ted talk how to do a good presentation

• Agency of record
• AI at SketchDeck
• Creative strategy
• Design on demand
• Design at scale
• Design for startups
• Embedded Teams
• Communications
• Sales enablement
• Presentations
• Startups & entrepreneurs
• Video & motion graphics
• Design process
• Partnership & pricing

How to build a TED Talk-worthy presentation

If you’ve experienced the challenge of developing and/or delivering an important presentation to a good-sized audience, there’s a chance you hoped it would go as well as a TED Talk—those incredibly well regarded presentations first popularized by the TED Foundation in the mid 2000s. TED Talks are often considered the “Everest” of engaging, informative presentations. Killing it on the TED stage is significant.

So with the intention of acting as your presentation sherpa, this article offers 8 steps to give you the best chance of building and delivering a TED Talk-worthy presentation.

TED Talks. People listen.   ‍

TED is a nonprofit with a mission to “spread ideas.” It began as a one-off conference (on technology, entertainment and design) in 1984—eventually evolving to a point where it launched an audio and podcast series called TED Talks .

From the history page on their site:

“ The first six TED Talks were posted online on June 27, 2006. By September, they had reached more than one million views. TED Talks proved so popular that in 2007, the TED website was relaunched around them, giving a global audience free access to some of the world’s greatest thinkers, leaders and teachers.”

As a result of their success and popularity, TED Talks have inspired many other presentation-centric activities and events—such as conference keynotes and investor fundraising “demo days.”

What makes a TED Talk?

TED presenters arrive from all walks of life, and although their TED Talks span a wide range of topics, they all share a few characteristics:

• 18 minutes or less. This is a TED rule, initiated by their founder, Chris Anderson, and also backed by scientific research . The basic premise is 18 minutes is long enough to do the job, but short enough to avoid having your audience begin to lose interest.
• A big idea, worth sharing. Again, straight from TED. But expecting to deliver a compelling presentation that relays several meaty ideas in under 20 minutes is wishful thinking. By focusing on a single, compelling concept—you ensure maximum impact and can more successfully communicate key points.
• Large audience, sizable venue. One-to-one, or one-to-few presentations delivered in a meeting or conference room play by different rules. We’re not addressing those here.

8 steps to the TED Talk mountain top

TED Talks are so well done they can almost seem magical. But it isn’t wizardry that makes them so compelling. In fact, there’s a formula you can follow—8 steps that will allow your presentations to deliver similar impact:

Step 1: Know your audience

This is fundamental for maximizing the success of any communication. In order to relay your “big idea” in the most effective way, you need to understand what your audience knows and cares about. Then tailor your presentation appropriately.

If you’re presenting to a new or relatively unknown audience, there are some quick ways to gather intel—such as researching and reading an applicable Reddit thread, or having a quick conversation with someone who’s more familiar.

Step 2. Scout your venue

As a general rule, the background of your slides should match the room in which you’re presenting. It’s not uncommon for large venues to be darkened so the visual focus is on what’s on stage. In some instances, however, stage environments can be illuminated or even a specific color or color theme. Matching slide backgrounds to the specifics of your venue can be very effective—allowing eyes to be drawn to the presentation’s content, not the full outline of the slides themselves.

Keep audience viewing angles and distance in mind as well. You want them on the edge of their seats, but not because they’re leaning forward and squinting to try and make out your tiny words.

Step 3. Think about your presentation as a whole

Your presentation is a story. It should flow from start to finish, and you should understand the primary points you want to make along the way. Look for the “big opportunities” and use your slides to truly highlight them. Not every slide should “Wow!” Some should be supportive and lead up to your key points—just like scenes in a movie plot. If every slide (or every scene) is intense, nothing will stand out. Outlines, index cards or sticky notes can be helpful at the early stages when you’re planning the arc of your story.

