the exchange of ideas in many formats as well as literal I-say-something-you-say-something.

If conversation is the thing…

If you want people discussing your topic, then surely  Q&A is exactly what you’re looking for?

Ok, if your answer was no, let me add something else in.

If you want people discussing your topic, and you knew how to deal with even difficult questions well, isn’t Q&A exactly what you’re looking for?

I thought so.

(If you want to start thinking about how to deal with difficult questions, start here.)

Some reasons you might want people to ask you questions after a presentation:

~ You want to know what people don’t understand, so you can correct their understanding
~ You want to know people’s concerns about your topic, so you can help them deal with them
~ You want to know what’s of interest to your listeners
~ You want to look like you’ve been an interesting speaker
~ You can’t bear the silence anymore.

If you can work out why you want interaction, you can begin to work out how to make it happen.

Next article: What stops your listeners asking you questions?

Stay tuned.

Related posts:

1. How to reduce your nerves by planning your presentation in the right way
2. How to make your presentation relevant by focusing on outcomes
3. How to speak slower

Scenario: You had a problem.

You’ve found a strange, but pretty amazing solution.

You have five minutes to present your findings.

You need a making-your-strange-findings-sound-normal presentation!

Kamal Meattle has researched how to grow your own fresh air using a particular combination of plants.

This is cool. And… unusual. Yet he makes it sound reasonable.

I also think it’s good for us to analyse a presentation that is slightly lower energy and unassuming, yet still reasonably effective.

His presentation:

How to deliver a making-your-strange-findings-sound-normal presentation like fresh air researcher Kamal Meattle

Start with your personal link to your topic

Some seventeen years ago, I became allergic to Delhi’s air, but my doctors told me that my lung capacity had gone down to seventy percent and it was killing me.

State who you worked with and the ‘headline’ of what you found

With the help of IT, Terry and learnings from NASA, we discovered that there are three basic green plants, common green plants, with which we can grown all the fresh air we need indoors to keep us healthy.

Add an additional relevant benefit

We’ve also found that you can reduce the fresh air requirements in to the building while maintaining industrial air quality standards.

Move on to the next level of detail, avoiding technical jargon

The three plants are: Areca Palm, Mother-in-law’s Tongue and Money Plant.

The botanical names are in front of you.

Move to first section, discussing reasons/implementation issues at a high level

Areca Palm is a plant that removes CO2 and converts it into oxygen. We need four shoulder-high plants per person and in terms of plant care we need to wipe the leaves every day in Delhi, and perhaps once a week in cleaner air cities. We have to grow them in WORD manure which is sterile, or hydroponics, and take them outdoors every three to four months.

Do the same with the second section

The second plant is Mother-in-law’s Tongue which is again a very common plant. We call it a bedroom plant because it converts CO2 to oxygen at night. And we need six to eight waist high plants per person.

And the third…

The third plant is Money Plant. This is again a very common plant. Preferably grows in hydroponics. This particular plant removes formaldehydes and other volatile chemicals.

Summarise the benefits of your proposition, in a startling way

With these three plants you can grown all the fresh air you need. In fact you could be in a bottle with a cap on top and you would not die at all and you would not need any fresh air.

Describe your implentation experience

We have tried these plants at our own building in Delhi which is a 50,000 sq ft, 20-year-old building and it has close to 1200 such plants for 300 occupants.

Lay out a clear benefit you’ve found

Our studies have found that there is a 42% probability of one’s blood oxygen going up 1% if one stays indoor in this building for 10 hours.

Mention a bit of external validation

The Government of India has discovered and published our study to show this is the healthiest building in New Delhi.

Give some stats – preferably setting the context for them…

And the studies show that compared to other buildings, there is a reduced incidence of eye irritation by 52%, respiratory systems by 34%, headaches by 24%, lung impairment by 12% and asthma 9%. And this study has been published on Sept 8, 2008 and it’s on the Government of India website.

Give a benefit/result from a different perspective

Our experience points to an amazing increase in human productivity by over 20% by using these plants.

And another from another perspective

And also an reduction in energy requirements in buildings by an outstanding 15% because you need less fresh air.

Talk about your future, bigger, better plans

We are now replicating this in a 1.7 million sq feet building, which will have 60,000 indoor plants.

