Communications & Consulting

This month we turn our attention to the issue of how to get someone’s attention in the context of a presentation.  We read a lot of books and lately Millie and I have fixated on a great book titled “Brain Rules” by super-smart guy, John Medina.

Medina’s credibility on the subject matter of our brains is of the highest caliber.  According to his website, www.johnmedina.com “JOHN J. MEDINA is a developmental molecular biologist and research consultant. He is an affiliate Professor of Bioengineering at the University of Washington School of Medicine. He also is the director of the Brain Center for Applied Learning Research at Seattle Pacific University.” 

For me, that makes him probably the smartest guy ever -- or at least top ten. 

In his book he reveals rules for how our brains work.  Each and every one of these rules go a long way toward making us far better communicators and totally kick butt presenters.  We are going to pay attention this month to three of his rules:

Rule #4: We don’t pay attention to Boring Things 

Rule #9: Stimulate more of the senses

Rule # 10: Vision trumps all other senses

Before we focus in specifically on attention getters, consider what Dr. Medina suggests for your presentations:  He says to toss your PowerPoint presentations--at least the version of PowerPoint presentations that are killing us slowly, presentation after presentation.  Here are a few reasons that our current manifestations of PowerPoint presentations ignore the realities of the human brain:

So the rules are to . . . break the rules.  How will we do that?  This month we will do that by starting with the beginning of your next presentation: how to get the attention of your audience!

Go back to the story of the woman in her grandmother’s kitchen baking brownies

1. •Did it make you want a brownie? 
   

2. •Did it get your attention and make you want to listen for more? 
   

3. Take a look again and let’s examine how this attention getter follow Dr. Medina’s rules.

This is an attention getter a student used in my classroom for a demonstration speech on how to make brownies.  If you look back at her story you will see that she did an amazing job stimulating all my senses (in my mind’s eye):  I could see it, touch it, hear it, smell it, and I could certainly taste it --  even better I could RELATE to her story because it reminded me of my mother’s kitchen and watching her bake when I was a little girl.  My ability to relate to her story brought about a feeling of nostalgia and suddenly, her speech for me was about more than making a pan of brownies.

Her story fulfilled the three rules we are working with today.  She kept it engaging and interesting instead of boring and expected (“Today I am going to make brownies.  I really like brownies.  They are good”).  She also stimulated all my senses and visually I could SEE what she was telling me in my imagination. 

I am always on the lookout for GREAT attention getters.  One profession I have found that does a fantastic job of this are  church ministers.  I suspect they have a secret website where they share great and amazing stories to relate to their Sunday morning sermon because the minister at our church knocks it out of the park each and every Sunday with his attention getter. 

A few months back his sermon was on being unselfish.   He began with a video clip that highlights the unique and amazing relationship between Rick and Dick Hoyt -- father and son.  If you have not seen this before, I have included it for you to watch. There are other numerous versions on youtube as well.  WARNING: get a kleenex.

For the purposes of Chris’ sermon that day, this video did everything he could not do with words.  By taking a step back and allowing the audience to learn about Rick and Dick Hoyt in this short video he managed to pull us into the meaning behind his message.

On other Sunday mornings, Chris might start with an interesting historical story, a story from his own life, he might read a letter he got from a member of the church or begin with some humor.  If he came in each and every Sunday with a video to start things off, it would get old after a while.  What does Chris seem to know that so many other people fail to get?  I don’t know if Chris has read Brain Rules, but he understands the basics of what Dr. Medina has spent his career studying. 

Rule #4: We don’t pay attention to Boring Things 

Rule #9: Stimulate more of the senses

Rule # 10: Vision trumps all other senses

(if you noticed the other rules from Dr. Medina, you will see that I am using rule #5 here: Repeat to Remember)

“The addictive nature of web browsing can leave you with an attention span of nine seconds - the same as a goldfish,” said the BBC in 2002. “Our attention span gets affected by the way we do things,” Ted Selker, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology told the British news agency. “If we spend our time flitting from one thing to another..., we can get into a habit of not concentrating.”

1. 1.After just 10 minutes your audience’s attention will begin to STEADILY drop.
   

2. 2.Our presentations fail because we have TOO MUCH INFORMATION and not enough time connecting the dots.  “Lots of feeding, very little digestion” --Dr. Medina himself
   

3. 3.We represent our ideas with text instead of pictures.

With these two examples and Dr. Medina’s rules in mind, let’s take a look at our own presentations and those we have been a part of as audience members:

1. How do you get the attention of your audience to begin a presentation?  If you say:

1. a.Good Morning Ladies and Gentlemen...
   

2. b.My name is _____________
   

3. c.thank you for having us/than you for being here
   

4. d.Today I would like to talk about
   

then it is time to rethink your attention getter.  These things are BORING.  They certainly don’t STIMULATE the senses and they are not VISUAL.  

2. What presentations have you been a part of in the past that did captivate your audience?  Note them here and see if they meet Dr. Medina’s three rules

Click on any of the following rules for more information:

Rule #1: Exercise boosts brain power.

Rule #2: The human brain evolved, too.

Rule #3: Every brain is wired differently.

Rule #4: We don't pay attention to boring things.

Rule #5: Repeat to remember.

Rule #6: Remember to repeat.

Rule #7: Sleep well, think well.

Rule #8: Stressed brains don't learn the same way.

Rule #9: Stimulate more of the senses.

Rule #10: Vision trumps all other senses.

Rule #11: Male and female brains are different.

Rule #12: We are powerful and natural explorers.

3. Consider what you already know about corporate audiences (you are in this group as you are sometimes in this role, too) and note them below:

If you are at a loss as to how to analyze a corporate audience let me give you a few items:

1. 1.Corporate Audiences are easily bored, easily distracted, and likely to be impaired (hungry, tired, stressed).  If you have ever looked around during a presentation and seen people texting on their phone, playing tic tac toe on their handout, or dying a slow and agonizing death, then you understand my point.
   

2. 2.They respond well to multi media that is WELL DONE.  We have mentioned slide share before in our tutorials and on our blog (www.bravocc.blogspot.com).  There are some AMAZING presentations on there to give you a sense of a multi media experience that is WELL DONE.  One of our favorites are those from ethos3 (www.ethos3.com) Take a look at some of their work and you will see how they are able to stimulate your senses just using a slide show!
   

3. 3.Audiences are self-centered.  And they should be.  The problem is that presenters forget that the presentation is about the audience -- not themselves.  If you can find a way to RELATE to your audience, you will win their attention and their business.  But this takes TIME & EFFORT. 
   

4. 4.People love a well crafted story.  I keep a document on my desktop of good stories I hear from other places that I might use in future presentations or articles.  Stories captivate our attention and make us want to hear more.  A GREAT story will also stay in the minds of our audience far longer than a statistic, pie chart, or table that you labored over in Excel for two hours.  People don’t RESPOND to data or charts or tables. 
   

Taken together these things will let you get off to a good start in your next presentation.

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