Evan Genest's Learning Log

I keep notes here. Most of these are related to travel, work, or books.

TJ Walker Helped Me Give a Better Talk

Management

Udemy: Complete Communication Skills

A gigantic course cobbled together from TJ Walker's two hundred mini videos. These are notes I took while listening to TJ talking about talking.

All communication

All communication should be judged by what your listeners retain. And whether they then do something.
Your goal is to be memorable and to have a call to action.

Powerpoint

His preference: don't.
There's no such thing as "a tech talk", "a data talk", "a formal defense", "a powerpoint presentation". He says there's only two kinds of presentations: ones that achieve an action by the listener and ones that don't. And Powerpoint has to be the icing of your talk, and therefore can be omitted and there's still a talk. So in that case, consider just having a piece of paper (single piece should last you up to one hour!), and walking around the space.

But if you choose Powerpoint

If you must: one idea per slide as an anchor to your talk.
Or consider: just an image per slide, nothing else.
Write, prepare, practice the whole thing, without starting to write the ppt. Once you have a talk, author the slides. This forces them to hold no info: just be icing and reinforcement.
When you present the talk, never face the slide and read it. There should be nought to read anyway.
Use w or b to turn off the slides while you talk. Hit any key to resume.
Get a clicker-changer that does not multifunction: stay small, just a clicker. He doesn't like slide changer assistants (to me he is being silly 80s-man).

Sort of a wild ppt idea

Wild idea: his rhythm for ppting is:

  1. with no slide, start your point
  2. no slide, give an example story
  3. still no slide, maybe teach a mnemonic
  4. finally a slide: reviewing the point - and the slide is just a diagram or photo, few or no words

Golden rule - your ppt goal is for the audience to take some action, going forward. So, memorize in them a couple of your points. That means 2 to 5 points, tops. Your lists and high detail belong in a handout, or website they can hit later, or it is a great excuse to get their email address so you have an excuse to get in touch with them.

Who's the boss? Bad presenters let the powerpoint control them and prompt them. Don't do that. You be the boss, the ppt works for you.

Abstraction is your enemy

But TJ, I don't have a story for that part.
His response is, that probably means its not an important point.

Story-i-zing Things

Stories have details.
They have settings.
You have emotions, the other people have full names, and you speak dialogue.

This should feel like a radio drama.

Mention the weather, avoid pronouns, have 5 senses (sounds, tactile, ...). BUT DON'T GET SHAGGY: do all this briskly enough that Meg Domroese doesn't fidget.

Introducing yourself

Remember, your goal is to be memorable and to have a call to action.
So even when you're at a camp or meeting and it is time to go around in a circle, he witholds his name for a bit.

Don't say name/job/company at beginning!

Do:
1 - start by posing a problem they can relate to.
2 - then say your name
3 - incentivize them to interact with you later, with a freebie or an intrigue of mystery
4 - 30 seconds maximum

Notes

One sheet: it's a bad speech if you can't talk from a single sheet.
No levels of indenting or hierarchy.
Your triggering your stories.
Remember you should only be making 5, 3, or even 2 points. Studies show that nobody will hang onto it otherwise. In which case, why did you even talk?
Your talk made for Powerpoint during a power failure should still work, because when you were writing a TJ-style talk, you edited your talk down to a single piece of paper, adequate for walking around the space - you only wrote your Powerpoint slides at the end, if you are TJ Walker, so a tech failure shouldn't bother you. You revert to that single piece of paper.

Content of a story

Describe a real problem.
Relate a real conversation about that.
Emphasize how you all felt.
Solve the problem.

Persuasion

Know the finish line.
It's a numbers game. Aim for 75% failure.
Improve a little bit each time: always be getting 2% better. It adds up. But to do that you need a feedback mechanism, a reflective practice.
10,000 hours rule.

The Eye Contact

90% of us do windshield wiper eyes when we publicly speak. We sweep the room, hitting all the corners. TJ says it's a major, major advantage if you can switch that over to a Bill Clinton eye style.

Bill Clinton will talk to one person, for 4 or so sentences, face to face. Then move along and repeat that.

Don't multitask your listeners

Just talk.
Just show some text.
Just give a handout.