Discuss wider importance and urgency of issue

Why is this important? It is also important for the environment, because the world’s energy requirements are expected to grow by 30% in the next decade, 40% of the world’s energy is taken up by buildings currently, and 60% of the world’s population will be living in buildings in cities of population over 1 million in the next 15 years.

And there is a growing preference for living and working in air conditioned places.

Finish with a quote

‘Be the change you want to see in the world,’ said Mahatma Gandhi.

++++

Lessons to learn from Kamal Meattle

~ Top-down allows people to grasp your ideas: big-chunk to small-chunk gives a logical impression
~ Let us see your connection to the topic: starting with your personal story allows to connect with your topic more
~ Lots of stats together = this is good whereas I would ordinarily tell you to set the context for stats, I did notice that running a whole lot of numbers together at least creates some sort of positive impact on the audience
~ Keep vocab simple: Saying the simple words but displaying the technical ones allows everyone to access the info a their own level
~ Allow people to picture what you mean: Kamal’s use of ‘shoulder-height’, etc, allows us to create images of how his idea works
~ Approach from different perspectives: when giving benefits, appeal to people on as many levels as possible
~ ‘Borrow’ validation where you can: if an external authority validates your claims, say so

++++

Ok, so Kamal’s presentation isn’t perfect, but which presentation is?

Good to see that low-key can still be impactful, though, right?

Related posts:

1. How to rock the boat in three minutes like mathematician Arthur Benjamin
2. How to show you’re a genius in under five minutes like Kinect contributor Johnny Lee
3. How to deliver a warning in three minutes like biochemist Gregory Petsko

So: You’ve made something pretty freaking cool.

You’ve got five minutes to show just how cool it is.

You want people to talk about it, and ask you more…

You need an I-am-a-genius Product Demo presentation!

Johnny Chung Lee is a researcher into how humans interact with technology. He worked for a while for Microsoft (famously on the Kinect motion sensor kit) and, as of right now, is a ‘Rapid Prototyper’ for Google.

This talk is a demo he did in 2008 of motion sensor tech he’d put together mainly using a Wii handset, plus some cheap, easily-available infrared equipment. (This was pretty cutting edge at the time!)

It’s been watched more than 2,000,000 times, and I don’t think it’s just because of the technology being demonstrated. I think it’s also to do with how Johnny sets things up in his presentation.

To follow the Johnny Lee template, you’re going to need a new bit of kit/software you’ve developed that has at least three cool aspects to it.

The five-minute talk:

(Don’t be put off by the timer on the player saying nine minutes. The last four minutes are adverts.)

How to deliver an I-am-a-genius Demo Presentation like Johnny Chung Lee

Describe a wider context for what you are about to demonstrate

So as researchers, something we often do is use immense resources to achieve certain capabilities or to achieve certain goals, and this is essential to the progress of science or exploration of what is possible…

State the major downfall to the current situation

but it sort of creates this unfortunate situation where a tiny, tiny fraction of the world can actually participate in this exploration or can benefit from that technology.

Describe why that motivates you

And something that motivates me and gets me really excited about my research is when I see simple opportunities to drastically change that distribution and make the technology accessible to a much wider percentage of the population.

Set the expectation for how many ‘big chunks’ there are going to be

And I’m going to show you [two demos linked to] two videos that have gotten a lot of attention recently that I think embody this philosophy.

State simply the technology your demo is connected with

And they actually use the Nintendo Wii remote.

Briefly bring everyone up to speed re: that piece of tech…

Now, for those of you who are unfamiliar with this device, it’s a $40 video game controller and it’s mostly advertised for its motion sensing capabilities so you can swing a tennis racquet or hit a baseball bat…

And how you are aproaching the topic from a different perspective

…but what actually interests me a lot more is the fact that in the tip of each controller is a relatively high performing infrared camera

reinforce the number of chunks

and I’m going to show you two demos of why this is useful.

Briefly describe the set up you have, especially the bits we might not be able to immediately see

So here I have my computer set up with with a projector and I have a Wii remote sitting on top of it…

Describe the scenario that creates a need for this, setting the context for why your solution is so much better than the current one

…and if for example if you were in a school that doesn’t have a lot of money which is probably a lot of schools or if you’re in an office environment and you want an interactive white board, normally these cost about $2000-$3000.

