October 5, 2008

Children’s book author and storyteller Carmen Agra Deedy defines great storytelling as “the art of letting go.” That element is pertinent to any public speaker, whether you are a keynoter, CEO leading an All Hands corporate meeting or a salesperson giving a PowerPoint presentation.

Storytelling engages an audience. In fact, in Deedy’s very funny TED Conference speech about connecting with her Cuban mother, she precedes the talk by pointing out that when Lexis wants to sell you a car, it engages you by telling a story in its commercials.

As you’ll see in this TED.com video below, Deedy is a vivid storyteller. It’s not only because she’s a talented writer, but she’s also very effective in using techniques that great speakers use to add power to their speeches, such as vocal variety and energetic body language. She doesn’t just tell the story. She relives the story by breaking into character dialogue.

August 23, 2008

When you see a standup comic, such as Robin Williams, rattle off hundreds of one-liners in the course of a 30-60 minute performance, you often leave the show thinking that was hilarious, but I don’t remember any of the jokes.

If you are a public speaker, that’s not what you want your audience thinking as they leave your presentation (maybe the “hilarious” part, but of course, you want them remembering at least parts of your speech).

A friend of mine recently gave a speech loaded with great examples to illustrate his speech premise. In fact, in the course of his seven-minute speech, he used so many examples (5, 6, maybe even 10), I lost track. Not only that, I hardly remembered any of them.

To make your speech memorable, it’s best to wrap a story around your key points. People remember stories, but bullet points are often lost on them moments after the speech ends, if not sooner.

If you have multiple examples to illustrate a key point, choose the most powerful example and run it through the Sinatra Test, a phrase that comes from the book, Made to Stick (which I wrote about here).

Stories stick in people’s minds. And best of all, stories can have the power to make people act.

July 29, 2008

The following is a slide deck (made in Apple’s Keynote, which is why I’m not calling it PowerPoint presentation), demonstrating how to tell a story with more visuals than words. If this was for a live presentation, I would use even fewer words.

July 10, 2008

New Yorker writer and bestselling author of the Tipping Point Malcom Gladwell demonstrated his brilliant storytelling talent recently at the 2008 New Yorker Conference ( video). During a session titled “Stories from the Near Future,” Gladwell spoke about his upcoming book, which outlines how millions of dollars are spent to find the best job candidates and yet the system is entirely flawed in the modern world.

If you have enjoyed his books or New Yorker articles, you’ll probably find his verbal storytelling just as entertaining as his writing.

May 3, 2008

Communications coach and Businessweek columnist Carmine Gallo has an outstanding video on how to inspire an audience, or even a group of coworkers, like Apple CEO Steve Jobs, the master of the keynote. Gallo breaks down elements of a Jobs’ speech, and highlights techniques he uses to electrify a crowd.

Like me, Gallo’s professional roots are in journalism, In fact, Gallo contributed to one of my technology columns I was writing weekly in 2000 for the Las Vegas Business Press. At the time, Gallo hosted the Money Machine, a half-hour show on TEchTV that provided investment advice predominantly using the Internet. Gallo’s communication Web site provides a lot of great tips and videos on public speaking.

January 28, 2008

One of the best ways to connect with your audience as a speaker is by storytelling. If your presentation’s purpose is to be informative, you may find this challenging, but any set of facts and figures can be wrapped around a story.

An easy place to start brainstorming to develop a story is to consider why this presentation is important to either you or your audience.

A while ago, a presenter came to me with a rough draft of a speech outlining what you should do after a multiple car crash to minimize legal hassles.
He discussed the exciting process of exchanging insurance cards, phone numbers, Driver’s licenses and the importance of filling out a police report.

When I asked him why he wanted to speak on this topic, he said it was because he wanted to educate others so they could avoid the nightmare experience he went through a couple of years ago.

BINGO!

In rewriting the speech, I had him open by verbally painting a vivid picture of that car accident. He had learned to drive in another country, and this was his first car accident. Therefore, he was unfamiliar with what to do, according to American laws. To compound matters, the other driver was an intimidating, large, angry dude, who we will call Biff.

When he delivered the speech, he immediately hooked his audience by setting a familiar dramatic car crash scene, one to which the audience could relate. And then, instead of outlining the DMV step-by-step rulebook process in bullet point fashion, the speaker continued in storytelling fashion to explain how they exchanged legal papers, and the mistakes he made, such as failing to fill out his own police report to counter Biff’s version of the story.