Step 4. One concept per slide (okay, maybe two)

To successfully make a point, you need your audience to be able to focus in and “get it.” So instead of asking a single slide to carry the load of relaying multiple concepts, put the second (or third or fourth) on their own slides. It can even make sense to relay a single concept across multiple slides. This allows the speaker to spend more time on it without losing momentum.

In some instances, you may be starting with a recycled slide your presenter happens to love—although you can see it’s relaying too many things. In such a case, ask the presenter to literally present the slide to you, and listen for the one (or maybe two) key messaging concepts they’re trying to relate. Build the new slide content to support those, and put everything else in the speaker notes.

Working with a client to distill a keynote’s story down to a few big, clarified points can be difficult work. But if we’re successful, the result is truly transformative. David Mack Co-founder, SketchDeck

Step 5. Minimalize

The slides are there to support your presenter—not to steal the show. The focus should be on speaker. Think single graphics and/or few words over phrase. Think phrase over sentence. Sentence over… (don’t even THINK about multiple sentences). You don’t want the audience to start reading, and stop listening.

The slide content is supporting the message, not relaying it. Everything on your slides should be meaningful. No placeholders, watermarks, headers or footers. If you haven’t determined this already, using your standard company presentation template probably isn’t a good idea. (Looking for an event or presentation specific presentation template? SketchDeck can help with that!)

Step 6. Maintain top quality

This is a premium presentation, and it needs to look and feel that way. No grainy photos, watermarked stock images, family snapshots, placeholder text or clip art. Just. Don’t. Do it. This is a day for Tiffany’s, not Target.

Step 7. Consider motion

Videos and animation can add a different and engaging dimension to your presentation. If done well, they offer a level of cinematic drama that can enhance the magic of a live performance.  But keep the previous steps in mind if you go this route. Every visual element needs a reason to be there. Everything must help tell the story.

Step 8. Get a great presenter

The reality is a speaker can make or break a presentation. A bad presenter can ruin a perfect presentation. And as much as it pains us to write this, a great presenter doesn’t really need slides (see Step 5 above). Therefore, if you’re presenting, practice—ideally in front of someone who will be brutally honest. You should also consider hiring a coach.

SketchDeck recommends taking the presentation to a small, controlled audience a week or so before the event to see how it delivers. Not only is it a great practice opportunity, it allows time for last minute adjustments.

And most importantly, hear feedback and adapt accordingly. If you’re not the presenter, ask whoever is to do the same. Great presenters are not born. It takes work, and the vast majority of that work is done before a speaker steps on stage.

It usually takes me more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech. Mark Twain

The big day

The audience is rapt… pin drop silent. Elegant slides flip in perfect timing behind your delivery. You pause—at just the right point—confidently adjusting the cuffs of your black turtleneck.

“They’re mine,” you think. And you’re right.

Fired up to blow away your next audience? So are we. SketchDeck would love to partner with you to help make your next presentation TED Talk-worthy.

Additional resources

https://www.ted.com/talks/nancy_duarte_the_secret_structure_of_great_talks

https://synapsiscreative.com/5-best-slide-decks-tedx/

https://blog.ted.com/10-tips-for-better-slide-decks/

Rob Lewczyk

• Originally published on January 30, 2020

Redefine what's possible with SketchDeck.

Subscribe to our newsletter, redefine what’s possible with sketchdeck., related reading.

7 TED Talks on how to improve your presentations

It’s a hard truth of the digital age: Capturing and keeping another person’s attention is getting more difficult. While the empirical evidence on the average person's attention span during a presentation is limited, the phrase "death by PowerPoint" rings all too true. IT leaders know from experience that audiences lack patience for ineffective speakers. That’s why it’s more important than ever for all of us to be thoughtful about how to deliver information.

[ Which IT roles are vanishing? Read our article,  4 dying IT jobs . ]

Thankfully for CIOs and other leaders in training, there are abundant tips from skilled presenters on how to elevate your performance before your next appearance – on stage at a conference, before the board or executive team, or even in front of your own organization. This no-nonsense advice will help you win – and keep – your audience.

