Tomorrow, we will begin discussing persuasion in preparation for my students’ persuasive Ignite speeches at the end of the month.  What I like most about persuasion is that it is accessible to my students.  We start with Aristotle’s modes of persuasion, and then we look at how far we’ve come as human beings by examining persuasive advertising.  A few years ago, I read Chip and Dan Heath’s Made To Stick, and I came up with an in-class exercise to help us understand how these ideas tie into ethos, pathos, and logos…

Made To Stick: The SUCCESs Activity

SIMPLE: The Importance of a Clear Core Focus

During his campaign, one of Bill Clinton’s advisors wrote on a chalkboard, “It’s the economy, stupid!” in an effort to remind the staff of their core focus.  A presentation must have a clear and simple core focus, and we can learn quite a lot from the core focus a company communicates.  Consider the core focus of Wal-Mart versus Target.  Your task is to think of two companies who provide similar products or services.  Compare and contrast the core focus of each company.  Is that core focus communicated simply?  How does advertising help that simple message stick?

UNEXPECTED: The Importance of Breaking a Pattern

“Hello, my name is Alex Rister, and I’m here to talk to you about my Ignite presentation.  My argument is…”  The typical presentation follows a boring, bland pattern, and the typical presentation sucks.  Breaking a pattern is important because it jolts the audience awake and forces them to pay attention.  Your task is to find a presentation that displays unexpectedness – that breaks a pattern.  Explain what the presenter did to break a pattern, how he/she did it, and why it worked to engage the audience.  How does breaking a pattern help a message stick?

CONCRETE: From Abstract to Concrete

Concrete ideas are easier to remember.  Consider Jane Elliott, an elementary school teacher who taught the abstract concept of “prejudice” to her young students after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.  Your task is to consider one abstract concept (such as “love” or “pride”) and to explain how you could make that abstract concept more concrete.  If concrete messages are “stickier” than abstract messages, what tips could you give us on transforming abstract ideas to concrete ideas?

CREDIBLE: Developing Credibility

A presenter can develop his or her credibility through research and citing references.  Your task is to examine the difference between a credible source and a non-credible source.  How can you tell the difference?  How does a credible source work to increase the credibility of the presenter?

EMOTIONAL: Make Your Audience Feel Feelings

If a presenter makes the audience feel feelings, the speech is more likely to resonate.  We make people care by appealing to the things that matter to them.  Your task is to brainstorm a list of things most American audience members care about (for example, “patriotism” or “success”).  How can you use this list to connect with your audience on an emotional level during a presentation?

STORY: The Most Powerful and Effective Communication Medium

Chip and Dan Heath tell us that story is the most effective medium for communicating information because we remember and can repeat story easily.  Consider the story of Subway’s Jared.  Your task is to find another company that uses story to advertise a product or service.  Explain how the story is told through the advertisement.  What qualities of that story make it memorable?

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The next thing we will do in class is examine Andrew Dlugan’s amazing “Three Pillars of Public Speaking” article series to help us study persuasion.  Finally, we will check out the work behind the fun, animated video I posted earlier this week.  I found “Harnessing the Science of Persuasion” by Robert B. Cialdini online, so we’ll look at this together to see what connections we can make between the Heath brothers’ work, Dlugan’s articles, and good old Aristotle.

How do you teach persuasion in your communication and presentation classes?

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“The Science of Persuasion” is a terrific look at advertising, marketing, and persuasion in the 21st century… I love the Influence at Work YouTube video, and there are so many things I want to teach my students about persuasion based upon this angle.  While I have been using Chip and Dan Heath’s Made to Stick as a vehicle to explain persuasion, I think this could be another version of a strong persuasive lesson…

How do you teach “persuasion” to your business students?  What resources work best as opposed to the standard Aristotle ethos/pathos/logos approach?

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I love this infographic’s use of shapes.  With lots of empty space and a clean, elegant style, the reader can easily understand the meaning of the data visualization.

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Duckworth defines “grit” as “passion and perseverance for very long term goals; having stamina; sticking with your future day in and day out FOR YEARS; working really hard to make that future a reality; living life like it’s a marathon, not a sprint” (Source).  The best part is that grit isn’t even related to natural talent!

Building grit in students is all about encouraging and nurturing the growth mindset.  When I first heard of Dweck’s work a year ago, I was blown away.  Dweck’s book highlighted everything I’d been experiencing as a teacher, and she helped me to put my teaching philosophy into words.

Dweck’s work also inspired me to teach my college students the growth mindset starting on the first day of every new class.  On Day #1, we write down three goals.  I have mine, and the students develop theirs.  I explain again and again that to be a great public speaker, to be a great presenter, you have to work hard.  It’s not about natural talent or charm or charisma… It’s about working your butt off.  You can see that all three of my goals encourage that growth mindset.  Most students embrace this because most people are comforted by and embrace the growth mindset.

