MILTON GLASER DRAWS & LECTURES from C. Coy on Vimeo.

I reached to my friends at Spork Design today to illustrate, not just design, a new project we’re working on.  I trust them because they are a few of the people I know that actually know how to draw, with a pencil in their own hand.

Shortly thereafter, I came across this video on the same related topic.  I love it for many reasons.  It’s simplicity - it has one central message that is powerfully memorable.  It’s delivery - Mr. Glaser’s cadence and confidence are addicting and highly engaging.  And it’s execution - it’s non-traditional and unexpected.  You aren’t sure what he’s going to draw or say about it.   And rarely in a presentation do you see a supporting act, non-verbal or visual drive home the message so distinctly as this.

(Articulation tip:  Keep it simple and make sure your visuals support, not distract, from your message.)

Last week at TED, Jamie Oliver, the winner of the TED Prize,  gave a talk about how we are slowly killing our children (in America) through not educating them about basic things like how to prepare food.  He’s right.   We are a sickly obese nation.

This, the first in a series of posts where I’ll start to opine about presentation styles, comes down to three simple thoughts:

Jamie has a personality for TV, ideas worthy of TED, and a presentation style perfect for radio.  I counted over 100 paces in the first 3 minutes of his talk.  I loved listening to his message especially as a parent trying to teach my young children about food, but I simply could not watch it.  I’d be curious how those in the audience felt who didn’t have a minimize button.

(Articulation Tip:  Remember that your non-verbals account for sometimes up to 60% of your presentation.  If you say something powerful in between back flips, what do you think they’ll remember?)

Addendum:

My colleague, Jan O’Daniel has her own perspective on this.  Much different than mine and worth continuing the post! Here’s Jan:

Jamie Oliver is clearly a man on a mission – a mission he articulates quite clearly and vividly. His message was eye-opening if not shocking, impressive and evocative. Why?

Because he told a story that tugged at the hearts and niggled the consciences of his audience. How?

First, he got the attention of everyone in the room. He called them out. Parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles. Second, he dared to voice an appalling fact: today’s kids have a shorter lifespan than their moms and dads thanks to obesity. Third, he introduced us to reality. Using statistics, visuals and, most importantly, the tales and faces of real people.

This was presentation storytelling of a high art. Oliver was clear about his mission, knew his audience and wasn’t afraid to shock people into change.

(Articulation Tip: Bold, pithy statements are more memorable. Don’t be afraid to be dramatic.)

Yesterday, my TEDxEast (New York) colleague and I hosted the first ever webinar in the TEDx Learning Series (that we coined) for TEDx organizers literally around the world.  Of course I was ambitious to take on my first webinar with such a broad audience, but our evaluations were off the charts, so luckily success prevailed.  The topic was speaker preparation - and how to get the most out of working with speaker prospects for a TEDx event.

While I’ve been spending some time working on a speaker coaching and presentation training modules for my own business, this webinar allowed me to hone my own presentation skills.  I reinforced that the following holds true for me, just as it does for everyone else!  The take-away:

For every minute that I present, it takes at least an hour to prepare.  When I was a speechwriter, the same held true.  My principal would speak for 5 minutes, we’d spend a collective 5 hours getting ready.   That included concepting, research, drafting, editing, practicing, event logistics prep and so on.

In this case, over the course of the last 2 months, I wrote a white paper on speaker prep (now housed on www.ted.com), re-wrote it with Julie (from New York) into a slide deck, wrote an accompanying script, an evaluation, practiced and practiced the content, then we worked on timing.  Next was learning to multi-task in the webinar platform  (gotowebinar.com), re-writing crib notes, uploading it to the right computer, practice again and then finally, the actual event.

The webinar was an hour total, our presentation was 40 minutes before questions, and my part was 20 minutes.  And sure enough, I can easily account for at least 20 hours of work into it.  I’m not complaining - the experience was actually somewhere between invaluable and fun.  But as I reflect on what it took me to prepare, I’m just reminded a really effective presentation is a marathon with a long training lead  - that is if you want to finish and not be a mess!

And one post script - thanks to Brad Kleinman from Worksmart and e-marketing strategies in Cleveland.  He coached us through every step of the strategy to execution in this webinar platform.  Everyone needs a Brad!

Here is the recorded webinar from yesterday.

A few weeks ago, my husband and I went to hear Tony speak.    It was one of those watch him spill his guts and hope he doesn’t barf from the saki speeches.  Really, it was entertaining, engaging and a delightful change from the typical Saturday night routine which involves a bath, some Fancy Nancy or Junie B. and some part of recorded Nat Geo special.  Yes, our lives are that boring.

He posed the question to the audience: Why would you travel if you are a vegetarian?   Not that you shouldn’t, but why bother?   His proposition was rooted in his obvious bias which is not terribly unconventional:  a great chunk of travel is enjoyed through the stomach.  The foreign cultures we enjoy are not just to be seen and heard  - but tasted.

