Good Speaker, Great Speaker: The Three Key Components to a Persuasive Speech

A Public Speaking Master Class

“I do not give lectures or a little charity. When I give, I give myself.”

- Walt Whitman

You’ve got a few PowerPoint presentations under your belt.  The jitters of stage fright are a thing of the past. You even actually kind of enjoy them a little. You may even have this public speaking thing down pat.

But there is always more to learn, Young Jedi. You want to go from being a good speaker to rocking the room. Maybe not Martin Luther King rocking, but close. It’s time for the next level.

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Novices can get by putting together a great plan with nice slides. More experienced speakers have a few custom tricks up their sleeve to make a good impression. But the Masters know that there are three things they need to be to bring an audience their side. Credible, Relevant and Memorable. Sound easy? Its not. That’s why we call them Masters:

Credible: Get them to listen.

The first moments are the only ones you get for free. Everything after that must be earned from your listeners. No matter what the topic of your presentation, your credibility is always in question. So why should the audience believe a word you say?

Churchill giving his final address in the 1945 election campaign at Walthamstow Stadium, East London

Credibility is not always established simply by boasting your credentials or having them introduced. Confidence, appearance and language say more about you than the letters after your name. Most of all, your audience needs to get to know you before they trust you.

No less than a quarter of your presentation should be the story about you and your relation to the subject matter. Tell them how you know what you know. State your sources and how you came by them. And always present this process as a first-person narrative.

That’s the difference between an oral presentation and a memo: An oral presentation is about you. Human beings have a hard-wired weakness for human stories. It is how we understand the world. Use this to your advantage.

Relevant: Get them to care.

Once your audience feels like they know you and trust you, they will listen. Once you have them under your spell, you owe them to make what you are saying matter. Conversely, your audience owes you nothing. Their ear is charity enough. Think about who they are and what they value. How does your topic relate to their lives? Describe it in a way that they can appreciate.

A good communicator comes to a presentation prepared and organized. A great communicator can change the plan at a moment’s notice and wing it. The notes you have prepared are not a script. They serve simply as a means for you to forge a logical understanding of the material for yourself.

Think of Aesop’s Fables. Everyone knows the story of the ant and the grasshopper, but the story has never been told the same way twice. Anyone could tell that story at a moment’s notice, without memorizing a single word. The fable itself is nothing more than a template to describe a narrative. Versions of the story are adjusted to the audience and the speaker. Yet each version hits the same series of vital checkpoints that are the content of the message.

Your presentation is such a fable. Told as such, your audience will in turn be able to adapt the story to their own narrative. Your story then takes on a life of its own, and lives to be repeated by your listener.

Memorable: Get them to remember.

The mind is a fickle device. It’s no small task to make a strong impression and deliver a great speech, but if it doesn’t stick, it didn’t happen. Unlike the written word, your live presentation flows through time like a river. It’s in one ear and out the other. With so much information bombarding us everyday, how can your humble speech stay in your audience’s mind once they leave the room?

Yes, we can remember

Politicians, newscasters, advertisers and even religions have long ago figured this out. They make cunning use of nifty catch phrases, emotional connection and, most of all, repetition. By creating talking points to clearly punctuate each important item, you give your listener an easy way of later finding it in their cluttered mind.

Educational Psychologists Iran-Nejad, McKeachie, and Berliner found in a study that the more a message is rooted in a personal and cultural context the more it will be remembered. Religious ceremonies often attach a familiar tactile sensation to a ritual. Politicians like to attach a sense of identity and community to their message. News media condense their message into easily digestible rhetoric. Advertisers use repetition to get their point across. It sounds evil, but it works.

Feel free to exploit these techniques in your humble speech. Your audience is no stranger to this process and well-trained to accept dogma. Get your listeners to participate in your presentation. Find how they can identify culturally with your topic. Then punctuate it with a catchy phrase that rolls off the tongue nicely. And don’t forget to repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat,….repeat, …repeat. Repeat.

Here are some examples of some extremely persuasive presentations taken from Hollywood. Look closely at how the speakers establish themselves as credible, relevant and memorable.

Example 1: George C. Scott as General Patton in Patton

Credible: The General establishes his credibility before even saying a word. His slick uniform, decorations and pearl-handled revolver speak for themselves.

