What’s the difference between giving a speech and training? I’ve had reason to think about that question recently as a new client of ours came to us with lots of experience in training, but not much in keynoting. She wants to expand her keynote speaking to comprise the majority of her business. So what does she have to keep in mind as she moves from one world to the other?
First of all, the basic chops are the same. You’re in front of an audience, you have to hold them, and the same rules and techniques apply, very broadly speaking. That said, there are a number of differences, as our client experienced when she gave her first keynote with our help.
In training, you’ve got typically 1 – 3 days to get comfortable with an audience. So, you’ve got lots of time to get to know them, and for them to get to know you. Training audiences will tolerate a slow patch or two, as long as there is sufficient excitement overall. They’re in for the long haul. In fact, changing the pace is a good thing; you don’t want it to be all the same.
Keynoting, on the other hand, is sprinting compared to the training marathon. You’ve got to grab your audience from the "g" of the word "go." You’ve only got an hour, or even 45 minutes, to take your audience on a complete journey, to convince them of something, and to leave an impression. You can’t afford any slack. Whereas you might have begun your training session with icebreakers that last 30 minutes or so, in keynoting you’ve got 3 minutes to frame your talk, get the audience and yourself comfortable and happy, and start the race. Not much room for icebreakers.
Now, good trainers know that it’s all about the audience. If the audience doesn’t get the message, you haven’t done your job. The same is true of keynoting. And fundamentally, again, there’s no difference. But in terms of time, as a trainer you can get your audience working on some min-project that might last an hour, or several hours, or even a day (out of 3), but as a keynote speaker, you don’t have that luxury.
Nonetheless, you do want to involve the audience. You just have to do it in a much more tightly controlled and circumscribed way. I’m a huge fan of getting the audience to do things, even in keynotes, but I’m keenly aware that it’s harder to play by the keynoting rules. You have to get good at creating rapport instantly so that your audience will feel comfortable participating, and also good at controlling that input so that you can get your keynote accomplished.
Finally, what about Power Point? My recommendation is usually NOT to use it during a keynote speech, because it detracts from the impact of you and your message, if you’re doing it right. And NEVER use Power Point as speaker notes. There should be NO or at least VERY FEW WORDS on your Power Point slides! If you’ve got bullets, and more than a phrase or two, then you’re not using Power Point well. You’ve got a speaker outline. And that’s just laziness.
That’s true for both trainers and keynoters. Of course, in training, you can use Power Point the way God intended it to be used: for illustrations, for pictures, and for the occasional graph that clearly shows relationships in data that are harder to see any other way. Check out Presentation Zen, a brilliant book on graphics, for more information. But in training, the same as keynoting, if you’ve got Power Point slides up on a screen most of the time, with the projector humming and the lights down low, as you drone on about all the material that has to be covered, you’re not training, you’re boring your audience to death.
Nick,
Thanks for the post!
You are definitely right about the difference between training and keynote speeches. This is especially true when it comes to power-point as you have noted.
Here is my advice for key-note speeches if power-point must be used:
1: Close OutlookClose Outlook when you are showing PowerPoint slides. Otherwise, email alerts pop up.
2: Slideshow Mode
Always use the slideshow mode: it makes your slides easier to see.
3: Standing in projector beam
Always avoid standing in the projector beam, as it is distracting.
4: Bullets as hooks
Think of the bullets on your slides as hooks. By that I mean that the bullet should remind you of your talking points but also incite curiosity in your audience. Use questions, alliteration (repetition of consonants) or juxtaposition of ideas to intrigue the audience. For example:
· Why Automate Processes?
· License to Fail
· Magnet Markets
· Customers: Faithful or Fickle?
· Plan or Wing It?
· Tragedy or Triumph?
5: Use more images
Incorporate images and negative visual space. Break up all the linear text on your slides with stories, examples, images & metaphors. Otherwise, you are not engaging your audience’s right hemisphere, the brain’s center of imagination. That’s when our minds start to drift, in spite of the fact that the data may be important for us to learn and understand. Use more imagery coupled with metaphor. The image search engine that I use is image.google.com. You can save the image files you find to your hard drive and insert them into PowerPoint. Use files that are between 30 – 100K for good clarity without bloating your PowerPoint file.
6: Simplify text
Most PowerPoint slides are loaded with way too much text. Distill your slides down into simple bullet points with 4 or 6 words per bullet max. Instead, think of the bullets as hooks.
Thanks again!
Nick,
Thanks for the post!
You are definitely right about the difference between training and keynote speeches. This is especially true when it comes to power-point as you have noted.
Here is my advice for key-note speeches if power-point must be used:
1: Close OutlookClose Outlook when you are showing PowerPoint slides. Otherwise, email alerts pop up.
2: Slideshow Mode
Always use the slideshow mode: it makes your slides easier to see.
3: Standing in projector beam
Always avoid standing in the projector beam, as it is distracting.
4: Bullets as hooks
Think of the bullets on your slides as hooks. By that I mean that the bullet should remind you of your talking points but also incite curiosity in your audience. Use questions, alliteration (repetition of consonants) or juxtaposition of ideas to intrigue the audience. For example:
· Why Automate Processes?
· License to Fail
· Magnet Markets
· Customers: Faithful or Fickle?
· Plan or Wing It?
· Tragedy or Triumph?
5: Use more images
Incorporate images and negative visual space. Break up all the linear text on your slides with stories, examples, images & metaphors. Otherwise, you are not engaging your audience’s right hemisphere, the brain’s center of imagination. That’s when our minds start to drift, in spite of the fact that the data may be important for us to learn and understand. Use more imagery coupled with metaphor. The image search engine that I use is image.google.com. You can save the image files you find to your hard drive and insert them into PowerPoint. Use files that are between 30 – 100K for good clarity without bloating your PowerPoint file.
6: Simplify text
Most PowerPoint slides are loaded with way too much text. Distill your slides down into simple bullet points with 4 or 6 words per bullet max. Instead, think of the bullets as hooks.
Thanks again!
Thought provoking post, but I must say to me a good PowerPoint presentation is key for a great keynote address. I recently sat thru an hour keynote at our annual conference and the speaker (renowned academic and author) didn’t use one slide. He rambled on 90 minutes and without visual support it was hard to pay attention and stay focused. Audiences are accustomed having a multimedia presentation these days and just talking doesn’t hold their attention.
I agree with all of Terry’s tips (especially #4) and your recommendation for the Presentation Zen book. Slides are often poorly done, but when done effectively they can take your speech to the next level.