So, he proceeded, when you are in that remote province in far eastern province, you might choose to drive by the sign that advertises dog as the nightly blue plate, but as you are served a meal in a farmer’s home where the vegetarian menu hasn’t yet been printed - there is no choice, in his mind, but to accept it.

When I got home a Facebook friend (lower case f) posted a hostile note about how she thought the talk was horrific, she walked out, called him a hypocrite and HRUMPH, he likes to eat dogs.  This person had other beefs with deeper public policy issues I’d rather not address here, but suffice to say, she let her emotions get in the way of enjoying that $50 seat.

I posted a response that said, really?  Is that what he said?  She clarified and later sent an apology for being zealous (but just to me, not her 890 other friends).  No matter, as I took it as a delightful reminder that every day, everything we say, everywhere we say it, people listen with their own filter.  Their own bias.  And in her case, her own agenda.

What I heard clearly was that he would never eat a pet.  And while I was on the board of the Humane Society and still am a member, don’t condone the thought or act of eating a dog, I’m not Anthony Bourdain seeking ratings and advertising revenue either.

1.  Trunk:  The speaker sticks to the core message often with one powerful question to ponder woven through the talk.

2.  Forest:  You were given a tour of the forest and while they brought you home at the end, you found some flowers along the way you wanted to smell instead.  This is akin to being told how the watch is made instead of the time.

3.  Branches:  The speaker explores a few tangential topics that are related but perhaps distracting to the core message.

4.  Overgrown:  This is the speaker that shows up the day before with 66 slides to fit into 18 minutes.  While they get to 30 slides the day of the talk, it’s still way too much for the audience to digest.

5.  Evergreen:  The talk that was given 8 years ago and has been recycled and updated a bit.   The speaker can’t break out of the mold and reverts to this style, the only he knows.

6.  Transplanted:  The talk that showed up at the interview that needed some sunlight.  Through some coaching, new life was given to the topic and speaker for a fabulous performance.

7.  Rings:  The talk that wants to give you a history of everything about the subject!

This weekend, I was determined to sort through all of our socks.  I came up with about 45 ‘widows,’ the kids’ pile seen here in the trash.   I hold back the parent socks for hopes that the matches will someday appear (hah).  I threw a different photo on Facebook (of them all lined up before I tossed them) and got a response from two high school friends:

“OMG, I have a drawer full of these. Someday, maybe someday when we win the lottery and I can pay someone to take the time to match them.”

and

“Imagine what would happen if we all put our widows together, what matches we might find.”

Hmmmm.

One of my longest time clients, the Capital Crossroads Special Improvement District, along with the Discovery Special Improvement District, host a toiletry and intimates drive (underwear, socks, etc) for the homeless overflow each fall, preparing for the winter months.

Yes, socks.  While it may not be the most fashion forward statement to wear a slightly mis-matched pair of socks, wouldn’t some warm, clean socks be better than none?   Wouldn’t it be best if I didn’t throw these socks into the waste stream?  Wouldn’t it be a nice chance for everyone with those drawers of socks that really will never find a match to throw them into one pile and at least make some pairs of blues, browns, whites and tans for those that could really use them?

My invitation to my friends and family is that I will play matchmaker (for those of you that know me, this is not an unusal hat to wear) for any clean, non-holey socks you would like to contribute.  I’ll pick them up (email me ruth@milligancommunications.com) or you can drop them at my house.   If you want to have your own sock widow drive in your office, please do so, and I’ll still play matchmaker for any you collect.  Join me in diverting some waste, cleaning out your drawer and helping some folks have some warmer feet this winter.

And in the meantime, I can suitably answer his question.  At least for today.

]]> http://www.milligancommunications.com/what-are-you-going-to-do-about-it/feed/ http://www.milligancommunications.com/13years/ http://www.milligancommunications.com/13years/#comments Thu, 08 Oct 2009 20:49:49 +0000 rmilligan http://www.milligancommunications.com/?p=257 We were in a plane between Lincoln and Omaha Nebraska during another week-long tour of some remote part of the US during the presidential campaign in 1996.  That year, we did 74 cities in 28 states in 10 weeks.  And we did it without data-enabled cell phones.   Really, how did we survive?

On that flight, I got a text page (you know, the old fashioned kind, where just a number appears?).  I had to wait until I landed to call the office and then was dispatched to a near-by fax machine (next to the news director’s desk, mind you) at the local TV station where we were doing an interview.

My principal, the candidate’s daughter, had just overwritten the daily AP news story with the fact that she disagreed with her dad’s position on abortion.  I was sitting there when she said it (in Lincoln) and by the time we got to Omaha, we were headline news.    The fax explained the details but fortunately, that station didn’t read their AP feed to know to ask her any questions about it.  A lucky break.  Today it would have been tweeted 100 times within seconds of it breaking.

