Most of the ideas die at the pitch. That’s why it is so important to know how to do it the best way possible. If you have an idea worth spreading, you better be prepared to do a great presentation.
In the last few months my team and I were working on a new idea. After 6 weeks we needed to pitch the idea. If the idea was to flourish and survive, it was better to be prepared.
Learn from the greats.
Before preparing for any presentation I watch and rewrite my notes from Garr Reynold’s presentation at google. Garr is the author of presentation zen and presentation zen design. If you follow his advices you are closer to get a great presentation. So instead of doing a bad job writing of his teaching, I have embed the video here - bookmark now!
Always two there are: a master, and an apprentice
When I mention learning from great presenters, Garr Reynolds and Nancy Duarte, comes to mind. But as any craft, art, science or anything worth teaching, there are always two: a master, and an apprentice. Garr and Nancy were once apprentice as well.
Nancy has done some great work analysing and studying the structure of great presentations. We used Nancy’s teaching to shape our pitch into, what I believe was, one of the best presentation I have given.
"What it is" versus "What it could be" - the shape of a great presentation
Nancy has discovered the presentation form that great presenters have, to convey their messages, their Idea, their passion. In the following presentation at TED she shows the structure by analysing two great presentations: Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s speech from the March on Washington and the presentation of the IPhone by Steve Jobs. One more time instead of doing a bad job describing her teaching, here is the video of her presentation:
Nancy Duarte's talk at TEDx East from Duarte Design on Vimeo.
A Call to Action - How we used the presentation form?
Back to our pitch. When we were rehearsing for our presentation, we drew a line to keep track of our time, but little did we know how helpful it was meant to be. We started analyzing the presentation shape. When we saw that the shape was flat for too long, we change our presentation to follow the presentation structure discovered and described by Nancy. Every “"What is" was followed by a "What could be”, a surprise, a better possible future, a problem to be eliminated or a great feature from our idea.
But the best advice from Nancy it’s how to end a presentation, a call to Action. A call to Action by describing how the world could be when you and the audience join forces and solved the big problem. Because the hero is not the presenter, the hero is the audience. Because without them, without their help, without their support all the ideas die.
