Technical presentations are the most challenging type of presentations. Giving effective presentations of any kind is already challenging. Add to that the challenge of conveying technical information and you have a task that very few people on this planet can accomplish effectively. How often do you attend ineffective boring technical presentations? Do you remember giving one? I do. The reason I was ineffective is because I was conveying facts. This seems okay for technical presentations but the problem is that facts alone don’t engage and facts alone are not remembered.
A few years ago, I attended a presentation by Brett Rutledge he put this very well by saying that when we communicate, we do it with three types of information:
- Facts
- Symbols
- Emotions
Without emotions we won’t remember facts and symbols. He illustrated this by asking the audience different facts about 9/11. The audience knew number of victims and other facts accurately. Then he asked facts about another tragic event. Nobody remembered. The difference? The press covered 9/11 not only with facts but also with emotions while the second tragic event was only covered with facts. Technical presentations focus on facts (numbers, explanations, cause and effect, etc) and symbols (metaphors, diagrams, etc) but completely leave out emotions. Do you know what the best way to communicate emotions is? Stories. Great science communicators constantly use stories to bring facts and symbols to life. I remember reading in the book “Adam’s Curse: A Future without Men” by Bryan Sykes, how it was discovered that humans have 46 chromosomes and not 48 chromosomes as previously thought. He not only mentions this fact but by telling the story behind the discovery, the fact comes to life and science becomes enjoyable.
If you want your audience to understand, care, remember, act upon, and repeat your message it is not enough to address their logical brain with facts and symbols. If you link those facts and symbols to emotions by telling stories, you will become one of those rare people that can give a technical presentation effectively… I am still working on it.
Make an impact,
Pablo
This blog post was originally published in 2012.