The TED acronym stands for "Technology, Entertainment, Design". It is also the name of a non-profit organization whose mission is to spread interesting ideas via short presentations called TED talks. The organization started its activities with a TED conference in 1984, focused on technology, entertainment and design. Since that time, the scope of TED talks has expanded significantly. Today, www.ted.com includes more than 1,500 presentations from more than 1,300 speakers divided into three hundred topics.
Especially thanks to the Internet, TED talks have become a cultural phenomenon and a model for public speaking. Millions of people worldwide watch the talks. TED speakers have 18 minutes at most to share an interesting message. If you want to get inspired by the presentation skills of the best TED talks speakers, read the book called How to Deliver a TED Talk: Secrets of the World's Most Inspiring Presentations released in September 2013 in an expanded edition. The book is written by Jeremey Donovan, vice president of marketing at Gartner, and a TEDx speaker and organizer.
Inc.com recently summarized the following key points of this book. A review of the book was also published on the Czech web finmag.cz. Both of these sources agree that the book aptly describes the exceptional presentation skills of a TED talks speaker.
5 secrets of the best TED talks speakers
One idea
The best speakers choose only one major idea. They ask themselves: What is the best story I can tell?
It's not about you
A good speaker knows that his presentation is not about him, but about the audience. His aim is to show the audience something he has learned and what he considers as important. His main asset is not in theoretically learned presentation skills, but in his enthusiasm. Thanks to his enthusiasm, he is not nervous and speaks to the audience as if he were talking to his close friends.
Opening question
Try to open your presentation with a provocative question or statistic and see how you get the audience's attention immediately. The answer to this question should be the key topic of your speech. If you answer a series of questions, the answer to all of them should be one and the same.
Key phrase
The best speeches include the repetition of a phrase, the aim of which is to explain the main message of the speech and to get the audience to take action. It should be a phrase your audiences can embrace and apply to their lives.
Storytelling
The most successful speeches take the form of stories. They start with a description of what the speaker's life looked like before an important change. Then, the speaker describes the importance of the change and the opportunities that are opening up in the future thanks to that change.
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