Relevant: He speaks to the audience in their own language. What interests these young soldiers? Glory. Victory. The bragging of an avuncular ball-breaker good ol’ boy who loves to win. He may be a son-of-a-gun, but he’s our son-of-a-gun…

Memorable: He appeals to their identity as Americans, with cowboy movie sound-bytes and colloquial poop jokes. You just can’t wait to use that line in a conversation.

Example 2: Danny Devito as Larry the Liquidator in Other People’s Money.

Credible: His introduction and moniker would have been enough, but look how smug and confident he is with a hostile audience. Better listen to what he says.

Relevant: It wasn’t hard for him to figure out his audience’s weakness: Money. Relate everything to money, and they are putty in your hand.

Memorable: The second most frequently used word in his speech is “Money”. The most frequent  word is “Dead”. Talk about subliminal messages…

Example 3:Micheal Douglas as Gordon Gekko in Wall Street

Credible: Notice how he gives his speech from the floor amongst the shareholders and not the suits on the stage whom he maligns.

Relevant: Like Larry the Liquidator, he’s no-nonsense. Gekko knows what it’s all about. Money. They’re not here for the entertainment.

Memorable: Every stock broker in America once chanted his famous words in a drunken frat rage. “Greed is Good”, really? Say it enough times and it becomes true.

Example 4: Alec Baldwin as The Guy From Mitch and Murray in Glengarry Glenross

Credibility: “Fuck you! Thats my name.”

Relevance: He hits them where it hurts. Its make money or walk.

Memorable: More like, what part can I forget?

For More on Public Speaking, Stage Fright, and PowerPoint Presentations check out: Good Speaker, Good Listener

5 THINGS ONLINE LEARNING HAS THAT CLASSROOMS DONT

by Anthony Garcia

anywhere, anyone, anytime, anyhow

1.) Convenience - You can do it from pretty much anywhere. No getting dressed, finding parking and sitting in an auditorium.


2.) Motivation- Students learn better when they are self-motivated, and online platforms force students to manage their own time and assignments.

 
3.) Versatility - Increased availability of free learning tools for students, such as the new school “University of the People.“

4.) Access - Student populations who may not do well in traditional classroom settings can thrive in an online environment

5.) Price –  Many new online platforms are increasingly affordable, a welcome change in higher education.

For more on the advantages of online education check out Anthony Garcia’s article 

Leaving “No Child Left Behind” Behind

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The result satisfies those who are concerned with maintaining standards of English fluency. English learners, who would otherwise be falling behind, benefit threefold. They integrate more effectively, they maintain educated fluency in their mother language, and they cultivate bilingualism as empowerment rather than a burden. Being a Spanish speaker becomes a valuable asset rather than obstacle to success. Continue reading →

5 Myths about Video Games, Busted

Video Games are easy to hate. If you are a boss, parent or teacher, they are work stoppers, conversation killers and time wasters. If you are a gamer, they are the first think you pick up in the morning and the last thing you do before bed. Its all a question of perspective. But from a critical point of view, are video games damaging? Depending who you ask, you might be surprised at the results. These complex pedagogical platforms are not just good, they are good for you. The following are some myths and misconceptions that are just begging to be busted.

1. VIDEO GAMES ROT THE BRAIN

Hate to break it to you gramps, but video games have changed since your pimple-faced youth wrestling with Atari Joysticks. Today’s games are sophisticated platforms offering complex and compelling experiences. Games like Pacman and Donkey Kong are mind-numbing repetitive in comparison. There is a reason we don’t play them anymore.

Mindless pursuit anyone?

Let’s not confuse today’s games with TV or 80s arcade games. Games have changed. A simple analysis of a typical commercially successful video game on the market today will show engagement on all levels of cognitive activity. Not just simple eye-hand coordination, but all types of thinking according to Bloom’s Taxonomy.

Lets have a look at the learning going on, taking the popular game Grand Theft Auto as an example:

Knowledge:        In order to progress in the game, the player has to memorize several game patterns, as well as maps, weapon specifications and numerous other game related factors.

Comprehension:              Players are given tasks or “jobs” to perform that require the player to interpret and understand a wide range of data.

