In just about a week I’ll be starting my 19th year of teaching communication on a college campus. Many things will be different this year. We’ll be wearing masks and sitting spread out in the classroom. Some of my students will be engaging from online formats. But many things will still be the same. For example, I’ll still be doing everything I can to help beginning speakers find the value of their voices.
As I was refreshing my lectures and reading through new research, something jumped out at me from a book I’ve read many times. Written by Chris Anderson, TED Talks: The Official TED Guide to Public Speaking is a book I reference often. While I love the deep dive of research and theory, I have to remind myself that many of the students who enter my classroom feel overwhelmed at the thought of speaking in front of an audience. Perhaps now more than ever. So I keep searching for ways to simplify the world of presenting. And Anderson’s text had just given me a great one.
The 2 Streams of Presentations
Anderson says that a presentation is basically made up of two streams: information and inspiration. Yes! It’s just that simple and just that hard, isn’t it? When we stand in front of an audience, we are usually aiming to both inform and inspire those listening. So today, we’ll dig into the first of the two streams, information. And tomorrow, we’ll come back to discuss the second one, inspiration.
How Do We Communicate?
At the root of all presentations is the dissemination of information. It’s the job of the speaker to translate his or her ideas and feelings and opinions to the audience. We call this encoding. In 1973, Stuart Hall proposed that we communicate by taking the thoughts we have and turning them into symbols (usually words, although a raised eyebrow or frown sends a clear message, too). We string those symbols together to create messages. The listener, or receiver, then decodes that message to try to decipher what we mean.
3 Ways to Communicate More Effectively
When we stand up to present, we are encoding. We are trying to get our message across clearly to the audience which is the essence of informing. Here are some ways that we can make sure we are presenting information clearly.
- Start with what the audience already knows or what is easiest to understand. Don’t start with the tough stuff or you’ll risk losing your audience right off the bat.
- Chunk information into digestible bits. We can understand information better when it comes in smaller pieces. Think about the way we learn phone numbers. If it was one long strand of 10 numbers, it would be harder to learn. But when we divide it into 3 numbers followed by another 3 followed by the last 4, we can process that information more easily.
- Support information with visuals. Any information that is presented through multiple channels will likely be understood better and remembered longer. So find ways to support information with graphs and images.
Once you’ve decided how to encode your message, you’ve accomplished the first of the 2 streams of presenting: information. Now it’s time to add the extra layer that makes public speaking so special: inspiration. Check back tomorrow for tips on how to inspire your audience when you present.
In the meantime, check out the resources we have available for presentation delivery and design. And let us know how we can help you with your next big presentation.
