Presentation pie

Pie: what unexpectedly lands on your face when you’re trying to be cool.

I was the “preacher” stand-in on Sunday, speaking at a Unitarian church about 60 miles from here while their minister was on vacation. It was the second time I’ve presented this particular sermon. The first time, about five years ago, was at my home church and it went over very well.

In the ensuing years I have gotten much more skillful not only at speaking but at crafting a tight speech/sermon. I reworked the old speech, lightened it up with some humorous quips and images, and added a rousing call to action at the end. It was definitely improved, so I felt confident all would be well.

After what happened on Sunday I can tell I need to go back to improv class, because those skills would have been handy.

Before I was to speak, the Sunday School director invited the kids to come forward for story time.  She started telling them a tale that seemed surprisingly similar to what I was about to talk about. At first I thought, “This is good - I can refer back to a couple of her ideas when I speak.”

But she went on and on, pretty much summarizing in kid’s language what I was going to talk about. As she finished she looked back at me and said, “Heheh, I hope I didn’t spoil your story….”

In Toastmasters we are warned in our introductions never to give away the speaker’s main points. For example you might say, “Today Mary will tell us the story of Goldilocks.” But you’d never say, “Today Mary is going to tell about how a little girl happened into a bear’s home while they were out and had to try every chair, bowl, and bed before she found one that was just right. Mary?”

OK, this woman’s version of the story lacked the depth, detail and brilliance of mine, and she missed some of the juicy parts, but still, she left me holding a half-eaten sandwich.

So I got up to speak and noticed that this was a crowd that likes to keep its distance. Most folks sat as far back as possible; the front five rows were empty. I thought I was in Missouri with the “show-me” congregation. Crossed arms, implacable faces.

Still, I wasn’t worried because most audiences respond fairly quickly to the warmth of my manner (not bragging; it’s true).

Ah yes. The congregation soaked up my words like a sponge. That is to say, my words landed on the congregants and disappeared without a trace.  It was like talking to acoustical tile.

I plowed on regardless and I guess it was all right. Next time I’ll bring bagels to toss into the crowd at the end of every page of text. That would get a rise out of them. But if it didn’t I’d add lox.

Afterwards I talked with a friend who had belonged to my church before she moved to this community. She noted that there were a lot of old folks in the group and said that this was their usual “response” to the sermon.

It made me really appreciate the pleasure of speaking to a responsive audience.  My home congregation really hangs in there with the minister or any guest speaker.   At Toastmasters we are totally attentive to and appreciative of the speaker, even if it’s crap. We know that soon enough we’ll be up front and want that kind of support for ourselves.

On behalf of speakers and teachers everywhere, the next time you’re in an audience, do your part by giving the person up front the gift of your full attention. Laugh, frown, cry in response. You’re there anyway; might as well be fully present.

Play! Prescription for the puritan soul

Like many introverts, I take life pretty seriously.  What I do must be purposeful, practical, productive.

Or so my inner critic likes to remind me.

It’s only now that I’m “of a certain age” I realize life’s way too short not to play.  So in recent years I’ve joined Toastmasters, taken up swing dancing, learned to yodel, tried my hand at improv comedy, beefed up my blues guitar chops, and in general decided it’s OK to enjoy making a fool of myself.

This morning, thanks to a comment from Scatterbrain who blogs at Splodge-plog.com, I found a link to an article about the SF Regional Air Guitar contest that took place last week.

Talk about purposeless play! You have to watch the video (the larger image, please) of the winner Alex Koll (stage name: Awesome Shred Begley, Jr.) explaining and demonstrating his extraordinary talents at Air Guitar.

Now this guy puts his heart and soul, body and hair into PLAY!

Powerpoint Potentate! Presentation Priestess!

Powerpoint: a Microsoft presentation program that allows public speakers to put their audience to sleep within five minutes

Potentate: one who wields great power or sway

All sorts of Powerpoint horror stories circulate in the public speaking realm. [Here's a funny PPT presentation spoofing bad PPT presentations (is that laughter canned??? it's not THAT funny).] I’ve seen many poor presentations myself.

But certain topics really can’t be done well without illustration - especially when the subject is something visual: art, architecture, design, travel, to name a few. You can use Powerpoint to organize your “slide show”, which is what I did last night to talk about feng shui.

Pictures are worth a thousand words when you’re describing befores and afters, the five elements, yin and yang, color, the bagua map.  The challenge is not bullet-pointitis, but locating the right pictures to project, building a narrative around them. And for me it was figuring out how to talk to the audience instead of the screen while managing the remote control and laser pointer.

Thank god my son was home for the week. I don’t watch TV and have never learned how to manage a remote control (though many women who DO watch TV can’t manage the remote either.

I feel like my skill as a public speaker has just taken a big leap with this new tool. I promise not to overuse it. Which shouldn’t be too hard because it’s still a pain in the butt to haul a laptop, projector and screen.

