Read Online How to Deliver a Great TED Talk: Presentation Secrets of the World's Best Speakers (How to Give a TED Talk) by Akash Karia - Free Book Online
Authors: Akash Karia
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this section, you will learn how to grab audience attention by doing something unexpected without being gimmicky:
More specifically, you will know how to add the element of “unexpectedness” by learning how to:
Use shocking statistics and facts to grab audience attention
Offer the audience something new (or unconventional)
Create a WOW moment
CHAPTER SEVEN
Using Statistics to Grab Attention
Using shocking statistics is a great way to capture audience attention. For example, look at how celebrity chef Jamie Oliver used a startling statistic to grab audience attention in his 2010 TED talk:
“Sadly, in the next eighteen minutes when I do our chat, four Americans that are alive will be dead from the food that they eat”
Wow, what a powerful and shocking statistic! One of the things that make this statistic very powerful is that Jamie puts the statistic into the audience’s context. Instead of saying, “One hundred and seventeen thousand Americans die every year because of the food that they eat,” Jamie makes the numbers easier to digest. A year is a very long time, so Jamie boils the statistic down to the same amount of time as the TED talk. Highlighting the number of deaths that take place during the TED talk makes the situation seem more urgent. It makes the audience members aware of the deaths taking place right now as they sit in the room.
Second, it’s hard to digest 117,000 deaths … at a certain point, if a statistic is too large, the sheer size of the figure causes audience members to become indifferent to the situation instead of causing empathy. However, four deaths is a smaller number to digest and imagine, so it causes audience members to become hopeful that it is a manageable situation.
Now, let’s look at other ways you can use statistics in a speech.
If you were asked to write an article to convey to your readers the magnitude of Bill Gates’ wealth in an interesting and memorable manner, how would you write it? Sure, you could quote Bill Gate’s wealth of $40 billion from the Fortune website, but as you’ll learn from the example of a Wall Street journalist, there’s a much more effective way to make such statistics “sticky” by relating them to your listeners.
If you were called upon to make a speech to prove the fast pace of your company’s technological innovation, what would you say? You could show colorful graphs that illustrate your company’s total R&D expenditure and return on investment, but there’s an even simpler technique you can pick up from Intel’s CEO Paul Otellini.
If you were a leader whose task was to show a nation that the deficit had ballooned to dangerous levels, what would you say that would motivate people to call for a stop to the spending? You could unsuccessfully spout off various economic indicators, or you could do what President Dwight D. Eisenhower did to create a visual statistic that stuck in his listeners’ minds.
However, before we examine the various ways that you can use statistics in your communication to create persuasive messages, we first need to address the issue of:
CREDIBILITY vs. MEMORABILITY
Look at the following two statistics:
(A) In the year 2009, more than 1,265,000 people died in China due to smoking.
(B) Approximately 2,000 people die each day in China due to smoking.
Statistics are a great way of adding credibility because they provide evidence for your point of view. In this case, both statements (A) and (B) provide credibility for your communication, although (A) provides more credibility because it gives the perception of accuracy. However, not many people will remember (A).
Statement (B), on the other hand, does a better job of “memorability.” Your listeners are more likely to remember that “2,000 people die each day in China due to smoking” because it is a smaller number than (A) and it’s rounded off.
So, if you want credibility, provide accurate statistics. (Just don’t go crazy! One decimal point
More specifically, you will know how to add the element of “unexpectedness” by learning how to:
Use shocking statistics and facts to grab audience attention
Offer the audience something new (or unconventional)
Create a WOW moment
CHAPTER SEVEN
Using Statistics to Grab Attention
Using shocking statistics is a great way to capture audience attention. For example, look at how celebrity chef Jamie Oliver used a startling statistic to grab audience attention in his 2010 TED talk:
“Sadly, in the next eighteen minutes when I do our chat, four Americans that are alive will be dead from the food that they eat”
Wow, what a powerful and shocking statistic! One of the things that make this statistic very powerful is that Jamie puts the statistic into the audience’s context. Instead of saying, “One hundred and seventeen thousand Americans die every year because of the food that they eat,” Jamie makes the numbers easier to digest. A year is a very long time, so Jamie boils the statistic down to the same amount of time as the TED talk. Highlighting the number of deaths that take place during the TED talk makes the situation seem more urgent. It makes the audience members aware of the deaths taking place right now as they sit in the room.
Second, it’s hard to digest 117,000 deaths … at a certain point, if a statistic is too large, the sheer size of the figure causes audience members to become indifferent to the situation instead of causing empathy. However, four deaths is a smaller number to digest and imagine, so it causes audience members to become hopeful that it is a manageable situation.
Now, let’s look at other ways you can use statistics in a speech.
If you were asked to write an article to convey to your readers the magnitude of Bill Gates’ wealth in an interesting and memorable manner, how would you write it? Sure, you could quote Bill Gate’s wealth of $40 billion from the Fortune website, but as you’ll learn from the example of a Wall Street journalist, there’s a much more effective way to make such statistics “sticky” by relating them to your listeners.
If you were called upon to make a speech to prove the fast pace of your company’s technological innovation, what would you say? You could show colorful graphs that illustrate your company’s total R&D expenditure and return on investment, but there’s an even simpler technique you can pick up from Intel’s CEO Paul Otellini.
If you were a leader whose task was to show a nation that the deficit had ballooned to dangerous levels, what would you say that would motivate people to call for a stop to the spending? You could unsuccessfully spout off various economic indicators, or you could do what President Dwight D. Eisenhower did to create a visual statistic that stuck in his listeners’ minds.
However, before we examine the various ways that you can use statistics in your communication to create persuasive messages, we first need to address the issue of:
CREDIBILITY vs. MEMORABILITY
Look at the following two statistics:
(A) In the year 2009, more than 1,265,000 people died in China due to smoking.
(B) Approximately 2,000 people die each day in China due to smoking.
Statistics are a great way of adding credibility because they provide evidence for your point of view. In this case, both statements (A) and (B) provide credibility for your communication, although (A) provides more credibility because it gives the perception of accuracy. However, not many people will remember (A).
Statement (B), on the other hand, does a better job of “memorability.” Your listeners are more likely to remember that “2,000 people die each day in China due to smoking” because it is a smaller number than (A) and it’s rounded off.
So, if you want credibility, provide accurate statistics. (Just don’t go crazy! One decimal point
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