For the first time state what you are going to demo

…What I’m going to show you how to do is how to create one with a Wii remote.

Describe any other additional factors using language at an appropriate level of detail/jargon, allaying concerns as you go

This requires another piece of hardware which is this infrared pen. You can probably make this for yourself with a quick trip to Radio Shack. It’s essentially got a battery, a button and an infrared LED. It turns on (you guys can’t see it but) it turns on whenever I press the button.

Describe in a few words what is going on and then demo the third most impressive aspect of the software, in a way that works visually…

What this means is if I run this piece of software, I can now register… the camera sees the infrared dot, and I can register the location of the camera pixels to the projector pixels and now, this is an interactive whiteboard surface…

…including why it’s so revolutionary…

for about $50 of hardware you can have your own whiteboard.

Drop in some comments on scope and quality of user reaction so far

The software for this I have put on my website, and let people download it for free, and in the three months since this project has been public, it’s been downloaded over half a million times.

Teachers and students all around the world are already using this.

Briefly preempt complaints

I do want to quickly say that although it does it all for $50, there are some limitations of this approach, but you get about 80% of the way there for about 1% of the cost.

Quickly up the ante, showing the second most impressive aspect of the product

Another nice thing is that a camera can see multiple dots. This is actually a multi-touch interactive whiteboard system as well.

Describe the parameters for the final demo, giving pertinent context as to why what you’re about to show is so cool

For this next demo, I actually have Wii remote here that’s next to the TV. It’s actually pointing away from the display, rather than pointing at the display. Why this is interesting is that if you put on a pair of safety glasses, I have two infrared dots on them, what these two dots are essentially going to give the computer an approximation of your head location.

And why this is interesting is I have this application running on the computer monitor and which has a 3D room with some targets floating in it. You can see it’s a 3D room, like a video game it sort of looks 3D. For the most part the image looks pretty flat and bound to the surface of the screen.

Demo the coolest aspect of the product, in a way we can clearly see the contrast

But if we turn on head-tracking, the computer can change the image that’s on the screen, and make it respond to the head movements, so let’s switch back to that.

Humbly describe industry/user reaction and reasons why this is such a great development

So this has actually been a bit startling to the game development community. Because this is about $10 of additional hardware if you already have a Nintendo Wii.

Look to the positive future developments

So I’m looking forward to seeing some games with it. Lewis Castle last week announced that Electronic Arts, one of the largest game publishers, is releasing a game in May that has a little easter egg feature supporting this type of head-tracking.

In less than five months, we’ve gone from a prototype in my lab to a major commercial product.

Optional: Use the platform to send a wider message

What was actually more interesting to me than either of these two products is how people actually found out about them.

So I hope to see more of that in the future and online video distribution to be embraced by the research community.

+++

Lessons we can learn from Johnny Chung Lee

~ Create context before you demo: describe both the current situation and what they are about to see clearly enough for them to feel the impact of the demo as the demo is happening

~ Use contrast to make your developments stand out: leave your listeners in no doubt as to how much what you are demo-ing improves on the current offering

~ Build momentum: start with something cool, but end with something even cooler

~ Be humble: if you’ve made the contrast clear enough, and set the context, you can let the tech speak for itself

~ Use ordinary words: describe your project in words your audience find ordinary; if they are non-specialists, that means non-specialist vocab

~ Allow people silence to see what’s happening when your demo is on-screen, allow people time to absorb it; it’s the first time they’ve seen it

+++

Next time you want to show people what you’ve been doing, make sure you learn these lessons. Especially important is set context, use contrast and build momentum.

(This works if you want people to see your genius. If you want investment, you might need to work harder at relevance… Just a thought.)

Related posts:

1. How to deliver a warning in three minutes like biochemist Gregory Petsko
2. How to rock the boat in three minutes like mathematician Arthur Benjamin
3. How to invite people to follow your example in three minutes like Google webspam guy Matt Cutts

Here’s the scenario: There’s a problem in your workplace. You’ve found a solution to that problem that has worked for you. You think people would benefit from following your example.

You’ve got three minutes.

You need a Follow-my-example presentation!

