Address a gathering

Place and Time

  1. Best time for having a lecture is 11 am. (not too early and not after lunch)
  2. The place should be well lit.
  3. The place should be seen and checked before the lecture.
  4. The place should not be full less than a half, it must be chosen according to the amount of listeners.

Tools For teaching.

  1. Board – it’s got graphics, speed, target. Watch your hands! Don’t hold them behind your back, it’s better to keep them straight and use for pointing at the board.
  2. Props – use them in order to make your ideas visual. Visual perception is the most effective way to interact with listeners.

For Job Talk. Exposing, Slides

  1. Don’t put too many words on a slide. Slides should just reflect what you’re saying, not the other way around. Pictures attracts attention and people start to wait for your explanation – use that tip.
  2. Make slide as easy as you can – no title, no distracting pictures, frames, points and so on.
  3. Do not use laser pointer – due to that you lose eye contact with the audience. Instead you can make the arrows just upon a slide.

Informing

Show to your listeners your stuff is cool and interesting. You have to be able to: -show your vision of that problem -show that you’ve done particular things (by steps) All of that should be done real quick in no more than 5 min. Persuade your listeners you’re not a rookie (Prof. Winston contrived to do that from the very first seconds of his talk)

Getting Famous If you want to your ideas be remembered you’ve got to have “5 S”

How to End

Scenarios


Wherever your company lands on this sliding scale, one thing will always remain true: you have to be able to sell your product or service. If you don’t sell it, no one else will. You team is relying on you to explain the benefits of the company and how it’s changing the world. It’s your job as the founder to communicate that vision. And realistically, you may not have a company for long if you can’t sell. Because it’s not just about doing interviews with journalists or sitting on panels. You have to pitch your idea to VCs if you really want a shot at building your startup into a lasting business.

What should I know before preparing the talk?

The idea here is that it’s good to get as much background info as you can, because whether you’re aware of it or not, it will influence your talk as you put it together.


When I was in Malaysia for TechEd, I spent 3 full days exclusively with locals before the talk, I learned snippets of each of the languages, tried to understand their jokes and get an idea about what was important to people in Malaysia. American analogies, much humor, and certain “U.S. specific” English colloquialisms just didn’t make any sense to them. When it came time to give the presentations, I better understood the Malaysian sense of timing, of tone and timbre, and I began each of my presentations by speaking in Bahasa Malaysia. I changed aspects of my slides to remove inappropriate content and add specific details that would be important to them.

To be able to explain something - which you have understood - eloquently and succinctly to someone, one just needs to start with a strategic framework in the mind, and a working understanding of how information can best be organised and structured in an explanation path. From my own experience in coaching people, information can be best organised and structured as follows, from the explanatory standpoint:

Mini-Tactics

Example: “You [Mitt Romney] might not be ready for diplomacy with Beijing if you can’t visit the Olympics without insulting our closest ally.” Obama, Democratic National Convention speech, 2012 Favreau: “What might seem like a good needling of the opposition on paper sounds a bit harsher in reality and you won’t get the applause. So a little goes a long way - the press will always pick up on it when you try to ‘draw a contrast’ as we call it. Humour is a great approach. Or look at what we did when we ran against Hillary [Clinton] in the primary: the president rarely used Hillary’s name but everyone knew he was talking about her.”


Presentation Style Tips

design for people three rooms away from you.

References:

Rehearsals

Giving The Actual Talk

Favreau: “I tell the president to start speeches in the most organic way possible. You wouldn’t start a conversation by saying ‘As John F. Kennedy once said…’, so you shouldn’t start a speech that way either. When he won the Iowa caucuses a lot of people said he should start with a bunch of acknowledgements. I said no, the whole world’s going to be watching so he needs a big opening, but it can’t be too cheesy. What we came up with was a natural thing to say, but also has a lot of meaning.”

  • If you can, start with some comment about the event or something that just occurred: “I was just talking to Mark in the hall” This sets people at ease and takes you immediately off-script, so it sets expectations on the conversational tone of what follows.
  • Replace uh, um, er, ah, like, you know, and other distracting sounds by silences. Any good piece of oratory has silences naturally built into it, as indicated by commas, periods, semi-colons, colons, and other forms of punctuation. We do not normally notice them. And if we do, we usually call them “pauses” rather than silences. However, they amount to the same thing.
  • If you think of an anecdote, tell it. Remember, you’re not on a strict script here. Feel free to weave in and out of your rehearsed outline. I don’t think I’ve gotten through a single talk where I didn’t extemporaneously say something that I never rehearsed.
  • Care. There’s nothing more important that truly caring about your topic. If you care, it’ll show. Avoid presenting on topics that you don’t care about. Avoid it like the Plague.
  • Listen, Empathize,
  • “Volume and Diction,” my High School Drama teacher said to me. Speak clearly, authoritatively, project your voice to the back of the room. The best speakers don’t even need microphones. If you have a speaking affectation (I had a lisp growing up) or you tend to say, um, etc, or find yourself overusing a specific phrase (“a priori”, “fantastic”, “powerful”, etc) take it upon yourself to NOTICE this mannerism and avoid it.