Precipice postponed: procrastination #3

Precipice: the edge of an extremely dangerous situation; a cliff with a steep dropoff

Postpone: to delay until a future time, put off

I can breathe again. I made my maiden Powerpoint voyage and managed to stay afloat for the duration of the presentation.  Obviously I should have done another run-thru on a wall more than 2 feet wide, because if I had, I’d have noticed that the right-hand 25% of each slide was truncated… for reasons I don’t yet know.

I talked to the screen rather than the audience more than I should have, and I had some issues with the remote control…   Fortunately, I know my feng shui material well enough that I could talk my way through the glitches, and my Toastmasters club is very supportive of anyone trying something challenging.

As I said earlier, I put off preparing this presentation until the last possible moment…  I usually love putting together presentations, but this one filled me with the desire to change my sheets, reorganize my file drawer, clean the toilets…. ANYTHING else.  And all this when I absolutely LUSTED for the projector which would enable me to do illustrated presentations.

According to the study center at Cal Poly there are four reasons we procrastinate:

1. Difficult - the task seems hard to do; we naturally tend to avoid difficult things in favor of those which seem easy to us. [this would explain my desire to clean toilets]

2. Time-consuming - the task will take large blocks of time, and large blocks of time are unavailable until the weekend. [especially if you have no idea how you're going to structure the talk to take advantage of a new medium]

3. Lack of knowledge or skills - no one wants to make mistakes, so wait until you learn how before you start. [I've heard so many horror stories about AV equipment failures that I was scared even to try the projector!]

4. Fears - everyone will know how you screwed up. [This didn't bother me for the Toastmasters talk, but I am preparing for a much lengthier illustrated talk for paying customers next week and screw-ups aren't really cool.]

Cal Poly suggests the following steps to cure yourself:

1. Realize you are delaying something unnecessarily. (Duh… but maybe it’s the “unnecessarily” we need to come to grips with. You have to realize this before days and weeks have passed - like as soon as you feel that twinge of uneasiness.)
2. Discover the real reasons for your delay. List them.
3. Dispute those real reasons and overcome them. Be vigorous.
4. Begin the task.

I do think the secret is just to start anywhere.  Set a timer and commit to working at it for 15 minutes.  Wait awhile and do it again.  This is the swiss cheese approach. Once you’ve eaten a few holes in the project it suddenly seems like no big deal, and you’re halfway there.

What’s your formula?

Procrastination #2: the Powerpoint Presentation

Procrastination: putting off intentionally something that should be done,
from the Latin, pro (forward) and crastinus (of tomorrow)

I am giving a talk tonight at Toastmasters, a dry run if you will, of a much longer presentation on feng shui I’m doing next week.  I can talk on this topic, no problem. I know my stuff.

So why oh why have I put off preparations until just last night (not that I’ve not been thinking about it, obsessing, even)?  It’s because I’ll be working with my new projector and Powerpoint for the first time.

I am actually an accomplished geek so I’ve been surprised at my reluctance to put this presentation together.  I figured out the PPt stuff easily - made a bunch of attractive simple slides last night.

What has held me back is fear of new territory - simultaneous talking and technology.  I’m one of those people who has to turn off the car radio when navigating unfamiliar roads - I may even be someone who can’t walk and chew gum at the same time.  But since I don’t chew gum, I haven’t tested this possibility.

I am writing this post when I should be loading the presentation onto my laptop, hooking up the projector and seeing what happens….  structured procrastination, as Ken Perry would say.

Practice, Persevere, Purge: wisdom from Ira Glass

So you want to be a writer? Storyteller? Screen or radio writer?

Ira Glass of This American Life (a masterful collector of uniquely gripping radio stories -now also on TV) has great advice for you.  Boiled down, it amounts to three of my favorite p-words:

• Practice (write or record a lot of crap, and maybe occasionally some good stuff).
• Persevere (do it some more, and then some more and then more after that).
• Purge (you’ll produce lots of crap and will need to let most of it go).

But he says this with much more pizzazz than I do, so you must watch these four videos on You-Tube.  REALLY. They’re only five minutes each and packed with wisdom.

Start here - #1: Building blocks of the story. The power of the anecdote. Raising questions and then answering them. Reflecting on the point. Every preacher or public speaker should listen to this one.

Then here #2  Finding a decent story - do lots of work then ruthlessly purge the crap.

Then here #3:  How your work almost always, for YEARS, falls short of your taste, your vision.  But do it anyway. A lot. Persevere. 

And finally #4  Two common pitfalls.

In Peshewar, Pakistan: public speaking with Toastmasters

Toastmasters is an amazing organization with clubs in 92 countries around the world. Apparently a new club is being birthed as we speak in Peshawar Pakistan.  Map here.

