Last September, the malevolent toadstool you see in the picture on the left thrust its slimy head out of the familiar soil of my front yard.  It got my attention.

I have rarely had mushrooms in my garden, and never a toadstool with an orange stem and a phallic tip topped by a red pimple on its nosecone.

I remain horrified by the sight of it, and worried about the malicious conspiracy transpiring under ground.  What other alien life form is going to come out of the earth under the hydrangeas?

Sharon and I washed our hands after we touched it, but half an hour later, we still had to scratch an alarming epidemic of itches that popped up in unmentionable anatomical places.

An otherwise routine Saturday morning was made famous by this unexpected visitor.  We will talk about it for years…but for all the wrong reasons.

Some people bring toadstools into their presentations and get attention for all the wrong reasons.  They tell jokes that fall flat.  They wear clothes that make them look cheesy.  They talk about themselves too much.  They show off, pontificate, grandstand, ham it up.  They go over the time limit.  They scratch in the wrong places.  They mispronounce key technical or industry terms that they should know.  Or they use their own technical language despite the fact that the audience doesn’t know it.

It’s good to be memorable, but only for the right reasons.  Not for being outrageous, or shocking, or sensational.  Rather, be memorable for your expertise, warmth, and relevance.

Don’t bring toadstools into your talk to get attention.  You will quickly wear out your welcome.

Sims Wyeth & Co. provides public speaking courses, executive speech coaching, presentation skills training, voice and speech training, speech writing, and courses that address stage fright, body language, presentation strategy, and effective use of PowerPoint, all of which contribute to greater executive presence and personal impact.

In the idyllic vision of the uninitiated, a scientific presentation tells a story, starting with a clear description of a problem, then outlining a series of steps taken to address that problem, and ending with a special reward: a glistening kernel of new knowledge.

The speaker tells the story using a vocabulary accessible to anyone with a similar breadth, though not necessarily depth, of scientific knowledge so that all in attendance can bask in the final, glorious revelation.

This is an attractive fiction.  The ugly truth is that few scientists take the time to describe the situation from which the project emerges, or the particular social or technical problem that remains to be solved, and the consequences of that problem remaining unsolved.

Because of this, many scientific presentations lack drama, and drama is, after all, one of the main reasons why we gather together. 

The talks lack drama because they begin with something procedural, e.g., “I am going to talk a little bit about the following nine things.”  Or they begin with the protocol, the study design, or the objectives of the study. 

This approach is traditional and widely accepted, even expected.  Unfortunately, it gives science a bad name, and turns the average person comatose.  All drama is about the solution of problems, and to forget this fact, especially in science, is a terrible injury to the most important endeavor of the modern era.

Finally, to grasp what most scientists are speaking about, one must learn a new language.  Few speakers that I have heard cease speaking their own language when addressing those who are not familiar with it.  There are multiple reasons for this, some of them quite understandable, but again, the habit of doing so harms the enterprise.

I am a communications consultant.  I learned a long time ago, and I have to learn it over and over again, that if we want to be heard, understood, and remembered, we must speak to our audience in the language of the audience about what the audience cares about.

Sims Wyeth & Co. provides public speaking courses, executive speech coaching, presentation skills training, voice and speech training, speech writing, and courses that address stage fright, body language, presentation strategy, and effective use of PowerPoint, all of which contribute to greater executive presence and personal impact.  Sign up for our presentation tips and learn more about us at http://www.simswyeth.com/.

I recently came across Lillipip, a company that creates animated videos about your product, service, or concept.  Check them out. 

They have a simple storyboarding template of four blank squares.  In the first, you draw or paste a picture of your client in pain, along with the exclamation that’s coming out of your customer’s mouth.  Nice and simple.

Then, you draw or paste a picture of the visual metaphor for your product, service, or concept.  For example, a health club might visualize itself as being able to turn a couch potato into an Adonis.

In the third panel, you draw or paste a picture of your client– happy after you’ve removed the pain.  Again, you also draw the exclamation that comes out of the client’s mouth.

Finally, in the fourth panel, you draw or paste a picture of you, your logo, or your product, and write one thing you want the client to do or remember.

This is good stuff for presenters too.  It helps us think visually.  It keeps our presentations focused on our listeners’ problems, and forces us to present solutions.   It makes us think about emotions in addition to information.  It encourages us to use metaphor, which is the ability to link what is new to something familiar. And finally, it demands that we have a call to action at the end of our presentation.

Plus, it helps those of us who are word people speak the language of picture people, which gives us stereophonic input into the brains of both tribes.

Sims Wyeth is an executive speech coach in Montclair, NJ specializing in presentation skills and public speaking training in order to give accomplished people the knowledge and skill they need to become accomplished speakers. Learn more public speaking tips at www.SimsWyeth.com.