If you want some more good tips, take a look at this: . In particular, read the comments there – lots of great stuff submitted in the comments. It’s also worth noting that Scott Hanselman is the presenting style that I really try to emulate: he’s so wonderfully relaxed when he talks that you feel like you’re in it with him, rather than being lectured to. If I could replicate one talk (in vibe and style, not so much content), it would be this one: It’s not what you read, it’s what you ignore. That’s Scott at WebStock 2012 in New Zealand. It’s fantastic. It helps that Scott has spoken at my company, sitting at my breakroom table. It’s easy to like someone when they do that for you.


How to handle unknowns?

See things as an opportunity, rather than as an adversarial situation!

You won’t be able to plan for everything that happens in an interview or a conference room. So that means you have to get used to dealing with the unknown. If you’re asked a question you’re not prepared for, don’t scramble just to come up with a quick answer. It doesn’t matter whether you’re sitting across from a journalist or a VC—just tell them you don’t know. You can say, “That’s a great question. Let me have my team pull that data and get back to you.” Easy as that. Now you have time to make sure your answer is correct, as well as to reflect on how you want to answer the question later on.

When something wrong happens

“I am going to pretend that didnt happen….”

“Ok. Go ahead.break my day….”

“If you that thats bad, wait before i start singing….”

No response from joke? Don’t apologise, carry on, don’t bring attention to the fact

“ok’ name’ thats the last time I’ve used one of your jokes.”


How to end

“You’ve heard the saying ‘alls well that ends well. Where speeches are concerned, I believe alls well that ends, and now is my time to end.”

“my talks usually have a happy ending. Its because everyone is happy that it ended”.

“When a speaker says ‘To make a long story short’, its usually too late. I dont want you all to feel that way about me. Goodnight.

“I dont want any applause, not that I was going to get any, but Id like everyone to stand up”

“Now lets open for question and answers. if I KNOW THE ANSWER, i’ll give it to you. else I’ll just make something up.


How can you best communicate complex ideas simply?

If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.

(a) Work really hard to first ensure that I myself understand the complex idea well enough to be able to discern its most critical components from just the necessary but minor details.

(b) Think about what your desired outcome is: Is it to help someone just understand something, or go beyond that and take an action, or something else?

Start with the Simplest Explanation Think about the KISS principle that has been used for decades or Occam’s razor that has been philosophized for centuries. Simplicity works. Start with something that can be covered, ideally, in a couple of sentences or within a minute or 2. If there is a critically important technical detail, mention it quickly. IF the audience wants more detail, they can, and will, ask.

We’ll start with six basic principles, then move to an applied example.

Ok, now a practical example. Let’s say your mission was to explain search engine optimization to a crowd of non-technical business owners. 

A good approach might be:

  1. Our goal today is to give each of you a practical understanding of what SEO is, what SEO isn’t, and what you should and shouldn’t do when you leave here.

  2. The purpose of good SEO is to make sure that search engines promote your website or content when searchers demonstrate a specifically relevant interest.

  3. The purpose of good SEO is NOT to make sure your website ranks well for a large dictionary of generic or vaguely-relevant keywords.

  4. Here’s our roadmap. We’re going to discuss four points this morning: (a) Google’s perspective; (b) the searcher’s perspective; (c) tactics to avoid; and (d) tactics to use.

  5. Our first topic is Google’s perspective. Understanding this is the key to understanding everything else. I’m going to give you a soundbite that I want you to remember: “Searchers are Google’s customers first.” 

    • Did you know that Google hires rocket-scientists away from groups like NASA? You’re probably wondering why. Two reasons. First, they want to deliver the highest quality search results. Second, they want to outsmart con-men.  
    •  In the first case, delivering the best results means more folks using Google.This results in more ad revenue for them. If I search for a local plumber and end up on a spammy site owned by a shady company, that influences my trust in Google. In the long run, this means decreased ad revenue. 

    • In the second case, most website owners covet top rankings, yet few are willing to make the long investment to get there. Historically, this led many to hire so-called “SEO experts” to produce results for them. Instead of playing by the spirit of the rules, most of them focused on exploiting weakness in Google’s search algorithms. This led to decreased search quality, which angered Almighty Google greatly.

    5.4 So, to recap, Google hires rocket scientists because high-quality search results mean increased revenues for them. They’re happy if it means revenues for you, too, but searchers are their customers first. They’re willing to protect them vigorously, at great expense.

  6.  Ok, so now that we understand Google’s perspective, let’s see it from the perspective of the searcher. Our soundbite for this point is: “If I ask for a burger, don’t give me a menu; if I ask for a recommendation, don’t lead me wrong.”

    6a. Let’s use a thought experiment. Say you’re hungry, in a rush, and you know exactly what you want: a bacon cheeseburger. You go to a food court to feed that appetite. When you arrive, you find ten vendors, all of which advertise their “delicious food”. You go to the first one, browse the menu, but don’t see a burger on it. You go to the second, third, fourth one – same thing. You go to the fifth one, and this time the person behind the counter actually acknowledges your presence.