Application :       Resources and proficiencies are key to survival in this game. Players are constantly managing these resources in the most effective manner.

Analysis:              Through trial and error, the player is put to unraveling a complicated puzzle that requires processing enormous amounts of data.

Synthesis:           A combined application of resources, abilities, knowledge and experience are the tools needed to move forward and survive.

Evaluation:          The player is constantly given formative feedback and strategies are regularly tested. In order to maintain a strong position, a successful player is one who can predict outcomes and evaluate their own standing in the game.

Doesn’t sound like rotting to me. If anything, gamers are the cerebral equivalent of those health freaks who spend the whole day at the gym working on their triceps.

2. VIDEOGAMES RUIN KIDS ATTENTION SPAN

Some recent and woefully unscientific studies have shown that sustained exposure to intense imagery on a screen can cause a decrease in focused attention on important stuff like books and monologues. Even Obama is in on the action telling kids to put down the video games and read a book.

It is an easy thing to believe. But the fallacy begins at equating Video Games with TV, as most of these studies do. They may look the same, but they work in completely different ways. TV is a passive experience, made by nebulous content providers removed from the audience by a veritably Diocletian production apparatus. It is what techno-scholars like Stanford Law Professor Lawrence Lessing, call Read-only (R/O) media: one-way street of information that profits from the viewer’s submission and cooperation.

Video games are designed as Read/Write (R/W) media: players are at the very least reactive and at best creatively pro-active in their consumption of the product. The user is involved in an interactive experience with clear notions of self-determination.

OK, so they both involve staring at a screen. The similarities pretty much end there.

It may come as no surprise that he most popular games on the market are also the most engaging for players, with complicated level structures, multi-players and challenging but attainable goals. A typical gamer can sustain several hours of uninterrupted play without losing interest; quite a different claim from that made by these studies. It is only once the player turns the game off and interacts with the outside world that the lack of attention kicks in.

Once a gamer mind has been engaged in the highly compelling learning environment provided by a video game, it is doubtful that a classroom or library will have any excitement to offer. The problem is not with the kids. The problem is with the classroom.  We are taking them from a hyper-stimulating environment and placing them in a sensory deprivation tank.

By asking kids to put the video games away and pay attention in class, we are abruptly interrupting their education. Some educators have begun to see the potential of games and try to incorporate educational games into curriculum. But making video games more like a classroom is not the answer. Educators are better off learning curriculum from video game designers. Game designers have found a way of creating persuasive and inspiring learning platforms that motivate students of all demographics to take control of their own learning process and engage in difficult challenges. Videogames are doing the very thing educators claim to want to do.

The hardest challenge in exploiting the curriculum design savvy of Ubisoft and Nintendo will be for educators to overcome their technological bias and preconceived notions about video games. In the meantime kids will be getting their video game education whether educators are involved or not.

 3. VIOLENCE IN VIDEO-GAMES MAKES KIDS VIOLENT

A generation of POV killers

Again, this one is easy to believe. Judging by the popularity of certain P.O.V shooter games, being involved in seemingly endless wholesale massacre is a popular theme amongst this generation. All of this violence must have some effect on these impressionable minds. Yet, besides some recent well-documented firearm rampages, the youth population remains relatively docile.

Ah, but those Colombine kids and the Dawson College shooter were all avid video-gamers. Yes, that’s because they are part of over 80% of school-aged kids in America who play video games. If these games are designed to make killers out of kids, then they have been disastrously unsuccessful.  Cracking the riddle of why America has the highest number of gun-related deaths of any industrialized country is going to take a little bit more work than that.

After all, games that have violence as a theme tend to be merely an extension of existing pop-culture tropes. Grand-Theft Auto exploits the most clichéd of all TV inspired cop storylines. Other violent games perpetuate everything from timeless mythology to realistic portrayals of real historical events. Any serious examination of the nature of violence in our society should goes deeper than your Playstation.

4. VIDEO GAMERS HAVE NO SOCIAL SKILLS

At first glance, gamers seem like an antisocial lot; deeply focused on the world of Tron and oblivious to the world around them. But there is more going on than meets the eye. Popular games like World of Warcraft (WOW) and Guild Wars to name a few are commonly known as Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs). In addition to offering interaction with an extensive and detailed virtual environment, they also implicate their users in an international community of members.