Continuing the series on short talks, we turn to Matt Cutts’ presentation on why you should try something new for 30 days. Matt is the head of the webspam team at Google but here we see him making a personal recommendation.

It’s snappy, friendly, and quietly inspirational.

See if you can spot how the structure works…

How to invite people to follow your example like Matt Cutts

Start by describing how you began (in a way we identify with and gets our attention)

A few years ago, I felt like I was stuck in rut…

State the solution you tried

…so I decided to follow in the footsteps of the great American philosopher Morgan Spurlock and try something new for 30 days.

Explain the idea simply

The idea is actually pretty simple. Think about something you’ve always wanted to add to your life and try it for the next 30 days.

Answer the most obvious question people might have about your solution, including something they can identify with

It turns out that 30 days is just about the right amount of time to add a new habit or subtract a habit, like watching the news, from your life.

Say you’re going to offer a few things you learned (nicer than saying ‘Here are the benefits…’)

There’s a few things I learned while doing these 30 day challenges.

Give first benefit – make it something unexpected that appeals to our emotions

The first was: instead of the months flying by forgotten, the time was much more memorable.

Give an example we might identify with

This was part of a challenge where I took a picture every day for a month. And I remember exactly where I was and what I was doing that day.

Give another benefit we can identify with – maybe something aspirational

I also noticed that I as I started to do more and harder 30 day challenges, my self-confidence grew.

Give an example we might identify with (make it humble so we don’t feel alienated)

I went from desk-dwelling computer nerd to the kind of guy who bikes to work. For fun.

Give a more extreme/impressive example (humble, again)

Even last year, I ended up hiking up Mount Kilimanjaro, the highest mountain in Africa. I would never have been that adventurous before I started my 30 day challenges.

Answer a question we have in our mind about implementation

I also figured out that if you really want something badly enough, you can do anything for 30 days.

Spend some time on a more detailed example, including an insight

Have you ever wanted to write a novel? Every November, tens of thousands of people try to write their own 50,000-word novel from scratch in 30 days. It turns out all you have to do is write 1667 words a day for a month. So I did it. By the way, the secret is not to go to sleep until you’ve written your words for the day. You might be sleep-deprived but you will have finished your novel.

Answer our silent questions about relevance of this example

Now, is my book the next Great American Novel? No, I wrote it in a month! It’s awful! But for the rest of my life, if I meet John Hodgson at a TED party, I don’t have to say, ‘I’m a computer scientist.’ No, no. If I want to I can say, ‘I’m a novelist.’

Signal you’re coming up to the final benefit

So here’s one last thing I’d like to mention.

State final benefit – make it as widely applicable as possible

I learned that when I made small sustainable changes, things I could keep doing, they were more likely to stick.

Answer our silent question about that benefit

There’s nothing wrong with big, crazy challenges, in fact, they’re a ton of fun.

But they’re less likely to stick.

Give a (humble) example

When I gave up sugar for 30 days, day 31 looked like this.

End with a motivational invitation, stating your recommendation in short, clear, memorable words

So here’s my question to you: What are you waiting for? I guarantee you the next 30 days are going to pass whether you like it or not.

For the next 30 days.

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Lessons from Matt Cutts’ talk

~ Illustrate benefits with personal examples: create connection and warmth by illustrating your points with examples from your experience

~ Use a variety of examples: draw your examples to appeal to the different sub-groups in your audience

~ Stay humble: if what you’re recommending seems a bit challenging, emphasis your starting point and the difficulties you overcame

~ Make yourself the anti-hero: if you started off cynical, say so; it helps us see you as one of us

~ Stay invitational: we’re more likely to take action if we feel like we’re making our own decision

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This would not be the structure I would use for something urgent. For that, you might need a Warning Presentation.

But if you’re in the situation where you want to make a gentle recommendation, use this structure as a starting point for making your ideas attractive enough for people to consider following your lead.

Related posts:

1. What do you do if you only have three minutes to make your point?
2. How to deliver a warning in three minutes like biochemist Gregory Petsko
3. How to rock the boat in three minutes like mathematician Arthur Benjamin

Picture the scene: You’ve spotted a big problem looming on the horizon.

People aren’t paying enough attention to it.

You’ve only got three minutes to kick-start the discussion.

You need to make a Warning Presentation!

