Nailing Your Performance
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Cranky Talk 2011 workshop in Chicago on presentation skills
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Nailing Your Performance
- 1. NAILING YOUR PERFORMANCE Karen McGrane Bond Art + Science @karenmcgrane 1
- 2. Concept ruthlessly stolen from Heather Champ @hchamp Via Flickr User swirlspice under a Creative Commons License 2
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- 6. YOU’RE A STAR NOW 6
- 7. THE DRESS REHEARSAL 7
- 8. TIMING IS EVERYTHING 8
- 9. GET WARMED UP 9
- 10. GET INTO CHARACTER _What’s your schtick? _Dress the part _Know your stage _Make the transition 10
- 11. “ MANAGING NERVES There are two types of speakers: those that are nervous and those that are liars. —Mark Twain 11
- 12. OWN THE STAGE 12
- 13. LINE, PLEASE “Don’t cry for me... Ah...” 13
- 14. LOVE YOUR AUDIENCE 14
- 15. WORK THE STAGE DOOR 15
Editor's Notes
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- First talk was at IA Summit, went well, gave me a false sense of confidence\nGot myself scheduled to do a workshop at Internet World, precursor to Web 2.0\nObsessive detail about structure, slides, agenda slides\nGuy who came after me showed screenshots of websites, talked about why they were bad\n
- Thought my job was to be a lecturer\nTo communicate information, ideas, arguments\n
- My job was to be a performer, provide “Edutainment”\nPeople want to see a performance, and at the end feel like they walked out with some new information\nPeople don’t give a shit about your outline, about the structure of your talk\nThe structure of your talk is for YOU, to make YOU feel more confident\nYour ability to perform, to entertain, that’s what is going to make people think you are GREAT\n
- My job here today is to help you think of yourself as a performer, as a STAR\nWhich is not to say that I don’t think that structure and logic and ideas and organization are important—THEY ARE\nBut to be a great presenter, someone who really connects with an audience and gets ideas across\nYou need to have both great ideas and a great performance. And to have a great performance, you have to think of yourself as a star.\nGetting comfortable isn’t just on stage. It’s telling stories at dinner, giving talks at work. Practice.\nAs you’re prepping, you will start to transition from “having ideas” to “practicing.” And the point that all revolves around is the idea that you should REHEARSE.\n\n
- I teach a class in the interaction design MFA program at the school of visual arts, and the final project in my class is a presentation, and I swear to you, the class BEFORE the last class is basically me saying to the students “you better rehearse! I will know if you didn’t rehearse!”\n\nBut what does that mean? What’s (nod to Russ Unger) the right way to rehearse?\nScott Berkun, author of Confessions of a Public Speaker, will tell you that he stands up at his desk and delivers his talk as if he were giving it to an audience, 3-4 times before he actually gives it.\nMe, when I try that, I last about one slide before I’m sitting down, fiddling with the notes. But I will work through the cadence, the timing, the stories that matter obsessively in my head, while I’m showering, brushing my teeth, walking down the street, I will be polishing my talk. \nBelieve that rehearsal is bullshit because there is no audience. The only thing that matters is timing.\n
- Timing is the whole reason you rehearse. You need to feel confident that you have the rhythm, the cadence, the pacing right. Great presentations have a story arc, emotional highs and lows, they feel choreographed and not haphazard or rushed.\nI can tell pro speakers from novice speakers by their ability to deliver a well paced talk.\nSo... you’re prepped, you’re ready, what do you do before your performance?\n
- If you were in the performing arts, you would have a whole routine before you went on stage.\nYou need that. Gym? Food? \nScope out the room?\nGreen room prep?\nTech setup? Microphone, remote, dongle\n\n
- All of your prep is in the service of getting into character\nIf you were a theater actor, it would be obvious that you on stage was not you as a person\nAdopt that in our work too, you have to be bigger and bolder and fearless\nWhat is going to help you adopt the persona of a character\n
- You will be nervous. \nPhysical manifestations vs psychological manifestations.\nPhysical = rituals\nPsychological = harness the energy, indistinguishable from excitement\n\n
- Learn how to move, gesture, emote, be bigger than you think you need to be\n\n
- You’re the only one who notices/cares about errors, move on and don’t let yourself get tripped up\n\n\n
- Worst feeling as a speaker: having someone walk out\nDon’t get bogged down in distractions, people who aren’t engaged\nFind people who are engaged and refer back to them when you need a lift\n\n\n
- Performance isnt over when it’s over\nQ&A\nTransition to normal life\n
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