In order to progress in these games and gain access to more compelling challenges, members fall into an intricate social stratification. Players form identity through skill sets, experience and expertise. Most importantly, they forge alliances with other players that are crucial to their advancement in the virtual environment. While they may know each other solely through avatars and online personae, their relationships are genuine, even intimate.

This may not be consistent with the manner in which people interact in the real world, but for introverts and those unskilled in public life it is a thriving society. In many ways it overcomes the drawbacks of interaction in the real world. The social platform provided by these games provides a safe, inclusive and enhanced social experience.

Players who have buried their countenance in MMORGPs do not forgo social interaction. Far from it. They are involved in a sophisticated society that is more compelling than the face to face world. In many ways these social platforms are an improvement on so-called “real world” interactions in that they have shed many of the prejudices that stand as obstacles to interpersonal relationships.

5. KIDS SHOULD SPEND LESS TIME PLAYING VIDEO GAMES AND MORE TIME PLAYING SPORTS OR CHESS OR READING OR SOMETHING….

I’m not saying that everyone should quit school, quit their jobs, lock themselves in a room and play video games for the rest of their lives.  But I wouldn’t recommend it for anything else either. And while many parents restrict their kid’s video game usage, they would boast if their kids spent as much time reading, playing chess or working on math equations.

As a society, we place an irrationally high value on books. And while technology takes the world into the 21^st century, kids are scratching their heads wondering what the deal is with these archaic tomes. Their fragile, highly flammable material, their heavy inefficient design, and their rudimentary interface are all completely outdated. Not to mention, they are environmentally wasteful. Yet we covet them like sacred artifacts.

In terms of Blooms Taxonomy, an analysis of book reading shows poor results. It focuses heavily on knowledge, comprehension and psychomotor skills, but requires very little in terms of higher levels of thinking such as analysis, synthesis and evaluation. No interaction, no creation, no challenge. What else is being learned here? Discipline? Tradition?

Parents worried that their video game playing children are becoming introverts should definitely keep their kids away from these anti-social time and energy wasters. You love the tactile feeling, the smell, the convenience of books? No you don’t. You like what you know.

Well, there is always sports. Kids should get out of the house and play. But most kids today are discouraged from freely playing in the streets. Parents and schools tend to favour organized, competitive sports over dangerous exploration and free association with the outside world. Sports like football and hockey involve very aggressive behavior and promote systems of elitism and domination. Not to mention, they can be dangerous. Yet we push it on our kids like a religion.

Parents worried that their video game playing kids are becoming violent and aggressive should definitely keep their kids away from these belligerent, para-military accidents waiting to happen. You love the smell of your old skates, the feel of the pigskin? No you don’t. You like what you know.

So let your kids play their damn video games. Especially now that there are systems like the Wii that are safe, inclusive and available all year round. And enough with the book fetish. You can learn stuff in so many different ways, books just seem ridiculously out-dated. Just be happy your kids have finally found something that they enjoy that is educational. Its OK, they are playing video games, at least they are not watching TV.

5 More Things in Education We Need a New Name For

Also check out: 5 Things in Education We Need a New Name For

School is riddled with misnomers and obsolete terminologies. Relics of the days we are glad we no longer have to live. But as our world moves on, some words have stood the test of time. They bind us to power structures that lay at the very foundations of how we use knowledge and education. But the smell lingers, a smell that is so old we have gotten used to it. Here is another installment of words up for review:

Lecture:

Its what my mom gives me for not cleaning my room. Are they trying to make it sound boring? Not that lectures are necessarily boring. They have changed a lot since the days of professors mumbling words from the pages of a dusty volume. Lectures can be vibrant, extemporaneous presentations lovingly prepared by great minds. No need to make them sound like a drag. Even at GITMO they at least call it “enhanced interrogation“. Can’t these wordsmiths give lectures a better name?

The real question is why do we have to go to them? Cant we just watch a video of it? Unless there is some crucial interactive element of the lecture, or an amazing guitar solo that must be experienced live, it seems counter-productive for everyone to be present. The better professors are starting to put their lectures online. Other professors are insecure about  soul-sucking magic-shadow recording devices and fads like the “internet”. They are not giving away the shop just like that. If they record their lectures, then what will we need them for? What indeed.