We worked tirelessly to defend, massage, control, and explain her position.  It wasn’t exactly in conflict with his, it just differed slightly (we lost that year, so I guess it doesn’t matter too much now those details!).

While I have been a part of managing many many crisis moments since then, it wasn’t until about 10 days ago when I awoke to a blog post that was slathering my reputation, and that of someone with even more reputation in town, claiming we were mis-using our role in the organizing of TEDxColumbus.   None of it was true.  Not one word.

This hardly compares with overwriting an AP story about abortion, but the ensuing energy required to fix it was no different.  I spent the rest of my day distilling the facts, assuring the TED leadership these claims were not true, working in partnership with my colleague, Nancy Kramer, to reverse the damage that was beginning to be done by people thinking we were profiting from this event (we can’t, it will barely pay for itself!).

Nancy has written a fabulous post relating this and the benefits of social media - and how the conversation and chatter helped to self-correct the situation after we made our cases public.  I echo her comments but add a few more to the mix from a crisis communication position.

This event, which we’ve spent endless time and energy on, was about to be destroyed before it even got down the aisle.  It needed immediate response.

The accusations were so far from being true, it ignited emotion in my mind.  But it needed a level, non-emotional response, sticking with the facts.

And then we needed to walk away.  The conversation went on for a few more days, literally, among others who joined in the chatter.  But we said our peace and as Nancy aptly stated, the situation corrected itself.

One lesson I learned in politics is if you are explaining, you are losing.  In this case, the author of the post found himself overexplaining with many more entries, and even calling me to render an apology.

Even in the world with mobile applications, social media and online dialogue, this episode was helpful to remind us some of our core basic communication principles still do apply.

And I hope it’s another 13 years before I feel that way again.

As a professional PR and marketing consultant, I can’t help but point out an irony I observed.  Pelotonia had an incredibly engaging web site - especially from a donor relations standpoint. The transparency of supporters on each riders’ page was a beautiful way to build community and recognition.  So… as a donor supporting 4 different riders, I was curious how the tour was going for them and well, everyone.  I logged on yesterday evening to the site.  I found nothing.  Today, nothing.  No photos. No videos.  No photo of Lance. No shot of the starting line.  No shot of a rest stop or a SAG wagon.  No hint of the throngs of supporters along the way.  Hmmmm.  The twitter feed wasn’t pretty light and didn’t include hashtags for me to find other tweets.

The irony is that I found more information from the Dispatch at my door step this morning and from riders’ individual facebook posts (when they remembered to do them) than from their main site.   I know the effort it takes to coordinate an event like this (I have ridden GOBA and TOSRV before) and certainly how to integrate real-time communications and of course, you say, cuttemsomslack, this is the first year!   I will look forward to some real-time updates next year - and maybe some several-days-after updates on the site this week yet.  We want to know our riders are healthy, happy and having fun - while doing good!

I noted in an earlier post that I had an idea around TED, the conference that blasts out ideas worth spreading.  TED, standing for Technology, Entertainment and Design, has intrigued me for a while as their TEDTalks are nothing short of mind-bending. They have now welcomed topics around public policy, medicine, science, and humanitarianism causes among others.  On www.ted.com there are nearly 500 amazing talks archived; if you haven’t watched one, I encourage you to do so NOW.

So I’ll now admit that idea was not mine, but TED’s, to license their brand and experience for local communities to embrace.  I got energized by the concept of finding people in Columbus who were “TED” worthy. For 20 years, I was quietly jealous of my dad’s affiliation with a local group that gave papers once a month on topics unrelated to their professions.  I would have joined, but women were excluded.  My degree in college was Speech Communication and as a single person in the 90s, my roommates would find me watching college graduation speeches on CSPAN. I decided this TED adventure was a great merger of all of my passion for my hometown and critically listening to compelling ideas from captivating speakers.

In June I was granted the license, after good friends Jack Jackson & Sherri Geldin at the Wexner Center agreed to be the host the event (on October 20), and Nancy Kramer from resource agreed to be my co-curator.  Nancy has been to 4 TED conferences; she among all involved understand both the challenges and the power of a TED event.  I’m grateful for Dave Ungar, Mike Curtin and Doug Kridler who are offering needed thought power (let’s face it, I’m skating in territory that may be above my pay grade) in the curatorial duties.

As we set forth in the next two weeks to try to finalize a speaker list (think about how a curator of an art exhibit must look at a lifetime of work of an artist and choose one piece to present) and establish guidelines for attendees, I’ll hope that this isn’t a vortex preventing me from doing my day job - but an opportunity and experience I’ll want to have again.  And I will be front and center on October 20, ready to have my hair raised and head turned by half dozen of our most talented thinkers in town.