1. The secret structure of great talks

Speaker: Nancy Duarte

Why do we sit with rapt attention listening to a compelling story yet find ourselves nodding off during most presentations? Communication expert Nancy Duarte spent time digging into the best stories from history, cinema, and literature – and also suffering through some of the worst presentations she could get her hands on – to explore the differences and come up with a winning model for great presentations. In this talk, Duarte explores the secrets and structures of the greatest communicators and their public speaking efforts – from Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech to Steve Job’s public unveiling of the iPhone. She shares with the audience the common storytelling structure utilized by compelling presenters that you can apply to your next effort.

2. The beauty of data visualization

Speaker: David McCandless

Data is the lifeblood of IT, the business, and many an IT leader presentation. But on its own, data can be lifeless – or worse, ineffective or misleading.

British data journalist David McCandless is skilled at transforming complex data sets into engaging data visualizations that are not only lovely to look at but also instantly bring to life the stories within the data. Data is not the new oil, he says, but the new soil – “a fertile, creative medium” – if you know how to manipulate and design it. McCandless shares his tips for visualizing information so that an audience can see the patterns and connections that matter.

3. How to speak so that people want to listen

Speaker: Julian Treasure

The first thing IT leaders consider when preparing for a presentation might be the visuals, the words, or even the best outfit to wear – all important components. But they may be overlooking one of the most important instruments in their toolkits: Their voices. Sound and communication expert (and five-time TED speaker) Julian Treasure argues that what you say may be less important than how you say it, and outlines some of the most important aspects of vocal delivery.

4. Your body language may shape who you are

Speaker: Amy Cuddy

With nearly 50 million views, social psychologist Amy Cuddy’s now well-known TED Global 2012 Talk can help IT leaders harness another important aspect of presenting: body language. Her talk is not simply about how body language impacts how others see us, but also how we see ourselves. In this video, IT leaders can learn all about the “power pose” – a way of standing confidently like Superman or Wonder Woman. While there was some criticism of the science behind Cuddy’s research about power positions and their impact on hormones, which she has since refuted, IT leaders can try the posing advice out for themselves before stepping on the stage or into the boardroom.

Related content

How to give more persuasive presentations: A Q&A with Nancy Duarte

Stepping onto the TED or TEDx stage — or speaking in front of any group of people, for that matter — is truly nerve-wracking. Will you remember everything you wanted to say, or get so discombobulated that you skip over major points? Will the audience be receptive to your ideas, or will you notice a guy in row three nodding off to sleep?

Presentation expert Nancy Duarte , who gave the TED Talk “ The secret structure of great talks ,” has built her career helping people express their ideas in presentations. The author of  Slide:ology  and  Resonate , Duarte has just released a new book through the Harvard Business Review:  The HBR Guide to Persuasive Presentations .

What would you say are the three keys to giving a great presentation?

The number one thing, I think, is to be audience-centric. To take the time to think through who the audience is and develop all your material from a place of empathy toward them. You’re asking them to adopt your idea, which means they may have to abandon a belief they hold as true — and that’s hard. So, know your audience — take a walk in their shoes. What keeps them up at night? How are they wired to resist your message? Most presenters are consumed with preparing their content rapidly, which makes the material about their own narrow perspective. By flipping that paradigm to an audience-centric approach, your material will resonate and the audience can feel a deeper connection to you and your material.

Number two, you need to understand your role in the presentation. So many people feel like they’re the central figure — kind of like the hero of the story — because they’re the one talking the most. But in reality, your role is that of a mentor — you should be giving the audience a magical gift or a special tool, or helping them get unstuck in some way. You have to defer to your audience. When you put your idea out there for an audience to contend with — if they reject your idea, your idea will die. You have to think of it as, “The speaker needs the audience more than the audience needs the speaker.” Then you’ll start to approach a material with your audience in mind – you’ll have more of a stance of humility than one of arrogance. That will help you create the kind of movement needed to get your idea to spread.