Gregory Petsko is a biochemist with a dramatic call for us to take action on more research into the brain and its function. His talk is shocking, memorable and full of ‘kerPOW!’

Have a watch, and see what we can learn from his structure.

How to deliver a warning like Gregory Petsko

Make a bold statement of a negative outcome

Unless we do something to prevent it, in the next forty years we are facing an epidemic of neurologic diseases on a global scale. (A cheery thought.)

Describe the current situation

On this map, every country that’s coloured blue has more than twenty percent of its population over the age of 65. This is the world we live in.

Contrast the future

And this is the world your children will live in.

Set the context for complacency-up-until-now

For twelve thousand years, the distribution of the ages in the human population has looked like a pyramid, with the oldest on top.

Contrast how the context is about to dramatically change

It’s already flattening out. By 2050 it’s going to be a column and will start to invert.

The average lifespan has more than doubled since 1840 and it’s increasing currently at about the rate of five hours a day.

Explain why that change in context is bad

And this is why that’s not an entirely a good thing.

Because over the age of sixty-five, your risk of getting Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s Disease will increase exponentially.

Use dramatic figures to illustrate your point

By 2050, there will be about two million people in the United States over the age of 80 and unless we do something about it, half of them will have Alzheimer’s Disease and three million more will have Parkinson’s Disease.

Contrast current cost with future cost

Right now, those and other neurologic diseases for which we have no cure or prevention cost about a third of a trillion dollars a year, it will be well over a trillion dollars by 2050.

Dig a little deeper into the causes (setting up your solution

Alzheimer’s Disease starts when a protein that should be folded up properly misfolds into a kind of demented origami.

Briefly describe your solution

So one on of the approaches we’re trying to take is to find drugs that function like molecular Scotch tape to hold the protein into its proper shape. That would stop the tangle from killing large sections of the brain when they do.

Give extra reasons why your solution is of wider benefit

Interesting enough, other neurologic diseases which affect very different parts of the brain, also show tangles of misfolded protein, which suggests the approach might be a general one and might be used to cure many neurologic diseases not just Alzheimer’s Disease .

There’s also a fascinating connection to cancer here because people with neurologic diseases have a very low incidence of most cancers. This is a connection which most people aren’t pursuing right now but which we are fascinated by.

Mention the change you would like to see happen

Most of the important and all of the creative work in this area is being funded by private philanthropies and there is tremendous scope for additional private help here because the government has dropped the ball on much of this, I’m afraid.

Give snappy practical actions to take

In the meantime, while we’re waiting for all these things to happen, here’s what you can do for yourself.

As far as protecting yourself against Alzheimer’s Disease, well, it turns out that (1) fish oil has the effect of reducing your risk of Alzheimer’s Disease. (2) You should also keep your blood pressure down because chronic high blood pressure is the biggest single risk factor for Alzheimer’s Disease. It’s also the biggest risk factor for glaucoma, which is just Alzheimer’s Disease of the eye. And (3) of course when it comes to cognitive effects, use it or lose it applies. So you want to stay mentally stimulated, but hey, you’re listening to me, so you’ve got that covered!

Conclude with dramatic restatement of the future problem

And one final thing: wish people like me luck, ok? Because the clock is ticking for all of us.

What can we learn from Gregory Petsko about short presentations?

~ Contrast current situation with future situation: action comes from feeling too comfortable with the status quo. Show again and again why the future disaster must be staved off.

~ Stay out of technical explanations: give just enough context to allow us to follow you, and no more.

~ Make your position clear: bold statements, whilst not always appropriate, work well to wake people up.

~ Clear speech: you can speak pretty fast if you speak your words ultra-clearly and aren’t afraid of silences between points.

~ Practical solutions keep people involved: if you’re discussing things people can’t affect directly, they like to know what IS in their control.

~ If you start with a punch, end with a punch: don’t peter out; sustain your courage all the way through.

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It’s not often that we need to be prophet, but if you see a situation that needs moving up the agenda and you only have a short time in which to do it, Gregory’s bold, clear structure can hold some keys.

Use with care!

Related posts:

1. How to rock the boat in three minutes like mathematician Arthur Benjamin
2. What do you do if you only have three minutes to make your point?
3. How to illustrate your points like Ken Robinson