#140conf: How My Presentation Could Have Been Better
#140conf Recap Week: Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday
I am very passionate about the message of the talk I gave at #140conf–that what separates Twitter from other social media, and how it presents a transformative opportunity is Twitter’s ability to create, connect and listen in the context of community.
However, I have been thinking a lot about the talk because, to be honest, I was not satisfied with myself and my presentation of that message. I didn’t feel like I moved my audience much or made an impact. To me, the delivery felt flat.
At first, I thought it was the format: a stage, with stationary microphone and podium. I could not move casually and was uncomfortable. But, the more I thought about it, I realized that wasn’t the issue.
At the same time, I’ve been reflecting on Seth Godin’s view on presentations:
The purpose of a presentation is to change minds. That’s the only reason I can think of to spend the time and resources. If your goal isn’t to change minds, perhaps you should consider a different approach.
and, but so I don’t feel like that was it either.
What I’ve concluded is an addendum to Seth’s view:
The key to changing the mind of an audience is to illustrate to them how doing so will make them better at what they do.
and, in my view, that’s where I fell flat. In other words, I feel like I was effective at making my point about the nature of Twitter, but I didn’t back that up by showing the audience why adopting that point of view was in their best interest.
Effectively, this is the point that Kathy Sierra makes all the time about going beyond creating an awesome user experience to creating awesome users. In fact, as I was reviewing Kathy’s tweets for this post, I see that she’s made this point exactly:
Kathy Sierra Tweet on Presenting
It’s not enough just to make the experience good (i.e. to make the valid point), but to be truly effective you need to make the user better for the expeirence as well (i.e. better for adopting the point).
[...] in the Context of Community Jump to Comments #140conf Recap Week: Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | [...]
#140conf: Tweeting in the Context of Community « Scott Porad
1 Jul 09 at 10:39 am
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#140conf: Visual Summaries of Tweeting in the Context of Community « Scott Porad
1 Jul 09 at 10:40 am
Hey Scott,
We’re fans of the same people! I love how Kathy Sierra focuses her communication on helping us create awesome users. It’s a paradigm shift to think this way all the time, but a very useful one.
jonny goldstein
1 Jul 09 at 2:56 pm
Hah! While I’m thrilled you mentioned my perspective on presentations, I have to tell you I’ve done two Ignites — one just a few weeks’ back — and I pretty much sucked at both of them.
The reason I agreed to do a second one was to take my own advice on doing things that I find challenging, and the Ignite format is way up there. I’ve had an awful lot of practice on presentations over the last few years, but Ignite is… something different.
I didn’t see your presentation, and don’t know how the audience felt, but in the five minutes you were given, you can’t expect to change anyone’s mind or even make them a little smarter, better, etc. Not in real-time, anyway. You can, however, pose a question or plant a seed that their brain might spend time spinning on…later. You may well have done that : )
Regardless, thanks so much for your encouraging words.
Kathy Sierra
1 Jul 09 at 9:31 pm
[...] Speaking #140conf: How My Presentation Could Have Been Better [...]
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2 Jul 09 at 12:08 am
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