Textbook:

If not for its redundancy, or the extortionist price-fixing, then for its archaic presumptuousness. In any other industry, forcing participants of a compulsory program into buying a product of your own publication would be the sort of conflict of interest that deserves the attention of auditors.

Not in schools, though. Over the generations students have been numbed into submission. The end-users have no choice but to accept the word of a single hard-cover volume, at an uncompetitive price, and not last years version. No wonder so many graduates of our education system, despite their exposure to the broad concepts of science, still look to books like the bible for answers to modern questions. They have been taught to see the world in this way.

Kids hate lugging them around, college students hate having to buy them and nobody knows what to do with them when they graduate. They are literally dead weight; monolithic symbols of lazy, out-dated schooling. As online digital alternatives  are so obviously accessible, the whole thing just comes across as a scam. Because it is.

Homework:

The work that follows you home. It is important to instill this truth upon children as early as possible: There is no place to hide from toil. Idle hands are the devils tools, so keep those kids busy working.

The very word “homework” gives permission for school to enter a child’s home. Its power and doctrine rule over private life. By teaching this value at an early age, it forever usurps the concept of personal freedom and leisure. Why not call it something more fun? Why not make it something more fun? Where is the power structure in that?

Fail:

Especially when used as a verb. To fail. Or worse, to be failed. When a teacher does it to you, it is not so much a result of their failure. More like punishment for yours. Failure is more than a blunt weapon of persuasion. It is a way of making sense of the world. To fill the failure quota is to satisfy the needs of a bell curve. Any sustained variation would raise concerns. As far as the school system is concerned, failure is necessary. Success depends on others failing. Society needs people to pump gas.

Pass:

The opposite of failure. No, not success. Just permission to pass through the next door in Kafka’s Castle. Behind the next door is the rest of your education. Technically you have the right to it, but it must be earned. Knowledge is a commodity held by the powers that be. It is not acquired by free association or self-determination. It is distributed based on a carefully monitored set of behaviours. Its value is determined by scarcity, not abundance. Education is indeed a class struggle. And while public education works to flatten traditional social stratification and make knowledge available to all, it replaces a privilege based economy with a moral one. Your fate no longer solely depends on your ancestry, it now also depends on your conduct. We do not learn, we simply pass to the next level.

Check out the School Sucks Podcast

http://schoolsucks.podomatic.com/

A podcast that has inspired many of my articles. Skeptical, articulate and informed. One of the most important voices of the next generation of teachers and students.

Signs About Nothing – Rally to Restore Sanity / Fear in Washington

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Interview on American Freedom Radio

The Truther Girls
Hosts: Sonia and Karen
Website thetruthergirls.com
YouTube Channel: www.youtube.com/user/thetruthergirls
Blog site: thetruthergirls.wordpress.com

Here is a link to a recent interview with The Class Struggle’s Editor in Chief, Tristan Verboven. He talks to Truther Girl, Sonia about the nature of education and the fundamental problems inherent in education today.

Direct link to American Freedom Radio:

http://www.americanfreedomradio.com/

Direct link to listen:

http://www.americanfreedomradio.com/archive/Truther-Girls-32k-102210.mp3

Good Speakers Good Listeners

5 Steps to Getting Over Your Fear of Public Speaking and Improving Your Communication Skills.

Is this thing on, or what?

Bad listeners? No. Bad speaker.  Sorry to tell you this, but if your audience is bored, its your fault. They are giving you their attention and time, you owe them to make it worthwhile.

I dont want to hear about your fear of public speaking. If it is your job to speak in front of your colleagues or students, then there is no excuse. People are counting on you, so do it right. Endless PowerPoint presentations and numbing meetings kill motivation.

Great leaders, for good or evil, have all been great speakers. There are no exceptions. And if they werent born that way they learned how. There is no skill more valuable than the ability to inspire and lead others with words.

Here are some tips on how to be a better speaker.

1. SPEAK TO YOUR AUDIENCE

That’s right, speak to them. They are your audience. They are there to hear what you have to say. Great speakers make their listeners feel like they are speaking to them alone. There may be a lot of people in the room, but to them its all you.

