TED’s secret to great public speaking | Chris Anderson

Chris Anderson is the head and curator of TED.

So if there’s one person who knows the secret to a great speech it’s him.

In this video, he explains in that there is no such thing as a ‘TED Talk formula’.

But from all of the talks that Chris has listened to and watched, he does point out that there is one thing that they all have in common: A speaker transferring an idea across to an audience.

“Your number one task as a speaker is to transfer into your listeners’ minds an extraordinary gift, a strange and beautiful object that we call an idea.”

He describes an idea as being:

“A pattern of information that helps you understand and navigate the world.”

Ideas can help change how people think about the world and can impact on the actions that the audience take.

Chris then goes on to give his four guidelines on how to build an idea inside the mind of your audience:

1. “Limit your talk to one major idea”

• Don’t overload the audience with loads of different ideas, focus on the single idea that you are most passionate about.
• Share examples and paint the picture for the audience to give them context to your idea.  

2. “Give your listeners a reason to care”

• It’s all about creating curiosity.
  

• Identify why something doesn’t make sense by asking the audience questions to get them thinking.
• Creating a knowledge gap, the audience will need that gap to be bridged through your idea.

3. “Build your idea”

• Use concepts that the audience already understands.
• Language is a huge tool when helping people understand your idea, but don’t use complicated and technical language, what language will your audience understand?
• Using metaphors and analogies help people understand complex ideas and can be a great tool to get your idea across.

4. “Make your idea worth sharing”

• When crafting your speech, ask yourself who the idea benefits.
  

• TED don’t want this to benefit the speaker or a related business or organisation, they want it to benefit the audience.
• Will your idea brighten up someone’s day, change their perspective on a subject for the better, and/or inspire someone to do something differently?

In this short video, Chris Anderson is able to convey the importance of creating an idea and how to share it with an audience in the most effective way.

I use his 4 guidelines regularly when I am working on creating a new speech.