Tag Archives for speaking

HUMOR & Top 3 TED Talks to watch when you need a pick-me-up.

Commentary by Dr. Whitesel: TED Talks are a great resource to learn communication skills, especially if you were a speaker or a preacher. Here are three videos that are exceptional examples curated by Winnie Wang of The Daily Californian.

Top 3 TED Talks to watch when you need a pick-me-up.

by Winnie Wang, The Daily Californian, 4/21/22.

Inside the mind of a master procrastinator

…Tim Urban hits all the checkmarks in his speech: funny, informative, relatable. If you’re looking to laugh and learn a valuable lesson at the same time, this is the perfect video.

… How to speak so people want to listen

… Julian Treasure’s insight on how to get anyone to listen to you while listening to others taught me how to empathize with people in a way I had never tried before… To top it all off, it comes with a handy acronym that makes these tips easy to remember.

Why people believe they can’t draw

… Graham Shaw walks the audience through a couple of simple techniques to draw cartoons. In doing so, he demonstrates how within a few minutes anyone can learn how to draw, thereby dispelling the belief that you can’t draw. This process offers valuable insight into how to view new skills and challenges in the world.

Read more at … https://www.dailycal.org/2022/04/21/top-3-ted-talks-to-watch-when-you-need-a-pick-me-up/

SPEAKING & Your Audience Tunes Out After 10 Minutes. Here’s How To Keep Their Attention.

by Carmine Gallo, Forbes Magazine, 2/28/19.

Cognitive scientists have a reasonably good idea of when audiences will stop listening to a presentation. It occurs at the 10-minute mark...Neuroscientists have found that the best way to re-engage a person’s attention when it begins to wane is to change up the format of the content.

1. Introduce Characters

There aren’t too many commercially successful one-person plays. Few people can pull it off…. include members of the team. Hand off a portion of the presentation…

2. Show Videos

If you can’t bring someone else along, do the next big thing and show a video… Apple does this with nearly every keynote when they show a video of chief designer, Jony Ive, describing the features of a particular product…

3. Use Props 

Steve Jobs was a master at using props. In 1984, Jobs didn’t have to pull the first Macintosh out of a black bag like a magician. But he did. In 2001, Jobs didn’t have to pull the first iPod out of the pocket of his jeans. But he did. In 2008, Jobs didn’t have to pull the first MacBook Air from a manila envelope. But he did. Props are unexpected. They get attention.

4. Give Demos

Former Apple evangelist and venture capitalist, Guy Kawasaki, says demonstrations should start with “shock and awe.” In other words, don’t build up to a crescendo. Show off the coolest thing about your product in the first sixty seconds…

5. Invite Questions

A presentation shouldn’t be about you. It’s about your audience and how your product or service will improve their lives… Change it up by pausing and inviting questions before you move on to the next section.

Read more at … https://www.forbes.com/sites/carminegallo/2019/02/28/your-audience-tunes-out-after-10-minutes-heres-how-to-keep-their-attention/#15109dee7364

NEED-BASED OUTREACH & RE-FRESH YOUR CHURCH’s OUTREACH seminar… teaming w/ former director World Methodist Evangelism Institute of Candler School of Theology.

IMG_0300.jpg

Strategizing recently in #Atlanta w/ friend & former director of #WorldMethodistEvangelismInstitute at #CandlerSchoolOfTheology. DM 4 more on our

“RE-fresh Your Church’s Outreach” Seminar: 

  • Session 1- Starting Need-based Evangelism in a Local Church (@BobWhitesel)
  • Session 2-Refreshing Your Personal Witness (Dr. Worrell)

For more info on your new combined seminar email: bob@ChurchHealth.net

SERMONS & The Science Behind TED’s 18-Minute Rule

The Science Behind TED’s 18 -Minute Rule

by Carmine Gallo, author of Talk Like TED: The 9 Public Speaking Secrets of the World’s Top Minds (March 2014, St. Martin’s Press)

“TED curator Chris Anderson explained the organization’s thinking this way:

It [18 minutes] is long enough to be serious and short enough to hold people’s attention. It turns out that this length also works incredibly well online. It’s the length of a coffee break. So, you watch a great talk, and forward the link to two or three people. It can go viral, very easily. The 18-minute length also works much like the way Twitter forces people to be disciplined in what they write. By forcing speakers who are used to going on for 45 minutes to bring it down to 18, you get them to really think about what they want to say. What is the key point they want to communicate? It has a clarifying effect. It brings discipline.

The 18-minute rule also works because the brain is an energy hog. The average adult human brain only weighs about three pounds, but it consumes an inordinate amount of glucose, oxygen, and blood flow. As the brain takes in new information and is forced to process it, millions of neurons are firing at once, burning energy and leading to fatigue and exhaustion. Researchers at Texas Christian University are finding that the act of listening can be as equally draining as thinking hard about a subject. Dr. Paul King calls it ‘cognitive backlog.’ Like weights, he says, the more information we are asked to take in, the heavier and heavier it gets. Eventually, we drop it all, failing to remember anything we’ve been told. In King’s own research, he found that graduate students recall more of the information they learn when they go to class three days a week for 50 minutes instead of one day a week for three hours. Although most students say they’d prefer to get the class over with at once, they retain more information when receiving the information in shorter amounts of time…”

Read more at .,. https://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20140313205730-5711504-the-science-behind-ted-s-18-minute-rule?_mSplash=1