Even a Nerd Can Be Heard

One of the best presentations I have seen in a while was made by a friend of mine, Brian Terrell at Code Partners.  

He runs a company that does custom software development via a team of employees that are based in China.  Last week, during a lunch break at an event he put on, Brian took about 15 minutes to show 6 slides from his trip to visit his employees in the China office.  His approach was very effective, in that first of all, it made us all aware of the size of his team, the depth of his investment, and the resources he has brought to bear on building custom solutions.  He had photographs of various places and people that he encountered on his visit and he magically tied each photo to some interesting facts about China, then related that to his business and his customers, which made an emotional connection to his audience.  Throughout the presentation we were drawn to the images and the story and got a sense of the company that Brian has built. Without doing any selling at all, Brian made each of us want to work with him and his company.  

Brian probably doesn't consider himself a professional presenter, and in fact brought in others to handle most of the presentations at his event that day, but he put everyone else to shame. 

Now I'm going to have to find 6 slides of Georgia I can use for my next presentation.  I wonder how I'm gonna use pictures of Waffle Houses to illustrate Internal Reporting concepts? 

When you make a presentation you need to know your goal. 

If you are out to impress your audience with your superior knowledge and importance, then you will want to use a different approach.  Flower your presentation with buzzwords, acronyms and multi-syllable, gargantuan important-sounding words.  Be sure to drop the names of important people you know and large organizations that have benefited from your insights.

You will probably only have one shot at this audience, as they won't be inviting you back next year, but at least they will tell everyone they know that you are a really smart person. 

Last week, I attended the Napa Valley Wine & Grape Expo.  I attended one session called "New Approaches to Improving Red Wine Quality".  The one hour session was co-presented by two obviously intelligent individuals, both of whom had a research orientation.  The first presenter (wine nerd) talked about his research which was concerned with the effects of water on grapes and permeability of the grape skin.  The second presenter studied a number of different aspects of the fermentation process.  Both topics were technical in nature.  But they were totally different in terms of style and approach and the level of audience absorption (now I'm starting to sound like a researcher.)

The first presenter used photographs of grapes and vineyards throughout his presentation, spoke in plain english with obvious passion for his topic, had created some clear illustrations to explain his tests, and then showed photos of the vineyard that had been modified as part of his experiment.  Everyone in that room could relate to his experiment and had plenty of questions when he was finished. 

The second presenter spoke as if he were presenting at a scientific conference and rather than photos or illustrations, used chemical reations and scientific equations to illustrate his talk. His slides were full of chemical formulas and terminology that only a few people could understand.  The audience was visibly disconnected from the topic and failed to understand the relevance of his message.  Only one question was asked at the end, and it appeared to be from another scientist who was equally at ease with chemical reactions and the oxidation process.  

Both of these presenters were experts in their field, immersed in unique terminology and specialized research.  Which one do you think is most likely to be hired by a member of the audience when he needs research on some topic? 

No matter what the topic, if you have special knowledge and want to share it in a way that is meaningful to your audience, you need to take the time to put yourself in their shoes.  Find out what is important to your audience. Then create bridges  in your presentation that will help them relate what they know to your new information.

And now it's time for me to go consume some 2C2H4O (alcohol).