And then the third thing — wrap your content in story. A story serves like the sugarcoating on the outside of a pill in some ways — it just makes it go down easier. If you look at preliterate generations for thousands and thousands of years, stories would pass down for generation after generation after generation — and stay almost completely intact. Yet, a lot of people can’t remember the last presentation they sat through. So, using principles of story — the tension and release that happens in a story — that’s what will help persuade the audience toward your idea.

What do you feel like you learned from giving your own TED Talk?

I learned so much. Being the “Presentation Lady,” I knew I couldn’t suck at it. The hardest part was getting [my talk] to fit within this finite amount of time. So I trimmed and trimmed, keeping in mind that you still have to nail why this is important to the audience. I had a person coach me and point out places where I could trim. “You took too long here, and that made this part of emphasis too long.” I worked with the timer counting up until I knew I was within the time window — then what I did was work with the timer counting down so I’d know, “When I’m a fourth of the way through, I should be on this slide. When I’m halfway through, I need to be on this slide.” I created markers in my mind so I would know how I was running on time. Sure enough, I finished the talk and I had six seconds left on the clock.

It was a great experience for me because I hadn’t gone through it myself. I’d coached people through it but — wow — to actually be a victim was interesting. I learned the power of rehearsing. If you rehearse really, really, really well — it looks improvisational. Some people rehearse to a point where they’re robotic, and they sound like they have memorized their presentation and didn’t take it to the next level. Going from sounding memorized and canned to sounding natural is a lot of work.

So, the classic advice for stage fright is to imagine the audience in their underwear. What do you recommend people do to calm their nerves?

I don’t usually get nervous, but when I got on [the TED] stage, I was nervous because it’s pretty high stakes. I recommend doing some breathing exercises — breathe in as deep as you can, and then take a couple more big gasps. Then, release it really slowly. That calms my heart down. But my favorite piece of advice isn’t my own — it’s from a guy named Nick Morgan. He said, “What you need to do right before you walk on stage is think of someone that you love dearly.” Doing that, I felt the chemistry in my whole body change. My shoulders relaxed and my heart melted. That feeling of affection makes your body calm itself down. That’s a really great way to stop stage fright.

What is the best way to start creating a presentation?

My best advice is to not start in PowerPoint. Presentation tools force you to think through information linearly, and you really need to start by thinking of the whole instead of the individual lines. I encourage people to use 3×5 note cards or sticky notes — write one idea per note. I tape mine up on the wall and then study them. Then I arrange them and rearrange them — just work and work until the structure feels sound. And from that sound structure, you start to fill it in using a presentation tool.

[For visuals], I think people tend to go with the easiest, fastest idea. Like, “I’m going to put a handshake in front of a globe to mean partnership!” Well, how many handshakes in front of a globe do we have to look at before we realize it’s a total cliche? Another common one — the arrow in the middle of a bullseye. Really? Everyone else is thinking that way. The slides themselves are supposed to be a mnemonic device for the audience so they can remember what you had to say. They’re not just a teleprompter for the speaker. A bullseye isn’t going to make anyone remember anything. Don’t go for the first idea. Think about the point you’re trying to make and brainstorm individual moments that you’re trying to emphasize. Think to the second, the third, the fourth idea — and by the time you get to about the tenth idea, those will be the more clever memorable things for the audience.

One thing that is really different about giving a TED Talk is the fact that you know it will be filmed. How do you think about the difference between live presentations and ones that will exist on video?

On stage, it feels really awkward to do large movements because — normally in life — we’re talking to someone in a more intimate setting and moving your arms really big feels melodramatic. But on the stage, you have to move your body in really big gestures. It feels awkward at first if you’re not used to it, so you have to kind of close your eyes and get used to it. Say things and move largely. Take big bold steps forward, big bold steps backward. You have this grand stage and people don’t use the space enough. I think one of the great things that Jill Bolte Taylor did was how she used her body. Her arms stretched all the way up when she talked about nirvana. Then she when she talks about her whole soul feeling constricted, she brings her hands down and folds her arms down in front of her. She’s using her body as a prop. That’s an important way to create meaning.

