Just sat through a talk with a long and useless introduction concerning what the speaker had considered saying but decided against, how he stumbled upon his approach to the topic, and finally, the five elements of it he planned to discuss.  I still didn’t know a thing about his point of view.

Ten minutes of wasted time.  Ten minutes burning up our attention spans.  Ten minutes that predisposed us to think him an idiot.  Ten minutes of extraneous information that  had us wondering when it would end before it actually began.

There is value in going slowly, and sometimes it’s necessary.  For instance, a commencement address:  “Madame President; distinguished members of the board of overseers; magnificently robed and plumed faculty members; generous alumni gloating on the dais; bankrupt parents roasting in the sun; and last but not least, pampered and hung-over graduating seniors dressed in polyester caps and gowns:  it is indeed an honor and a privilege to be your commencement speaker.”  (By this time, if you speak slowly, you only have to write a few more paragraphs and your job is done.)

But commencement is not a hard-nosed business occasion.  It’s a ceremonial occasion, where this kind of verbosity earns you another stripe on your academic sleeve.  In the boardroom, it will earn you impatient stares, a reputation for pomposity, and a seat on the back bench of the analytics office.

It is true that we get to know the speaker as he warms up, and ad hocs his way into his subject.  But how much better for him to leap into the fray, and demonstrate who he is and how he thinks by taking a big bite out of the subject right up front.

Then, once he’s captured us, he can let up on the pedal and give us a little personal story so we don’t have to think for a while, before he takes us up another steep slope.  Everyone listens better when something unexpected happens.

The guy I saw got to the end of his rambling ten minute opening, and then told us he was going to talk for 50 minutes.  I looked at my watch.  “Holy shit,” I thought, and looked at my watch.  “The cafeteria’s gonna be closed.”  I couldn’t do anything about it, since I was in the front row squeezed between VIPs.  He went on for another 60 minutes.  I listened intermittently, waiting for the sound of his voice to cease.

There is no such thing as a speech that is too short, unless you’re a comedian on a roll and in the zone.  Our first job is to get attention, and our second job is to keep it ’til the end.  Speaking  is the opposite of life.  In speaking, you want the end to come sooner rather than later.

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.