It was amazing to hear some background on Nancy Duarte. Who knew she was a preacher’s wife and moved to Silicon Valley to create a church? Interesting!
I love watching Duarte present because she seems so excited when she speaks. Sometimes, I find myself out of breath and moving around a lot because I am so excited and happy to speak… I see some of this in Duarte’s presentation here.
What I love most about this presentation was Duarte’s summary of the important points in her book, Resonate. If you’ve seen her TED Talk, some of this material may be repetitive, but it’s always a good brush-up. Every time I read Resonate or watch Duarte present on the material from Resonate, I feel like I learn something new or take away something I hadn’t previously considered.
Have you read Resonate yet? What did you think of Nancy Duarte’s amazing book on creating effective presentation content?
Nancy Duarte’s Resonate will be a wonderful edition to our classroom, as there are so many extras! Check out Duarte’s website for the WWW extra features by clicking here.
Additionally, if you’re an iPad user, these Resonate extras will truly help you along your presentation journey:
Pintrest is opening up a whole new world for me. Not only do I get to share and explore creative ideas with others, but I’ve found new books, new posters, and new ideas simply by using the social media site. Unlike Facebook, Pintrest is actually a learning tool, and I cannot get enough of it.
For example, my students can use Pintrest when they are working on a project to pin articles and source material as well as images. This helps them when it comes time to cite that work, and I find Pintrest to be a much more organized way to research and prepare for a presentation.
This summer, Professional Communication and Presentation will move forward with using Resonate as our course textbook. To learn more about Nancy Duarte’s book Resonate, check out this video:
I’m excited to continue focusing on the three legs of Jim Endicott’s “presentation stool” but to focus on presentation with content highlighted as the most important element.
Yes, visual presentation is still a challenge. Today, one of my students, a medical professional, argued that visual presentation as outlined by Duarte and Garr Reynolds will never succeed in the medical field because of the importance of the “informational slide.” When I asked why a handout couldn’t work just as effectively, he asserted the importance of saving cost and staying green. Unsure about why a handout couldn’t be emailed or sent via Dropbox (this is 2012!), I sent him Phil Waknell’s masterful article “When you think Presentation Zen isn’t appropriate, that’s when you need it most.” Visual presentation is still a nightmare.
Yes, delivery is still a challenge. The last PechaKucha Orlando event I went to showcased several presenters simply reading from a script. Not only are people too afraid of public speaking to detach from their security blanket script or notes, but people running professional public speaking organizations don’t know how to properly train or facilitate proper presentation. Delivery is still a nightmare.
But content… You would think that this leg of the presentation stool would be solid and unwavering. Unfortunately, content isn’t strong because most people don’t understand the importance of ethos, pathos, and logos. Speakers don’t use story effectively or at all. They don’t implement Chip and Dan Heath’s Made To Stick techniques in order to make a speech resonate with others. And speaking of resonating, Nancy Duarte’s book of the same name focuses specifically on content and how we can strengthen our messages to actually connect with people.
Have you read Resonate? What are your thoughts on the Duarte prequel to Slide:ology?
Beginning in July, Professional Communication and Presentation will begin using a new textbook: Nancy Duarte’s Resonate: Present Visual Stories that Transform Audiences. I cannot wait for the opportunity to teach Resonate in the classroom, especially since I do believe it to be one of the most comprehensive books on developing strong presentation content.
Resonate covers the following:
The importance of story in presentations
How to structure a strong speech
Duarte’s Sparkline tool
The audience as the “hero” with the presenter as “mentor”
Preparation
Audience analysis
Developing content that means something to an audience
Structuring and organizing a presentation
Duarte’s “S.T.A.R.” moment and how to create one
Resonate also uses case studies to help explain the content in each chapter. Speeches analyzed include MLK’s “Dream” speech and Benjamin Zander’s TED Talk on music and passion among many others.
I cannot wait to begin using this in the classroom!
Do you use Resonate as your class textbook? How do students respond to this book as opposed to something more cliche such as Speak Up or The Art of Public Speaking?
This afternoon, my students delivered their TED analysis presentations. We spent a day on delivery, a day on content, and a day on anxiety and handling public speaking fears. Overall, especially after conferencing a little with Chiara Ojeda, I realized that my students are having the toughest time with speech content.