Also, with video, a tech rehearsal is important. Your audience on video is exponentially larger than the people in the room. So by familiarizing yourself with the cameras, you can at least look in that general direction. You know how you’re supposed to look around the audience — look and hold for five seconds, look and hold for five seconds? You should look at the camera as if it’s a human. Get used to seeing that circular lens as a face. Feel like it’s a person you’re talking to, because that audience on camera needs to feel like they’re there and that you’re looking right at them.

To me, presentations are the most powerful device. You can’t really name a movement that didn’t start with the spoken word. TED was once this exclusive, amazing event where ideas were exchanged, but you’ve moved to treating presentations as a media type. You guys have been so refined at it, that what it’s done is created a movement. What TED has done is made a platform for introverts, for scientists, for inventors — to share their ideas in a way that’s clear and appeals to a broad audience so that their ideas spread and get adopted. It’s completely changed how people present. It’s created this desire to be excellent in communication.

When you look at even how businesses communicated in the ’30’s, ’40’s and ’50’s — they were so much clearer and well-crafted. I recently went to the Stanford Library and I got a bunch of old GE Board meetings from, like, 1957. And I thought, “These are so beautiful!” Their presentations referenced history, they quoted things, they crafted their words in such a beautiful way. Then PowerPoint entered into the mix and suddenly there wasn’t any desire to craft anymore. I think TED Talks have brought the desire for the craft back.

Your new book is from the Harvard Business Review. Is it intended for someone who is in business, or for anyone?

All of my books are for anyone who has an idea that they need to communicate! I loved working with Harvard Business Review and I think because of the publisher, business professionals may be more interested in this book. But anyone with an idea can benefit from it. It’s a guidebook, so that people can think, “Oh, I need to know how to do this specific thing. I’m going to go get this book and find that one thing.”

Want more advice on giving talks? Our curator Chris Anderson is writing the official TED guide to public speaking —to be published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in spring 2016. Titled Talk This Way! , it will be packed with insights on what makes talks work.

• Subscribe to TED Blog by email

Comments (58)

Pingback: How to give a great speech (Hint: be authentic) « Broadside

Pingback: Before You Speak, Learn To See | Echo Hub » Posts

Pingback: Links of the Week: Week of Nov 5-11 « Creating Communication

Pingback: TED Blog | How to give a persuasive presentations: A Q&A with Nancy Duarte « Simpsonville New Home News

Pingback: TED Blog | How to give a persuasive presentations: A Q&A with Nancy Duarte « arnoneumann

.css-1qrtm5m{display:block;margin-bottom:8px;text-transform:uppercase;font-size:14px;line-height:1.5714285714285714;-webkit-letter-spacing:-0.35px;-moz-letter-spacing:-0.35px;-ms-letter-spacing:-0.35px;letter-spacing:-0.35px;font-weight:300;color:#606F7B;}@media (min-width:600px){.css-1qrtm5m{font-size:16px;line-height:1.625;-webkit-letter-spacing:-0.5px;-moz-letter-spacing:-0.5px;-ms-letter-spacing:-0.5px;letter-spacing:-0.5px;}} Best Practices The #1 rule for improving your presentation slides

by Tom Rielly • May 12, 2020

When giving presentations, either on a video conference call or in person, your slides, videos and graphics (or lack of them) can be an important element in helping you tell your story or express your idea. This is the first of a series of blog posts that will give you tips and tricks on how to perfect your visual presentations.

Your job as a presenter is to build your idea -- step-by-step -- in the minds of your audience members. One tool to do that is presentation graphics, such as slides and videos.

Why graphics for your presentation?

A common mistake is using slides or videos as a crutch, even if they don’t actually add anything to your presentation. Not all presentations need graphics. Lots of presentations work wonderfully with just one person standing on a stage telling a story, as demonstrated by many TED Talks.

