“There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, ‘Morning, boys. How’s the water?’ And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, ‘What the [heck] is water?’” – David Foster Wallace
These were the opening words of David Foster Wallace’s 2005 commencement speech delivered at Kenyon College called, “This is Water.” Wallace was not regularly a speaker. He was a writer. And an extraordinary one at that. But his speech transcript provides a pretty important reminder for speakers. One that I call surfacing. It’s a metaphor that can help us grasp an important concept that leads to better presentations.
What is surfacing?
Wallace is delivering his speech in front of a group of recent college graduates. So he says, “Probably the most dangerous thing about an academic education . . . is that it enables my tendency to over-intellectualize stuff, to get lost in abstract thinking instead of simply paying attention to what’s going on in front of me.” I happen to think over-intellectualizing and getting lost in abstract thinking is also dangerous for presenters.
Surfacing is a term I use to refer to the notion of coming back to the essentials during the presentation. It allows us to fill our lungs with air. But it’s also the reorienting activity of focusing on familiar horizons. And we can’t do either of those during a presentation that is over-intellectualizing and abstract. That’s what I call the deep dive. And it’s not all bad. All presentations need those moments when we venture into new territories to encounter new things. Presentations need to invoke a sense of wonder and novelty.
But when a deep dive lasts too long, we feel it. You’ve been in presentations like this. You’ll recognize the need to surface when you start asking yourself questions like: “What is he even talking about?” or “When will this thing be over?” or “How does this have anything to do with me?” or “What the heck is water?” Quite frankly, you’ve run out of air or perspective, or both. And you need to surface.
How do we accomplish It?
Wallace says, “it is extremely difficult to stay alert and attentive.” So how do we as presenters, keep bringing our audience members to the surface? How do we keep providing perspective? He goes on to say, “it has everything to do with simple awareness—awareness of what is so real and essential, so hidden in plain sight all around us, that we have to keep reminding ourselves over and over: This is water. This is water.”
But let’s leave the metaphor and get practical for a moment here. How do you help the audience surface so they can establish awareness and perspective during your presentation? It looks like this:
- Reminding the audience often of how the information you are presenting affects them on a daily basis.
- Defining terms that may be unfamiliar to your audience or switching them out for more familiar ones.
- Breaking up long sections of heavy content with lighter material.
- Showing humans during your presentation through stories and pictures so that theory and information isn’t disconnected from the people it affects.
- Editing out details that the audience doesn’t need so they don’t get bogged down by unimportant minutia.
- Telling the audience how the information will benefit them (something Jerry Weissman calls the WIIFY—What’s In It For You?)
Remember David Foster Wallace’s advice to keep coming back to what really matters and to keep defining it and naming it. It might sound like this. “This is helpful.” “This is true.” “This is cost-effective.” “This is efficient.” “This is harmful.” “This is new.” Or, “this is water.” Just make sure your presentations allow plenty of moments for your audience to come back to essentials, to be reminded how and why this matters for them, and to gain perspective.
Need an outside opinion about whether your presentation has enough surfacing moments or whether you are getting lost in a deep dive? We’ve got you.