With public speaking and presentation, a growth mindset is essential.  A teacher I worked with a few years ago claimed that “charisma” was this innate, natural quality that you were born with… She taught her students that some people had charisma and some didn’t.  I find this fixed mindset in the presentation field alarming and damaging.  The fixed mindset says you are either born with the ability to present well or you’re not, and if that’s the case, why bother taking a speech class?  Why bother taking any classes at all?  If you’re born with all the smarts you’ll ever have, education as a whole is pointless!

I highly recommend that you read Dweck’s book and watch Duckworth’s TED Talk.  Today, I will be searching for more of Duckworth’s work so that I can see her contributions to the field and learn more about teaching the growth mindset to my students.  Superteachers, is it possible to teach the growth mindset to college students?  How do we encourage that growth mindset to those super fixed mindset students?

To read “Why You Need A Visual Resume: Part Two” here.

Design Seeds is my favorite color palette website.  An image is the starting point, and from that image, a palette of colors is created.  A slide designer can use a palette from Design Seeds in his or her Keynote presentations.

I’ve created an example of something you might see on Design Seeds:

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Two additional websites for color palettes are Kuler and Colour Lovers.  Which of these color palette websites is your favorite?  How do you create color palettes for your slideshows?

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What I liked most about the deck was the clear, thorough explanation of the five different approaches: the Takahashi method; the Kawasaki method; the Lessig method; the Godin method; and the Jobs method.  I am dying to redesign my “visual design” lessons to include more types of visual design with my students so that they can select the slideshow they need to create based upon their audience; their purpose; and their content.  In August when Fall classes begin, I plan to incorporate the Slide Comet deck into my lectures so that students have a more clear sense of their options.

Which slide design method do you use most often?  Do you change your approach depending upon your audience, or do you stick to one method no matter what type of speech you are delivering?

A pitch, Guy Kawasaki explains, is “usually used to raise money” (Source).  The Pitching Coach tells us that “the big difference is that when you pitch you are going for the very specific outcome of getting people to pull out their wallet, credit card or check book and pay you for your products or services or give you the funding for a startup business. With more general public speeches or presentation you typically only need to inform, entertain and maybe educate and inspire” (Source).  Kawasaki teaches us how to make a great pitch and differentiates between the “pitch” and the “presentation” here.

Nancy Duarte herself describes presenting to senior executives as less “presentation” and more “pitch.”  In “How To Present to Senior Executives,” she writes, “Having presented to top executives in many fields — from jet engines to search engines — I’ve learned the hard way that if you ramble in front of them, you’ll get a look that says, ‘Are you kidding me? You really think I have the time to care about that?’” (Source).  Instead of delivering a TED Talk, Duarte suggests a pitch-style speech: summarizing up front; getting to the point quickly; asking for questions; and remembering all the while not to waste your audience’s time (Source).  These short summary speeches are a way to get your foot in the door, to earn the respect of your audience, and to gain their support (Source).  After all, as Kawasaki explains, that is the goal of the pitch.

Knowing the enormous difference between “pitching” and “presenting” is essential to the presentation revolution.  Presentations have become essential for thought-leaders starting in the 2000s.  What lead to this shift and change in the presentation medium?  Well, the invention and popularity of PechaKucha and Ignite (2003 and 2006 respectively), the Chris Anderson TED takeover (2005) and the publication of Slide:ology by Nancy Duarte and Presentation Zen by Garr Reynolds (2008) were contributing factors.  Experts like Seth Godin, Guy Kawasaki, Phil Waknell, Chip and Dan Heath, and John Medina, among many others, also had a hand in this presentation revolution.  With the medium shifting and changing in front of our eyes, it was only a matter of time before that standard business presentation also needed shaking up…

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Since this attention to creating and delivering better, more engaging, and more human presentations started about 10 years ago, a presentation revolution started rumbling.  But effective presentations are not appropriate for all audiences.  In many cases, a pitch is more useful.  How do you decide whether to present or to pitch?  Why do you think there is so much confusion about the difference between the two?

What is the most important lesson you’ve learned about presentation preparation?

Fortunately, blogs and websites give me short and sweet nuggets of information to carry with me throughout the week!  This week, I was happy to read about the new Duarte brand story as well as another important “stop boring your audience” reminder from Garr Reynolds…

Diandra Macias explains the Duarte brand story in “New Building, New Brand,” explaining that the idea for a whole new look came when the company moved into a new building.  Macias talks us through the process of how the logo was redesigned explaining color, font, and style, and she shares a 13-second video featuring the old and then new look.

“No excuse for boring an audience: Advice on giving technical presentations” by Garr Reynolds highlights the importance of an engaging message.  Reynolds highlights five books that focus on technical presentations specifically, and he points out an article from 1985 written by Jay H. Lehr.  ”Let There Be Stoning!” is a terrific examination of public speaking and presentation, and a free copy is available online here.

Last, but not least, is Joshua Johnson’s “10 Tips for Designing Presentations That Don’t Suck.”  The article contains advice to help the novice slide designer create a more effective Keynote or PowerPoint.  My favorite advice was Tip #5: Watch Your Readability!  I’ve always wanted a more concrete way to tie in “shapes,” and “skinny bar”/”fat bar” will help me teach this to my students more effectively.

What great articles have you been reading this week?