An authority or expert has instant credibility on the podium. But many experts giving technical presentations fall into the trap of overwhelming the audience with too much content. They fill in every moment of the talk with data and facts. The charts and statistics become a security blanket. Being an effective communicator requires that you understand the listener’s ability to absorb information. These 10 simple rules will help you give a talk that connects with an audience, moves them to action and leaves a positive impression.

1. Do your research. Talk to other experts, especially inside your own organization. Ignoring them might bruise the egos of co-workers who have a stake in the topic. Know what the audience expects. Research their existing level of knowledge about your topic. Make sure your content is relevant to the audience.
2. Choose one ‘big idea’ or main thesis for your talk or presentation. Don’t try to put too many ideas into your speech. Research shows that people remember very little from speeches, so just give them one big idea to hang onto. What is the one idea you want the audience to hear, remember, and act on?
3. Choose a ‘destination point’ for the talk. When people leave the room what will they do or feel differently than they did before you started presenting? Before you know where you want to take the audience, you need to be honest about your own hidden assumptions and the audience’s current situation.
4. Aim to make three main points in the talk. Use three related words or phrases to grab attention, encapsulate, summarize. The number three is interesting – we easily remember three things. Beyond this it becomes progressively more difficult to remember. Three items act as a powerful unifying format. Examples:
   • Three key themes that together cover a wide area.
   • Three items that act in sequence to get to a desired goal.
   • Two problems and a solution that resolves the problem.
   • Two actions or objectives and a solution that will result from achieving these.
5. Create the speech Abstract first. Focus your content in your own mind. If you cannot (or choose not to) do this, the chances are that your thinking isn’t clear enough for the audience to understand your purpose.
6. Construct a logical argument. There is no reason to give a speech unless you have an argument to make. A speech should never be confused with normal conversation such as “Nice day, huh?’ The speech argument is an explanation of why one believes something to be true.
   • State the Big Idea that forms the content of your argument.
   • Ask the question: Why is my interpretation of the evidence true?
   • List, in order of importance, all the reasons why you find the interpretation persuasive.
7. Start with an outline. Once you have a clear outline, writing the details is relatively straight forward, almost like filling in the blanks. Within each section of the speech:
   • State the question you are answering
   • Support the premise with examples, stories, statistics.
   • Tie-in each of the section premise to the speech thesis.
   • Transition to the next question.
8. Avoid burying the audience in raw data. Subject experts can overwhelm an audience with too much data. Less is more. Give each statistic a context that makes it relevant to the audience. Numbers alone are often meaningless and difficult to grasp by themselves.
9. Include a human element. No matter how ‘dry’ your topic, look for ways to humanize it. Including stories and case studies enables you to engage the audience and raise levels of motivation, acceptance, and approval.
10. Conclude with a call to action. State what the audience has to do, change or think after your talk. Many speeches avoid a call to action. Even in an educational presentation you want to ensure the audience knows what you want them to do. It can be something as simple as ‘read the new accounting regulations’.

Following these rules will minimize the chance that the audience will mentally check-out during your talk. They will still respect your expertise, and remember more of your speech the next day.

According to US News and World Report, ghostwriting is one of the 30 Best Careers for 2009 – along with audiologist, clergy and hairstylists. This mix clearly caters to busy people who need a benediction said while their hearing is checked in the hair salon as their autobiography is written.

Marty Nemko dishes the dirt on what it takes to become a ghostwriter – the ability to write powerfully and fast in another person’s voice with the interviewing skills to unearth interesting information from clients. Apart from emailing random celebrities and offering to ghostwrite their autobiographies, Nemko suggests other ways to break into the field.

Another source of celebrity ghostwriting work: writing speeches and articles for politicians or business leaders. You can also ghostwrite for just plain folks: websites, family histories, or Grandpa’s memoir.

The financial reward: A median salary (with eight years in the field): $56,900. Which sounds suspiciously low – are ghostwriters spiriting away their earnings from the eyes of IRS?

For the love of God, can’t we love one another just a little – that’s how peace begins. We have so much to love each other for. We have such possibilities, my children. We could change the world.
– The Lion in Winter

America. In the face of our common dangers, in this winter of our hardship, let us remember these timeless words. With hope and virtue, let us brave once more the icy currents, and endure what storms may come. Let it be said by our children’s children that when we were tested we refused to let this journey end, that we did not turn back nor did we falter; and with eyes fixed on the horizon and God’s grace upon us, we carried forth that great gift of freedom and delivered it safely to future generations.
– President Barack Obama, Inaugural Address

President Obama’s Inaugural Address was a measured speech, somber in places, hopeful in others. It was pragmatic and direct in addressing the current situation of the country he now leads. It was less ‘inspiring’ than many speeches he made during the campaign. He’s no longer auditioning for a role which now sits squarely on his shoulders.

On a freezing day in Washington DC, in front of a building constructed by black slaves, he took the Oath of Office and delivered a speech which, as anticipated, used many of the fundamentals of the art of rhetoric.

There was the simple tricolon:

I stand here today humbled by the task before us, grateful for the trust you have bestowed, mindful of the sacrifices borne by our ancestors.

and the tricolon with the third term doubled up:

The words have been spoken during rising tides of prosperity and the still waters of peace. Yet, every so often the oath is taken amidst gathering clouds and raging storms.

There was anaphora, the repetition of words at the start of neighboring clauses:

Our workers are no less productive than when this crisis began. Our minds are no less inventive, our goods and services no less needed than they were last week or last month or last year. Our capacity remains undiminished.

and even more powerfully:

For us, they packed up their few worldly possessions and traveled across oceans in search of a new life. For us, they toiled in sweatshops and settled the West, endured the lash of the whip and plowed the hard earth. For us, they fought and died in places Concord and Gettysburg; Normandy and Khe Sahn.

