I recently had the pleasure of prototyping a workshop I’m calling A Visual Approach to Public Speaking at VizThink NYC on September 24, 2009.
The concept: When you give a speech, you are providing a service. People have needs, you have offerings, and you want to offer them a speech that serves those needs tailored out of what you have to offer. In this workshop our goal was to use visual techniques to find out an audiences needs and unearth our own skills and knowledge that could speak to those needs. Next we created brief speeches that aimed to address what our audience was interested in. By the end of the workshop, participants each gave mini-speeches to small groups.
What worked:
1) Using all-image mind maps to get a lot of ideas on paper and share a lot of information quickly. Using a mind map to generate ideas is an example of divergent thinking. Mind maps are very useful for this.
The use of images to depict areas of knowledge and areas of challenge got people to connect to their ideas in a visceral way, and made for a memorable medium to share with their group members.
2) People found the idea of a useful public presentation being the intersection of what you can offer and what people need useful.
3) Live graphic recording: It was powerful to see the narrative of the workshop unfolding onto a wall sized mural (above) as the evening progressed, courtesy of Heather Willems of Image Think. The resulting image is an information rich record for people who want to review the workshop.
4) After the divergent thinking of creating the initial mind maps, converging on a few relevant ideas and putting them in a sequence that made a point seemed to work well.
What to tweak next time:
1) Pacing: I needed to pick up the pace. Instead of demonstrating something and then letting people repeat my process, I just need to start demonstrating it, and then let people get going.
2) Focus: In my own personal examples, I included some personal items that took the focus more in a therapy direction and less in a business direction. There is nothing wrong with this, but for this crowd, and for any professionally oriented crowd, I would stick to professional examples.
3) Practicality: I think this would be more practical if I had people map out a presentation that they actually thought they would have to give soon, and map out what they know about the intended audience, instead of having them tailor a talk to people at the workshop who they may, realistically, never have to present to.
4) Start with goals: What do you want to happen as a result of your speech? When we engage in public speaking, we have goals of our own—It’s not just about serving the needs of our audience. We want them to take action, to buy something, to consider a new approach, to approve something, to be entertained, or moved, or any of a number of things. Next time, I would focus more on goals of a speech, which are the foundation of its success. This would be a natural fit with focusing on an actual speech we are going to have to give.
Conclusion: In the end, successful public speaking comes down to having clear goals, knowing your audience, giving them something that resonates, and thus moving them in the direction that matches your goals. Visual thinking can help. But it’s only part of the story. Another big part is practice. So as I keep practicing this workshop, I will keep you posted on what I learn.
Big thanks to LiquidNet for hosting us, to Ray DeLaPena, MJ Broadbent and the VizThink NYC crew for organizing and promoting the event, Heather Willems of Image Think who provided graphic recording, and everyone who gave me feedback.
If you were at the workshop and have further thoughts about it, I would love to hear about it, either in the comments or at jonny(dot)goldstein@gmail.com. Your insight really helps!