Presentation Zen [20]
• What’s their background?
• What do they expect of me (us)?
• Why was I asked to speak?
• What do I want them to do?
• What visual medium is most appropriate for this particular situation and audience?
• What is the fundamental purpose of my talk?
• What’s the story here?
• And this is the most fundamental question of all. Stripped down to its essential core:
What is my absolutely central point?
Or put it this way: If the audience could remember only one thing (and you’ll be lucky if they do), what do you want it to be?
Two Questions: What’s Your Point? Why Does It Matter?
A lot of the presentations I attend feature a person from a specialized field giving a talk—usually with the help of PowerPoint—to an audience of business people who are not specialists in the presenter’s technical field. This is a common presentation situation. For example, an expert in the area of, say, biofuel technology may be invited to give a presentation to a local chamber of commerce about the topic and about what their company does, what the average person can do, etc. Recently, I attended such an event, and after the hour-long talk was over I realized that the presentation was a miracle of sorts: until that day I didn’t think it was possible to actually listen to someone make a presentation with slides in my native language of English and for me to genuinely not understand a single point that was made. Not one. Nada. I wanted my hour back.
The wasted hour was not the fault of PowerPoint or bad slides, however. The presentation would have been greatly improved if the presenter had simply kept two questions in mind in preparing for the talk: What’s my point? And why does it matter?
It is hard enough for presenters to find their core message and express it in a way that is unambiguously understood. But why does it matter? This is where people really stumble. This is because the presenter is so close to his material that the question of why it should matter simply seems obvious, too obvious to make explicit. Yet, that is what people (including most audiences) are hoping and praying that you’ll tell them. “Why should we care?” That’s going to take persuasion, emotion, and empathy in addition to logical argument. Empathy in the sense that the presenter understands that not everyone will see what to him is obvious, or that others may understand well but not see why it should matter to them. When preparing material for a talk, good presenters try to put themselves in the shoes of their audience members.
Getting back to my wasted hour. The presenter, who was smart, accomplished, and professional, failed before he even started. The slides looked like they were the same ones used in previous presentations to more technical audiences inside his company, an indication that he had not thought first and foremost about his audience on that day. He failed to answer the important question: “Why does it matter?” He also failed in the preparation stage to remember that presentation opportunities like this one are about contributing something and leaving something important behind for the audience.
Dakara Nani? (So What?)
In Japanese I often say to myself, “dakara nani?” or “sore de…?” which translates roughly as “so what?!” or “your point being…?” I say this often while I am preparing my material or helping others prepare their talks.
When building the content of your presentation, you should always put yourself in the shoes of the audience and ask “so what?” Really ask yourself the tough questions throughout the planning process. For example, is your point relevant? It may be cool, but is it important to further your story, or is it included only because it seems impressive to you (but few others)? Surely you have been in an audience and wondered how what the presenter was talking about was relevant or supported his core point. If you can’t really answer that question, then cut that bit of content out of your talk.
Can You Pass the “Elevator Test?”
If “dakara nani” does not work for you, then check the