There was ethos in establishing his bone fides, such as this, delivered on the steps of what remains the grandest of capitals:

from the grandest capitals to the small village where my father was born

delivered by a man

…whose father less than 60 years ago might not have been served at a local restaurant can now stand before you to take a most sacred oath.

There was the logos of the argument, developed point-by-point:

Nor is the question before us whether the market is a force for good or ill. Its power to generate wealth and expand freedom is unmatched. But this crisis has reminded us that without a watchful eye, the market can spin out of control. The nation cannot prosper long when it favors only the prosperous. The success of our economy has always depended not just on the size of our gross domestic product, but on the reach of our prosperity; on the ability to extend opportunity to every willing heart — not out of charity, but because it is the surest route to our common good.

And, time and again, there was pathos – establishing an emotional bond with a global audience (my 88-year-old father rang to tell me that, watching from his home in England, he had tears in his eyes):

To the people of poor nations, we pledge to work alongside you to make your farms flourish and let clean waters flow; to nourish starved bodies and feed hungry minds.

There was subtle alliteration:

Our capacity remains undiminished. But our time of standing pat, of protecting narrow interests and putting off unpleasant decisions

There were words which soared to poetic heights, igniting the imagination with vivid imagery:

And because we have tasted the bitter swill of civil war and segregation and emerged from that dark chapter stronger and more united, we cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass; that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve; that as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself; and that America must play its role in ushering in a new era of peace.

and words which were delivered with short, sharp jabs, hitting home:

The capital was abandoned. The enemy was advancing. The snow was stained with blood.

There were passages that resonated with the references shared by all Americans:

With the Declaration of Independence:

What is demanded then is a return to these truths.

…all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.

…but because We the People have remained faithful to the ideals of our forbearers, and true to our founding documents.

With Washington at Valley Forge:

…the father of our nation ordered these words be read to the people.

With the Bible

…but in the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things.

With hymns:

…who have carried us up the long, rugged path towards prosperity and freedom.

Even with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers:

Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America.

Perhaps the most telling analysis of the speech are these snapshots of a Java-enabled ‘word tree’ of the speech showing the number of times Obama used “I”, “you”; “they” and “we”.

On the day he assumed the highest office in the land, the speech was far more about those he was elected to serve than he himself.

On the eve of President-elect Barack Obama’s eagerly anticipated Inaugural speech, newspaper headlines are reporting on past Inaugural speeches and millions of Americans plan to engage in the unnatural act of listening to a speech from beginning to end.

Obama, more than any living US President, consciously embraces oratory and the art of rhetoric. A superb assessment of Obama’s speech-making skills appeared in the Weekend Financial Times. Author Sam Leith shows how Obama deploys the terms and tools of formal rhetoric — first described by Aristotle four centuries before the birth of Christ. “They still work the same way on the human ear and the human heart as they did in Aristotle’s day.” His article covers a lot of ground. The main points I took from it are:

Aristotle’s rhetorical triangle

The rhetorical triangle sets out the ground rules for the art of persuasion. It describes how a speaker uses ‘ethos’ to establish their bona fides, ‘logos’ to make the argument logically and ‘pathos’ to manipulate emotion.

Tricolon

The ‘rule of three’ applied in a sentence with three clearly defined parts (cola) of equal length, usually independent clauses and of increasing power. Caesar’s “I came; I saw; I conquered.” Lincoln’s second inaugural with its line “with malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right … “. Obama at the Berlin Victory Column in front of 100,000 European’s last July: “As we speak, cars in Boston and factories in Beijing are melting the ice-caps in the Arctic, shrinking coastlines in the Atlantic, and bringing drought to farms from Kansas to Kenya.” As Leith notes, this is rhetorical power in pure form:

A double (“Boston” and “Beijing”), leading to a tricolon whose third term is itself doubled up, the whole mixture thick with alliteration. This is very far from informal or direct or off-the-cuff speech. It is marvelously and intentionally musical.

Syntheton

The balanced double words used in “Boston and Beijing” or by speakers who say “young and old” or “black and white”.

Anaphora

The repetition of a phrase at the beginning of successive lines. Consider Churchill:

We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills. We shall never surrender.

Now Obama at the Iowa caucus victory speech on January 3rd:

“I’ll be a president who finally makes healthcare affordable … I’ll be a president who ends the tax breaks … I’ll be a president who harnesses the ingenuity … I’ll be a president who ends this war in Iraq … ” Then: “This was the moment when … this was the moment when … this was the moment when … ” And, as his speech built to its climax, “Hope is what I saw … Hope is what I heard … Hope is what led a band of colonists to rise up against an empire.”

Leith’s article includes an inventory of the debt Obama owes to the rhetorical power of his absent father; to the framers of the Declaration of Independence; to his schooling at Columbia and Harvard; to past President’s; to the Civil Rights movement and the Bible:

Obama sets out to position himself, and his rhetoric positions him, as the inheritor of the oratorical and political traditions of Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, and Jesus Christ.

Leith concludes by remarking the scorn republican’s poured on Obama as “a person of words” and “an elitist who works with words” – while championing the inarticulate leaders they admire (Bush, Palin and the rest). Let’s not forget, as I blogged in February, Hilary Clinton also criticized him as someone who just “gives speeches”.

It’ll be interesting to see the effect a US President with such a command of rhetoric will have on the general level of discourse in the political and commercial arenas. For too long in this country our politician’s and CEO’s have avoided eloquence as something unworthy, untrustworthy, vaguely “European”. They were proud of being plain spoken. Of being a man or woman of the people. That refusal to heed Aristotle’s simple techniques might have worked until now.

The bar has been raised.