Every speaker starts of being a bad speaker and becomes a good speaker. People who say otherwise are liars.

How do you make a bad talk and convince your audience it is a really good talk and that they should come back for more.

Brain

Two hemispheres of brain not being able to communicate. Can result in one half of brain controlling one side of body independently of the other half of the brains control of the other side of the body.

e.g. reading a box, and the other hand closes book.

e.g. talking to boss and the other hand tries to punch boss.

Topic really interesting but you can’t pay attention. Half bored brains. Not good when listening to presentations.

Solution: Use pictures. Lots of pictures. Pictures of brain candy. Not just about entertainment. Force both sides of the brain to pay attention. Use pictures of smiling babies. Use for emotional control.

“… and then we discovered our backup tapes were corrupt”

photo of angry man

“…but we had offsite backups”

photo of smiling baby

“…but restoration was expensive”

photo of dog pooing on ground

Long term memory

A good talk is memoriable.

Emotion. We retain memories more during highly emotional events. e.g. weddings.

Get audience emotionally involved. Sad. Angry. Cheerful. Happy. Any emotion will do.

Curiosity is the best emotion to invoke. It is the emotion people have when they want to learn something.

Everybody loves stories. Suspense. Intrege. Don’t start with the answer.

Challenge

Explore solutions, and issues with the solutions. Find the answer together. Make audience feel like they are part of the solution. Get them emotionally involved.

Slides

Optic Nerve is 70% of all nerves in body. If you are not a good speaker, go through slides faster.

Entertainment != Humour - talk doesn’t have to be humourous.

If you sing to your audience they will always remember. Show off gadgets.

Practise

Time yourself.

Practise to friends, pets, local user groups, etc.