public speaking, rehearse, presentation, TEDx, PowerPoint

Back in deepest Oxfordshire, after a week in which I gave five set-piece presentations.

One was at a Wilton Park conference on the general theme of Russia and Social Media. The second was at TEDxWarsaw, a coaching session in public speaking for some of the speakers at the main event.

Then three different presentations, one to a small commercial audience and two more to Polish officials, on Presenting with Impact and Diplomatic Speechwriting themes.

Phew.

One of the ideas I elaborated was that a speech (or presentation) is not a lecture, an occasion for one person grandly to impart knowledge to an audience of people supposedly keen to acquire it.

Rather it is a conversation, not a monologue. Admittedly a conversation in which one person does most if not all the talking. But there are many other ways to communicate beyond mere talking, and the speaker/presenter gets best results by engaging the audience on the instinctive conversational level.

All sorts of different techniques accomplish this deftly. Telling true-life stories (ie adding human interest). Producing an object which itself tells a story. Showing video-clips. Giving a speech/presentation structure, especially by using Questions and Answers (which by the way bring written work to life too).

This is why I believe that for most purposes the key aim of a speech is not to transmit information, but rather to create a mood.

The audience should leave not stuffed with facts, but rather with a warm glow of inner emotional satisfaction, feeling that the speaker has spoken to and for them all in a personal and even touching way.

Someone asked me after my TEDxWarsaw presentation how often I rehearsed my presentations. She was startled when I said that not only did I not rehearse – I could not imagine how one could rehearse. Would standing in front of a mirror really help?

Of course by now I am a hardened pro at such things. Many people have sickening attacks of nerves at the mere thought of getting up in front of even a small crowd.

Yet the answer to that is not (I think) to ‘rehearse’, if only because you risk losing that key sense of creating a conversation with the audience – only speaking naturally and easily achieves that.

Rather the speaker needs to have full confidence in the content of the speech/presentation, and make it simple, interesting and accessible on a human level. Channeling one’s nerves into speaking more slowly and deliberately and adding some real-life experiences to illustrate the theme invariably help.

Best result of any speech or PowerPoint presentation? The most important people in the audience quickly text/email their underlings and say: