What every presenter can learn from TED?

What every presenter can learn from TED?

I love TED Talks and can spend many a pleasant hour (ahem) watching different speakers.  I am also always trying to dissect what makes the talks so exceptional.   One of my favourites is Benjamin Zander and as soon as you watch him, you realise he has a passion and enthusiasm that is immediately infectious.  He obviously knows and loves his subject (classical music), but don’t let the subject put you off.

Benjamin Zander is able to connect with people by using humour and personal stories.  He seems to genuinely believe that his audience loves classical music too, except they might not know that yet!  Which is a brave premise, but it works!

How about if this is not your style and you are presenting on a topic that most people might know very little or even nothing about?  Rajesh Rao’s presentation on the 4,000 year old Indus script is an example.  At each step Rajesh Rao creates a modern context to help his audience understand and engage with him.  He almost immediately refers to the Indus script as the ‘mother of all crosswords’ – and you can sense the audience laughing and relaxing.  Even when he is talking about the structure of language (which is quite complex)  he is able to give us an everyday relatable example, but most importantly he uses self disclosure to tell us why this is his passion and why it’s important.

Recently, I discovered another reason why the speeches are so good. TED’s organisers send upcoming speakers a stone tablet, engraved with the ‘TED Commandments’.

Here are the Ten  TED Commandments that every presenter could benefit from:

1.     Thou Shalt Not Simply Trot Out thy Usual Shtick

2.     Thou Shalt Dream a Great Dream, or Show Forth a Wondrous New Thing, Or Share Something Thou Hast Never Shared Before

3.     Thou Shalt Reveal thy Curiosity and Thy Passion

4.     Thou Shalt Tell a Story

5.     Thou Shalt Freely Comment on the Utterances of Other Speakers for the Sake of Blessed Connection and Exquisite Controversy

6.     Thou Shalt Not Flaunt thine Ego. Be Thou Vulnerable. Speak of thy Failure as well as thy Success.

7.     Thou Shalt Not Sell from the Stage: Neither thy Company, thy Goods, thy Writings, nor thy Disparate need for Funding; Lest Thou be Cast Aside into Outer Darkness.

8.     Thou Shalt Remember all the while: Laughter is Good.

9.     Thou Shalt Not Read thy Speech.

10.  Thou Shalt Not Steal the Time of Them that Follow Thee

Now we know how Ted can claim its by line ’Riveting talks by remarkable people, free to the world’.

Do you have another Presentation Commandment that you think should be there?  As always please comment and tell us what you think.