by Pierre Morsa —
Ikigai is a Japanese concept that means “a reason for being.” Ikigai is the intersection between what you love, what you are good at, what you can be paid for and what the world needs. If you ever want to speak at TED or TEDx event, you should find the ikigai of your presentation. It should be at the intersection of: What you love, or in the context of a presentation, what you really care about.
by Pierre Morsa —
If you ever talked with me about my favorite TEDx talks, then I am sure I mentioned the late Hans Rösling, one of my all-time favorite TED speakers. On paper, he didn’t really start with an advantage; he spoke English with a strong foreign accent, and his key topic was statistics and demographics, something most of us associate with good sleep, not with great presentations. Yet, Hans’ enthusiasm and passion on stage, combined with his unique way to use numbers to tell meaningful stories, meant that his presentations were always a high point of any TED conference.
by Pierre Morsa —
Some people think that to make a great TEDx presentation, they should learn their text by heart. Our collective experience as coaches shows that it’s a good solution only IF: You like to know your speech word for word and it fits your personal style and you know how to do it properly. If you don’t meet one of these conditions, then it’s best to avoid learning your text by heart.
by Pierre Morsa —
We worked with a lot of TEDx events over the years, and some of the talks have accumulated hundreds of thousands views, some even getting above the 1 million mark. Here are the top 5 talks of events we participated to, in number of views. In fifth place we have Jean-Gabriel Causse, speaking at TEDx Dunkerque, with nearly 600,000 views. Color me shocked, but his is talk about the power of colors is full of interesting details.
by Pierre Morsa —
A few months ago I recorded an episode for our video channel “The Business Presentation Revolution.” Initially, my content was too long to fit in the 3 to 4 minutes running time that we had planned. Looking at my script, I realized that many sentences could be simplified, some details omitted, and the structure streamlined. After several dry runs and rewrites, we finally managed to get the video down to 3 minutes.
by Phil Waknell —
Is there a perfect recipe for a successful presentation? No. Partly it depends on the audience and the context: a boardroom presentation shouldn’t look like a TED talk, even if the subject is the same. And different presentations at the same event – a conference, a demo day, an Executive Committee meeting – should also look different from each other, because otherwise none of them will stand out. So if there is no magic formula, are there at least some key ingredients we should always include?
by Joe Ross —
You know that mental image you have of what you think you should be like on stage? Yes, that one based upon a mash-up of some of your favorite TED speakers whom you are certain you’ll never be as good as. Well, forget it! Welcome to the Post-TED style of authenticity centered presentation. In my last article, Wash that TED right out of your head: New Post-TED presentation, we explored some of the foundational reasons which many are experiencing, and what I call, “TED-like style Fatigue”.
by Pierre Morsa —
One of the most stressful moments when speaking at an event is actually not during your presentation, but the hours before your presentation. To some speakers, the wait can be so stressful that they completely lose their presence. As mother nature didn’t give humans an appropriate instinctive response to face the stress of a presentation, they adopt one of the basic survival techniques for protection: they fight the public, they flee, or they “play dead”.