The name “Toastmasters” is quaint (the organization has been around for more than 80 years), but their mission is thoroughly modern: helping people learn the arts of speaking, listening and thinking – vital skills that promote self-actualization, enhance leadership potential, foster human understanding and contribute to the betterment of mankind.

In a society like Pakistan this is tremendously important work –people who can speak, listen, and think constructively will be invaluable citizens.  I am going to follow this group with great interest. I send them all best wishes.

The Path to Pithyness: Elements of Style

OK OK. yuk yuk. I am not lithping. (Surprisingly, the word “pissy” is absent from my unabridged dictionary. Not that such an omission has ever stopped me from being a whiny ick now and then.)

Pithy: the essential, central part of anything, the gist. Precisely meaningful, cogent and terse. (From botany – the spongy core of a stem or branch)

Pithyness is an aspiration of mine. I want to get to the core of what I’m writing about using vivid language, no extraneous words, and a punchy snap.

Piece of cake. (ohyeah.)

I have owned E.B. White’s edition of Strunk’s book Elements of Style* for decades but it has collected dust most of that time. Last night I opened to the chapter on composition. For each rule he offers brief explanation and several examples.

Rule 10 is about using the active voice and avoiding perfunctory expressions such as “there were,” “the reason was”, “The fact that”. For example, for the final sentence in the previous paragraph I first wrote “There is a brief explanation…”. “He offers brief…” is much stronger.

Rule 11. Put statements in positive form. Make definite assertions. Avoid tame, colorless, hesitating, noncommittal language.   Women find this rule especially challenging; we prefer to be indirect, to our detriment.

Instead of “He was not very often on time,” try “He usually came late.”
Instead of “not important” say “trifling”
Instead of “didn’t remember” say “forgot”
Instead of “did not have much confidence in” say “distrusted”.

I would add — omit wiggle phrases like, “I think…” “I believe…”  Just make your point, no apologies.

Rule 12. Use definite, specific, concrete language. Prefer the specific to the general, the definite to the vague, the concrete to the abstract.

Yesterday at Toastmasters the table topics questions (extemporaneous pop quiz) concerned summertime activities. One woman spoke about how much she loved summer, how wonderful the weather was, how relaxing, and so forth. Yawn.

Another opened her remarks by saying, “I spent summer afternoons with our neighbor, Miss Bertha, helping her bake blueberry pies…” Instantly we all conjured up our own images of Miss Bertha, the oven, the color and fragrance of the pies. Bingo.

* Check out Maira Kalman’s delightfully illustrated version of this book. If you don’t already own the plainjane version, spend the extra few dollars and get it.

Perseverance and public speaking: Arianna Huffington edition

Today is Arianna Huffington’s 58th birthday - I know this thanks to Garrison Keillor’s Writers Almanac, which I get in email form every day.

You can read his post here, but I found two parts of her story especially compelling because they were all about having a goal and persevering despite obstacles. Ath this point in time she is an incredibly skillful public speaker - articulate, witty and quick.

Background: she’s Greek, born in Athens.

One day she saw in a magazine a picture of Cambridge University, and she decided that she wanted to go to school there. Many of her friends and family members ridiculed her, but her mother strongly encouraged her daughter, looked for a scholarship that she could apply for, found cheap airline tickets from Athens to London, and took the teenage Arianna for a visit to the campus. It rained the whole time, and they didn’t get to meet with any school officials, but she imagined herself going to school there. A few years later, she applied and was granted a scholarship.

In college she joined the debating team, a rather uncommon extracurricular activity for a young woman at Cambridge at that time. At first, she wasn’t very skilled, and years later said, “Sometimes I was called to speak after midnight because I was so bad.” But she prepared for each debate as if she were the featured speaker and she began to improve—so much so that in her final year at Cambridge, she was voted president of the debating society. She was the first non-British citizen to earn this position and only the third woman in the school’s history.

Perseverance #4 - a motivational parable

* At the annual sales meeting of a large corporation, the motivational speaker talked about the importance of persevering, despite obstacles.

He asked the crowd, “Did the Wright brothers ever quit?”

“NO!” the crowd answered.

“Did Helen Keller ever quit?”

“NO!” the crowd answered.

“Did Lance Armstrong ever quit?”

“NO!” they yelled, really getting into it.

“Did Thorndike McKester ever quit?”

The crowd fell silent. Finally one man near the front raised his hand and asked, “Who is Thorndike McKester?? We’ve never heard of him.”

The speaker snapped back, “Of course you’ve never heard of him; that’s because he quit!”

OK. That’s a silly story, which actually neglects the most important point. We don’t persevere to become well known; we persevere to accomplish something that is important to us.

Don’t expect you’ll be famous if you keep on keeping on - unless your goal is merely to become famous - which I say is a pity.

* Story adapted from one in the current Toastmasters Magazine

Other tales of perseverance here, here, here, here, and here.