You should only use slides if they serve a purpose: conveying scientific information, art, and things that are hard to explain without pictures. Once you have decided on using slides, you will have a number of decisions to make. We’ll help you with the basics of making a presentation that is, above all, clear and easy to understand. The most important thing to remember here is: less is more.

Less is so much more

You want to aim for the fewest number of slides, the fewest number of photos, the fewest words per slide, the least cluttered slides and the most white space on your slides. This is the most violated slide rule, but it is the secret to success. Take a look at these examples.

As you can see in the above example, you don’t need fancy backgrounds or extra words to convey a simple concept. If you take “Everything you need to know about Turtles”, and delete “everything you need to know about” leaving just “turtles”, the slide has become much easier for your audience to read, and tells the story with economy.

The above example demonstrates that a single image that fills the entire screen is far more powerful than a slide cluttered with images. A slide with too many images may be detrimental to your presentation. The audience will spend more mental energy trying to sort through the clutter than listening to your presentation. If you need multiple images, then put each one on its own slide. Make each image high-resolution and have it fill the entire screen. If the photos are not the same dimensions as the screen, put them on a black background. Don’t use other colors, especially white.

Your slides will be much more effective if you use the fewest words, characters, and pictures needed to tell your story. Long paragraphs make the audience strain to read them, which means they are not paying attention to you. Your audience may even get stressed if you move on to your next slide before they’ve finished reading your paragraph. The best way to make sure the attention stays on you is to limit word count to no more than 10 words per slide. As presentation expert Nancy Duarte says “any slide with more than 10 words is a document.” If you really do need a longer explanation of something, handouts or follow-up emails are the way to go.

Following a “less is more” approach is one of the simplest things you can do to improve your presentation visuals and the impact of your presentation overall. Make sure your visuals add to your presentation rather than distract from it and get your message across.

Ready to learn more about how to make your presentation even better? Get TED Masterclass and develop your ideas into TED-style talks.

© 2024 TED Conferences, LLC. All rights reserved. Please note that the TED Talks Usage policy does not apply to this content and is not subject to our creative commons license.

• Skip to main content

How to Create Your TED Talk: An 8-Step Process

by Jezra on March 9, 2017

First, A Little Background on TED

The TED conference (which stands for  technology, entertainment, design ) began life in 1984 as a yearly and very expensive conference where industry leaders and creative types gathered to exchange “Ideas Worth Spreading.”

Back then, it was all about the live experience, and speakers were expected to bring some quirky spontaneity to the stage.

But fast forward more than 30 years, and TED has become an institution, spawning countless local “TEDx” events, putting hundreds of speeches online each year, getting millions upon millions of views, and changing the way we all think about public speaking!

So, What  IS  a TED Talk?

According to Chris Anderson, the owner and global curator of TED, every TED talk starts with an idea :

“You have something meaningful to say, and your goal is to re-create your core idea inside your audience’s minds.” —from TED Talks: The Official TED Guide to Public Speaking

Anderson calls this idea “the gift in every great talk.” Your idea may:

• Be common-sense (“Every kid needs a champion”) or counter-intuitive (“The way we think about charity is wrong”)
• Describe a scientific breakthrough (“How bacteria talk”) or your own experience (“I am the son of a terrorist, here’s how I chose peace”)
• Motivate people to action (“We need to talk about an injustice”) or greater self-awareness (“Your elusive creative genius”)

But in every case, your TED talk will begin with an idea.

Want Speechwriting or Coaching Help?

And whether or not your talk actually builds a model of your idea in your listeners’ brain — Anderson takes that literally, and research on “neural coupling” backs him up — your TED talk exists to communicate this idea to your listeners.

That is your talk’s one and only goal.

Other Qualities of Successful TED Talks

In TED’s secret to great public speaking (an eight-minute video that’s worth watching), Anderson offers three guidelines for creating your TED talk:

• Focus on one major idea

Ideas are complex things; you need to slash back your content so that you can focus on the single idea you’re most passionate about , and give yourself a chance to explain that one thing properly… Everything you say [should link] back to it in some way.