If you are having trouble with a big audience, try practicing with a small one. The way you speak to a group of friends is the same way you speak to a crowd of thousands. Remember to tell the story from your perspective, based on your experience. Its OK if the story is about you. Who better to tell the story? Your audience came to see you. Ultimately the inspiration will come more from you and your enthusiasm than from the content of your presentation.

2. ENOUGH WITH THE POWERPOINT, ALREADY

Your audience does not want to see your fancy pie charts and statistics. They want to see you. The speaker should always be more interesting than the content. If there is a lot of information to cover, then give everyone a handout to read later. If they are reading during your presentation, then they are not listening.

Your slides or props should never draw attention away from you. Remember to always remain the focal point of your presentation. Keep your slides simple, logical and easily digestible. Limit your content to what is essential. If it does not add to your presentation, then skip it.

3. MAKE IT PERSONAL

Start by telling them who you are and why you are speaking. It is important to establish this early in the presentation. As long as the presentation is about you, your connection with the content is crucial. For your audience to care, they need to know why you care. And if you don’t care, then why are you speaking about it? Is this important? Prove it!

4. PACE YOURSELF

Take your time. That means knowing how much time you have. Just because you have an hour, doesn’t mean you need to talk for an hour.

If you only have 5 minutes and a ton of information to cover, make a handout. Your 5 minutes are for convincing your audience to read your handout. No matter how little time you have, speak normally. Take pauses. Breathe. Move around. Making a strong connection with the audience is more important than covering all the material.

For longer presentations, keeping your audience from drifting off can be a challenge. People like things to have a beginning, a middle and an end. Make sure you give them one of each when the time is right.

5. STAY CONNECTED

You are speaking to people. They are in the room with you. If you are just delivering information then send a memo. There is a reason why you called everyone into one place, remember it.

There is no reason to read from a script. You wrote it. You know what it says. Tell them what it says. They want to know what it says. Talk to them. When something is funny, make a joke. When something is serious, make it clear. When something is important, give it a moment to sink in.

Move around. Keep it interesting. Be genuinely enthusiastic about what you are saying. You can only expect your audience to be half as interested as you are, so do the math. This is your time. Dont waste it.

People learn from people. So dont be afraid to make this about you. It is through your implication in the subject matter that audiences will understand it best. Your connection to the material determines your credibility. By describing your experience and relation to it, you cultivate trust and curiosity.

Great speakers have learned that there is no secret. An auditorium of thousands is the same as a single person on a bus. You use body language, you present your information in a logical manner, and you adjust your voice accordingly. So speak. Watch how others speak. And connect with strangers the way you connect with friends. They will follow your example.

In these examples of great speakers, watch for the pace and the pauses, the personal connection, and most importantly the lack of actual content.

CBC’s Jonathan Goldstein as one of the great storytellers of our time:

http://www.cbc.ca/wiretap/

In this one the presentation is both well-rehearsed and sincere.

‘Ol blood and guts may talk tough, but there is also a sensitive side. Even he puts a bit of himself into his speech.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TROhlThs9qY

These hard boiled coaches can get emotional in their pep talks.

In this one, Saul Williams shows how 4 minutes of nonsense can be mesmerizing:

In this Ignite presentation, the first 5th of the presentation is all introduction. This ratio applies to presentation of all lengths.

Here, Elif Shafak demonstrates how to structure information around personal experience.

In this Cassavettes classic, our hero steps up and pulls his team together with a pep talk that manages to inspire without actually saying anything.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1YDgsh1epc

Even the alphabet can be made totally fascinating

Evil sounds so good when its done right. Watch how our corporate scumbags begin by establishing their credibility, betraying a little emotion, and thereby convince a hostile audience that greed is good.

For more excellent tips on public speaking check out this link

Language Problems. Cultural Opportunities.

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Classroom diversity and how teachers are adapting their classrooms to the process of assimilation.

It takes a long time to learn a language. It takes even longer to learn a culture. Not everyone learns the same way or for the same reasons. Students plopped into a foreign culture learn differently from ESL students in the comfort of their own culture. Immigrant students adapting to a new language and a new culture have a lot on their plate. To create life-long language learners, teachers need to know what and who they are dealing with. Continue reading →