Ethos3 recently interviewed Barry Flanagan, author of the Public Speaking for Geeks blog. Here is our conversation:
1. What was the inspiration behind Public Speaking for Geeks?
When I started working as a Systems Engineer for a software company, I had a lot of experience white boarding in front of small groups (3-5 people) from my many years as a consultant. I had virtually no experience standing up in front of a big room and delivering slide presentations. I quickly realized after I started the SE job that I would have to deliver 5-7 presentations a week to audiences between 20-50 people. A few times a year I was expected to speak to 500-1000 people.
I was very nervous and uncomfortable in the beginning. After one particularly bad experience where I was given a slide deck one night and had to present the deck to 200 people the next day, I was ready to quit. I desperately searched for a resource to help me become better at presenting. Everything I found was either for those who gave speeches, or instructors who did technical training. While both types of resources were helpful, neither were specifically for a technical person who had to combine speaking, technical information, visuals and persuasion as part of a product and solutions presentation.
Once I realized that there was a process I could learn, I gradually became more and more effective. My primary goal for PublicSpeakingforGeeks.com is to help others who are in the same boat I was in many years ago. A secondary goal is to learn more about my own process by detailing and explaining it to others.
2. You obviously have done a lot of public speaking in your 15 years in the technology field. What is the greatest public speaking lesson you have learned thus far?
In my experience, the greatest lesson I have learned is to reflect on the response you receive and learn from it. Take everything as feedback. Keep what works, and change what doesn’t. I am very passionate and that is both a great strength and major weakness. A passionate presenter is often much more likely to sway an audience to his or her line of thinking, but can have trouble dealing with a negative response. I was very fortunate to meet a very experienced man named Ed who gave me great advice early on in my career as an SE.
Ed told me “Once I stopped taking my failure to communicate personally and stopped trying the same old methods that didn’t work, I slowly began to get better and better results. Let the audience decide the meaning, pay attention to the response, and try something different if it isn’t the response you want. It is as simple as that.” It took me quite a while to drill this idea into my brain. Once I stopped dwelling on what didn’t worked and viewed every response as an opportunity to learn what does and doesn’t work, I began to see better and better results.
This advice was the initial basis for the Six R’s of Communication that I put together. Everything else flows from this one lesson.
3. How important is story as it relates to the world of presentations?
I think story and metaphor are critical to a well crafted presentation. Story allows the presenter to translate experience to the audience. Humans have been telling stories since the development of language. “To be a person is to have a story to tell” (Isak Dinesen).
One big mistake I often made when I first began presenting was to assume the audience viewed the world the same way I did. We all have unique experiences and we all prioritize and interpret the massive amount of data we receive through our senses differently. This is why some are visual learners, auditory learners or kinesthetic learners. I tend to be auditory and visual and my presentations reflected that. I would occasionally have some members of the audience whom I just could not reach. I could tell almost immediately that there was no connection or rapport.
Once I learned about the different learning styles, I took a step back and reviewed my own use of metaphor and story. I made sure to use stories and metaphors that included all the senses. This also made it much easier to chose visuals for use in my presentations.
A presenter has many tools at his or her disposal. I think it is very important to use all the tools -visuals, voice, stories, metaphors, and examples – to get the job done.
A great book on the topic of stories I highly recommend is “The Story Factor” by Annette Simmons. This book covers “The Six Stories You Need to Know How to Tell”. Creating an opening and closing for a presentation became a much more well defined process after reading this book. “Made to Stick” is also an excellent resource on this topic.
4. What is your definition of Presentation 2.0?
I would define Presentation 2.0 is combining the power of striking visuals, an engaging speaker and powerful stories to move the audience to action. I think the real magic happens all these elements are carefully woven together.
5. Who is your favorite presenter?
Lawrence Lessig is a very powerful presenter. His presentations on free culture, Creative Commons and Change Congress are an amazing combination of visuals, simple text and powerful stories. Dick Hardt would be my second choice. His Identity 2.0 session is an extraordinary presentation on a technical topic. I do wish he would use a remote and engage the audience more however.
6. If you could offer one tip to a person who is opening PowerPoint for the first time, what would it be?
Know where you want to go before you start creating the signs to tell your audience how to get there. At a minimum, create an outline of your presentation before creating any slides. I create a mind map first with my ultimate result at the center. Next I map out the opening, three supporting points, and close. THEN I create slides. If there is a lot of technical info in the deck, I create a separate handout that covers the important points. I think it is very important to avoid treating the slides as both the visual material during the presentation and a handout for later use. If you follow this process, I think your ultimate presentation will be much more effective that the typical bullet filled text heavy slide deck.
7. How important is right-brain thinking in your left-brain industry?
If you write code,implement and administer systems and networks, or communicate about these technologies to others, you are very likely to be analytical and process oriented. This type of “left brain” thinking is essential to success in the technology industry.
If you want to separate yourself from the herd, you need to have additional skills as well. You need to be able to recognize patterns and see the big picture. You must be able to quickly grasp the underlying context. Most importantly, you must be able to synthesize all of this knowledge and experience and communicate it effectively to others. One of my favorite expressions is “The best ideas do not always win. The best communicated ideas win.” These skills are more often associated with”right brain thinking”.
Physics relies heavily on math, analysis and process, all “left -brain” skills. Yet the most well known physicist in history, Albert Einstein, reached the pinnacle of his field by visualizing what would happen if he could ride on a beam of light. The math and analysis came later. Einstein used the whole brain, and his results reflected that fact.