    The dialogue goes something like this:

    “Are you hungry?
    “YES!”
    “Would you like something to eat?”
    “YESS!”
    “Do you know exactly what you want?”
    “YESSSSSSSSS!!!!!!”
    “Cool. Here’s a menu.”

    grown man exits, sobbing; vows to never return

    Now let’s repeat that same scenario, imagining that the food court provided a host who greeted visitors on their way in. 

    “You’re here because you’re hungry. What are you in the mood for?”
    “The best bacon cheeseburger here.”
    “No problem. Here’s the top three options, ranked in order of known quality. Bon appetite.”

    Which experience is better?

    6b. Let’s now do a second thought experiment, this time imagining that you were hungry, but had an unidentifiable craving. How would you hope the conversation to go?

    “You’re here because you’re hungry. What are you in the mood for?” “Umm. Mexican food + no gluten + take out.” “No problem. We have a range of quality options I think should fit. Let me tell you the top recommendations, using just one or two sentences to describe each.”

    Sounds ideal, right? 

    This is basically all that Google is trying to do: determine the problem you’re trying to solve, then match you with the highest-quality solution for that specific problem. 

    6c. So, to recap, searchers are Google’s customers first, and Google keeps them happy by determining and fulfilling their needs. The customer doesn’t care about them or you – they just want a burger or a recommendation; either a specific thing or a specific direction.

  7. Alright, now we’re getting to the meat of it: the tactics you shouldn’t use. Our soundbite here is: “Never offer a cheeseburger to a vegan.” 

    7a. As we discussed earlier, some people have tried to “trick” Google into ranking their sites and content higher than deserved. Without getting too technical, how did they do that?

    One of the more popular methods was called “keyword cramming”. Think of it like one of those food-court restaurants having a forest of banner-stands in front of their counter, packed with large-text phrases like “best burger”, “best burger foodcourt”, “best burger ever”, “foodcourt burger”, “burger, burger”, etc.

    Their theory is that by being incredibly, overbearingly aggressive in declaring what they offer, you’ll pick them first.

    Unfortunately, they’re overlooking three key things: (i) some people want a recommendation, not a specific food item; (ii) those that want a burger would prefer to see a qualified statement like “#1 rated burger 2015; local choice” to something unqualified and generic like “best burger ever”; and (iii) some people don’t want meat burgers.

    Ultimately, “bad” tactics are any that fail to integrate specific solutions on all those points. If the pitch an SEO firm gives you doesn’t include contextualized approaches on all three fronts, run.

    7b.  When people keyword-cram (or use similarly lazy and/or devious tactics), they risk being penalized by Google. This can be incredibly costly, often resulting in the equivalent of a black-list. In those cases, you’ll be worse off than if you never did any SEO at all.

    7c.  So, to recap, searchers belong to Google, whose sole interest is identifying what they want and giving it to them – as specifically as possible. Trying to game the system with generic content and gimmicky strategies will result in them putting incredible distance between you and their customers.

  8. So, now we arrive at what you’ve all come for today – the good stuff: the tactics you should use. Our context here is simple: “To catch a customer, think like a customer.”

    a. This is simple concept that’s difficult to execute. Most owners think they understand their customers, while in reality they really just understand their industry. Sadly, the two things are not the same. 

    It’s important to note that I don’t mean we should try to divine the inner being of our customers in some philosophical way. This is about basic psychology. Nothing more.

    Before a customer makes a search, they formulate a question. Before they formulate that question, they fall prey to a desire. 

    The desire can be for many things – prestige, peace-of-mind, pleasure, etc. – and you’ll consistently fail to sell anything to them until you figure out what it is.

    Think back to the food court scenario. Before someone walks into one, they have to decide they want food. This is rarely an analytic decision. It begins with a feeling. The decision tree roots itself in a primal desire.

    That said, not every form of hunger is equal. Some just want to feel full. Some want specific nourishment. Some want to scratch a specific itch. 

    Until you identify that – until you identify your primary customers and the desire-to-action process that they undergo, how can you possibly know what signs to post and what greetings to offer? 

    More meaningfully, if you can’t answer those questions today, what did you tell your SEO team to optimize for yesterday?

    In most cases, companies with limited budgets pay money they can’t afford and all they get for it is a collection of “best burger” banner-stands.

    8b. We have just one practical consideration left. Once we’ve identified exactly what our customers want, and once we’ve reverse-engineered how they break down the translation of desire into action, what do we do in response?

    The heart of real SEO is building solid content around those specific desire-paths, creating posts and pages and videos that speak to each of them individually. (Well, not all – focusing on just the top 5 scenarios is usually enough.)

    Learning how to format and promote that content is where you’ll need the help of a quality SEO firm. If worth their salt, they’ll know the best practices to appease Google. Just remember that their expertise is taking what you give them and optimizing it, not figuring out what you should give them in the first place.

    (Yes, some firms can walk you through that, too. But it’s pretty rare that it makes sense for you to pay them for that. These are questions you should already be asking yourself. You should be the expert on your own business.)

    8c. So, there we have it. You now know the basics of what every business owner needs to understand about SEO. 

To ensure it sticks, let’s recap it one final time.


References

21 March 2019