For this speech, students are asked to answer 7 questions about a TED Talk of their choice in order to analyze what makes a strong speech. Overall, delivery was good, and students handled their public speaking anxieties well. Content was the wobbly leg of Jim Endicott’s three-legged presentation stool, as 75% of students didn’t answer 2-3 questions from their assignment directions. Some students didn’t answer any of those questions. Where I wanted analysis of the TED Talk, students summarized the Talk.
While yes, I will admit, I do have high expectations and yes, I understand, this is the first official speech for my students, I am often very disappointed by TED presentations. I don’t yet know how to teach around the issues in order to push students to do their very best work. Even though the directions stress content, and we spend hours developing our content in class, this wobbly leg is still troublesome.
Perhaps a change of textbook could help… ? Our current textbook, slide:ology, focuses on visual presentation. As Nancy Duarte explains below, a slideshow is nothing without strong content.
Calling all public speaking teachers! What do you do to help emphasize content in your student’s speeches? How do I help my students understand the difference between “analysis” and “summary” when delivering their TED Analysis Presentations?
Nancy Duarte explains that “language and power are inextricably linked,” and I think this is so important in a world where very few people present well. If you are a strong presenter, you have the power to change minds. If your public speaking skills are powerful, you can interest and engage people. You could talk about anything from Aristotle’s three modes of persuasion to a ham sandwich!
At work this afternoon, I overheard a few teachers talking about their students’ poor presentations. Why are those presentations so poor? I believe it is because so many of our instructors don’t lead by example. If an instructor is merely lecturing, the students are going to disengage because the material doesn’t matter to them. If students aren’t paying attention, they’re not going to learn, and if they don’t learn, they can’t apply. Our job as instructors is to engage students, and lecture doesn’t work.
It all boils down to Duarte’s purpose: presentations that include storytelling allow audiences to be informed and entertained the same time. We learn through story. When teaching a class, how often are we just reciting data? How often do we tell a story to reinforce our purpose? More importantly, how often are we asking our students to participate and tell their own stories? How much discussion is taking place in your classroom? How much active participation? How much Facebooking?
If you’re teaching public speaking and presentation, engagement becomes even more important. We can’t ask our students to create and present superstar presentations if our own classes involve dull, boring, lecture. What can we do to lead by example?
Duarte explains that a moving presentation follows a sparkline weaving “what is” and “what could be.” Teachers, do your lectures follow this structure? If not, you must rethink your approach to your own presentations, as you aren’t putting your audience’s needs first. Here is Duarte’s sparkline:
You’ll have to purchase Nancy Duarte’s resonate in order to fully understand her sparkline, but she provides some amazing resources on her website: http://blog.duarte.com/.
As promised, here is BrandSquare’s Session 2 of 3 with Nancy Duarte on resonate. This session expands a little bit on Duarte’s TEDxEast Talk. I’ll post Session 3 on Friday.
resonate: Present Visual Stories that Transform Audiences by Nancy Duarte is one of my presentation bibles. Since I mention resonate so often, I thought I’d finally write my review of the text in order to explain why it is so incredible. Here are my five key takeaways from resonate:
1. The presenter is not the star of the show but, rather, acts as a supporting character to the star: the audience. The presenter’s role is that of guide, adviser, instructor, teacher. When we get away from “me-centered” behavior and instead focus on the audience needs, presentations resonate.
2. Duarte created the Sparkline as an analysis tool for speeches. The Sparkline is a shape that moves back and forth between the present, the “what is,” and the future, the “what could be.” Duarte explains the Sparkline shape in her TEDxEast Talk. Watch here.
3. The first few chapters emphasize storytelling in all presentations as the medium that connects and resonates with audiences. Duarte uses the Hero Cycle to explain the process the audience goes through during a presentation.
4. Duarte defines the necessary components of a speech introduction and explains that the three modes of persuasion, ethos, pathos, and logos, must be used in order to effectively persuade.
5. My fifth takeaway from resonate is the process of creating a presentation from the “generating ideas” phase to the “visualize message” phase. Duarte does a masterful job of explaining this process.
For those of you who love resonate as much as I do: what are your favorite lessons from the text? Purchase your copy of resonatehere.
