[HN Gopher] How to give a great presentation: advice from a lege...
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How to give a great presentation: advice from a legendary adman
(2012)
Author : c0restraint
Score : 155 points
Date : 2020-02-01 16:09 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.brainpickings.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.brainpickings.org)
| [deleted]
| BossingAround wrote:
| An interesting lecture on the topic is also How To Speak by late
| MIT professor Patrick Winston [1]. Very much recommended!
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Unzc731iCUY
| cl42 wrote:
| Oh man, Ogilvy's writing is so great and he has such good advice.
|
| I remember reading some of his other writing... One anecdote
| about superglue: want to show people it's strong? Don't just say
| it in a billboard ad; glue a car to the billboard!
|
| Brilliant.
| smacktoward wrote:
| Timeless advice for writers: _show, don't tell._
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Show,_don%27t_tell
| [deleted]
| cbanek wrote:
| This is some great advice. I totally agree with the "it feels
| natural and ad-lib but it's not." If something is really well
| organized, one topic will naturally flow into the other (also,
| it's easier to adlib with well organized presentations, I find).
|
| One way I frame the first bit of advice (about having a theme,
| and keeping it to the theme) is my favorite line from Planes,
| Trains, & Automobiles:
|
| "When you're telling a story, have a point! It makes it so much
| more interesting for the listener!"
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JLbAePwoHQ
| AndrewKemendo wrote:
| I have been giving presentations professionally since ~2007.
|
| The only thing I agree with is the end:
|
| "The most effective speeches and presentations sound as if they
| have been spoken, ad-lib, and not written down at all. Great
| presenters and speakers make it all sound so easy and so natural
| that one assumes it just pours out of them. It almost never
| does."
|
| You'll never see an amazing talk/brief/speech like described
| above, follow the formula outlined in the "How to organize a
| presentation."
|
| The "How to organize a presentation" is great for someone who has
| never given a presentation to be able to give a tolerable
| presentation.
|
| However going from tolerable to good takes a completely different
| pathway and most people never get there.
|
| I suggest if you're serious about being influential as a
| presenter you try an open mic for poetry, improv or standup
| comedy. You'll bomb probably, but the exercise is really
| important.
|
| Practice storytelling. Write more. Understand your audience
| before you even start building your presentation. There's so much
| to do that is never ending but at the end of the day you're
| trying to build a relationship with your audience so that they
| trust you and what you are trying to convince them of.
| hnarn wrote:
| > You'll never see an amazing talk/brief/speech like described
| above, follow the formula outlined in the "How to organize a
| presentation."
|
| I strongly disagree, and I think the "How to Speak" lecture by
| Professor Patrick Winston of the Massachusetts Institute of
| Technology demonstrates this very well:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9F536001A3C605FC
|
| This is an example of a very structured presentation, but at no
| point did I feel bored or out of touch with the presenter
| because of it.
| AndrewKemendo wrote:
| Perhaps we watched a different lecture.
|
| I saw a person capture the audience's attention with an
| anecdote about the Military and then used that as a metaphor
| to empathize with the audience about why they should care.
| Then he immediately gave a compelling and comedic anecdote
| with some improvisation demonstrating that it's a skill you
| can learn, also empathizing with the audience to address
| fears.
|
| That he wrote an outline on the board is almost immaterial.
|
| Also, notable that this is an academic lecture, which would
| be expected to be more structured and the power dynamic of
| the speaker and the audience are already clear, the students
| are there to learn from the speaker in a somewhat subordinate
| way. Very different than a TED-style talk, VC pitch, company
| all call, PR event etc... where that format falls apart
| unless used very creatively like Dimitri Martin does in his
| comedy
| tootie wrote:
| My line of work requires a lot of time presenting. We typically
| tag team our presentations so experts are presenting their own
| slides. It definitely adds to the authenticity. Typically I'll
| write up slides relevant to the audience, but it's usually on
| topics that I already know inside and out and don't need to
| follow a script and can easily respond to questions and
| tangents. Then pass to another expert who can talk about their
| stuff with equal vigor. Speaking about something that's
| actually interesting is also hugely important.
|
| I think the exact inverse example is probably Donald Trump. He
| has little relevant expertise to his job and hasn't really
| bothered to learn much along the way. Instead, he speaks at
| length without a script and without breaking tempo unburdened
| by facts, experience or even coherence. Just a lot of
| confidence and a lot of emotion. And it evidently works really
| well for a lot of people.
| joshuaheard wrote:
| Scott Adams (Dilbert creator) has written several books on
| persuasion and persuasive techniques. He analyzes Trump's
| communication style very positively.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| Scott Adams isn't an expert on either persuasion generally
| or the domain in which Trump operates (writing a book
| doesn't make you an expert; ideally, being an expert would
| be related to having a book taken seriously, but being a
| celebrity can do that without any expertise.)
|
| Trump did a decent enough job at leveraging decades of
| Republican propaganda designed to create permanent unmet
| needs and resentments to support politicians permanently
| promising incremental steps in the direction of those
| needs, and cutting the legal out of the people making that
| offer by not nakedly offering the whole hog rather than
| incremental steps. But that's not a triumph of persuasion:
| the persuasion was done by decades of work by professional
| political propagandists; Trump was just meeting the
| already-radicalized Republican base where they'd been set
| up to be exploited.
| dkersten wrote:
| I personally don't really like tag-team presentations. I'm
| sure it can be done really well, but in almost all talks I've
| ever watched (GDC, strangeloop, various language conferences)
| the switch between speakers always came across as
| distracting, hectic or jarring. Yes, I imagine they were
| rarely (or ever) as well practiced as you sound and I imagine
| that makes a huge difference and it sounds like you're doing
| it for the right reasons (so that the person talking is
| always talking about something they know about, certainly
| helps talks sound less artificial, as you say), my main point
| is that I don't think its good advice to tell people who
| aren't as well practiced because I find it often makes
| otherwise decent presentations not so great.
|
| Everything else you say sounds great, though :)
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