Smite Somnolent Speeches: Make Tech Presentations Dynamic

By Stephen D. Boyd, Ph. D.

Many audiences listening to technical presentations appear as though they’ve taken sleeping pills. Even though technical presentations often include detailed data, they don’t have to be boring.

Take these steps to make your next technical presentation vibrant and engaging:

• Tell stories. Technical information is logical; stories are emotional. Combine logic and emotion and audiences are hooked. Give a piece of data and then illustrate it with a story. This isn’t new. Skillful and influential leaders throughout history have been great storytellers. Abraham Lincoln, for example, used stories to crystallize the issues separating our country before and during the Civil War.

• Make comparisons. A comparison shows how the unfamiliar resembles the familiar. It can make a piece of data or an abstract concept instantly understandable. I remember a race-car driver saying that driving around the Indianapolis Motor Speedway track is like driving down the hallway in your house at 230 miles an hour and turning left into your closet. That made instantly clear the dangers of driving a race car.

• Use echo words. An echo word incorporates some version of a word twice in the same sentence. It helps the audience remember a certain concept. Franklin D. Roosevelt’s statement is one of the most famous instances of echo words: "We have nothing to fear but fear itself." When you want the audience to remember a certain concept, use an echo word.

• Deliver an unforgettable quotation. Find a quotation that makes the dull come alive. For example, Mark Twain said, "The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug." Look for the way another person says your point in a more dramatic or memorable way, and use it.

• Include one or more "wow" factors. A wow factor is simply something in your presentation that makes an audience want to say, "wow," such as using a startling statement or a dramatic story. One startling statement I read recently was, "Only 1% of the world’s water is drinkable."

  A "wow factor" also could be a slide that dramatizes a point with a picture or clip art. Or it could be your personal experience related to a point in a presentation. Audiences always are affected when I tell the story of our daughter at age 18 meeting her birth parents. The number of wow factors in your presentation will contribute to the power of your technical material.

• Let the audience fill in the blank. Pause before you state a key idea or statistic. Often, the audience silently will seek to fill in the blank. We like to fill in the blanks. That’s why television game shows last for such a long time. Audiences love to participate with the speaker. Anticipating what a speaker might say by filling in the blanks is a good way to accomplish that.

• Move with purpose. There’s a tendency with technical information to speak in a monotone and to stay behind the lectern with little movement to illustrate your points. Purposeful movement attracts attention and causes people to listen better. Taking a step toward your audience will accent a point or add emotional impact to your presentation. Speakers appear more dynamic when they gesture to reinforce a point or to describe an action. Make big gestures, not little ones that you initiate from the wrist. The bigger the audience, the bigger the gestures should be. Just pointing to a screen as you make a point from your visual can make your content more dynamic.

• Don’t read your presentation. There will be times when you have to look at your notes, but look up as you speak. You’ll lose your audience if you read to it. When possible, use key words or "trigger" words to give you the next point or idea. Don’t write out your presentation word for word so you won’t be tempted to read it.

A technical presentation needn’t be synonymous with dull. Use these steps to make your next technical presentation dynamic.

Stephen D. Boyd, Ph.D., is a professor of speech communication at Northern Kentucky University in Highland Heights. He also is a trainer in communication for corporations and associations. For information, visit www.sboyd.com. Contact Boyd at 800-727-6520 or at info@sboyd.com.