• Give people a reason to care

Stir your audience’s curiosity. Use intriguing, provocative questions to identify why something doesn’t make sense and needs explaining. If you can reveal a disconnection in someone’s worldview , they’ll feel the need to bridge that knowledge gap.

• Build your idea with familiar concepts

Build your idea, piece by piece, out of concepts that your audience already understands … A vivid explanation… delivers a satisfying ah-hah! moment as it snaps into place in our minds.

These are important best practices, but they don’t tell you what to  do  to create a TED talk.

For that, try this…

8-Step Process for Creating Your TED Talk

Step 1. find an idea you want to share.

To hone in on your idea worth sharing, it can be useful to ask yourself things like:

• What’s one assumption I’d like to challenge?
• What’s a belief of mine that has changed, and why?
• What does everyone miss when they think about my area of interest or expertise?

And remember, you’re looking for an idea . As Jeremey Donovan says in How to Deliver a TED Talk ,

…an idea is not a theme, a general truth, a platitude or a big goal. “Everyone wants to feel included” is not an idea, it’s a general truth. “Empowering women” is not an idea, it’s a topic.

Step 2. Develop an unexpected and/or catchy way to state your idea

If your idea can be stated in a catchy way, listeners will pay more attention and remember it more easily. Here are some examples (with more conventional versions of the same idea in parentheses):

• We can solve malnutrition now (vs. Malnutrition is a problem that is finally, in our day and age, able to be resolved by advances in science.)
• Almost dying saved my life (vs. A near death experience created the motivation for me to face and overcome problems that otherwise would have slowly killed me.)
• Never, ever give up (vs. Cultivate the ability to commit without wavering; it’s an essential component of your lifelong success.)

Step 3. Collect anything and everything that relates to your idea

To re-create your idea in the minds of your listeners, you’ll need vivid examples, illustrations, stories, facts, questions, comments, etc.

So take a few days to notice anything and everything that relates to your idea, and collect these materials by writing them down, taking photos, recording your thoughts as sound files, etc.

Examples of things you might collect include:

• a snippet of conversation
• a quote you heard in high school
• a story that relates to your idea
• a fact, or cluster of data that supports it
• a metaphor or analogy that helps explain it
• a personal moment in your relationship with the idea
• a physical object that will help your audience understand it (here, my client Erika Frenkel presents an anesthesia machine )

Basically, anything that comes to your mind at this stage should be collected.

And don’t worry yet about which materials will end up in your talk.

You can’t collect  things and evaluate  them at the same time, so just collect for now; you’ll have a chance to evaluate later.

Step 4. Start imagining how you might open and end your talk

While it’s too soon to choose your opening and close, it’s not too soon to start playing with ideas for these important parts of your talk.

An effective way to begin any speech (not just a TED talk) is to grab your audience’s attention — often with a human interest story, a surprising statistic, an unexpected observation, or a thought-provoking question.

There are probably some great attention-grabbers in the material you collected for Step 3. Pick one that you particularly like, and flag it as a possible  opening for your talk.

As for the close , you’ll probably want to end your talk in a positive, forward-looking way . This is often done by:

• calling the audience to action;
• painting a hopeful picture of the future; and/or
• “paying off” (finishing, resolving) a story or discussion that has run through your talk, so that listeners get a sense of closure.

With your provisional opening and close in mind, you’re now ready to…

Step 5. Put the rest of your materials in a reasonable order

The middle of any speech is tricky, and a TED talk is particularly so, because TED talks can take just about any form you’d like.

So to tackle this part of your TED talk, take the materials you’ve collected and shuffle them until you find a good arrangement. To do this, you can:

• Create a high-level outline (leave out most of the detail, just arrange the big points or elements)
• Write each element (story, comment, observation, fact) on a 3 x 5 card and physically shuffle them to see different possible orders. (You can do this on a table, or digitally, by creating one slide per element and shuffling them with PowerPoint’s “slide sorter” feature)
• Use sound (speaking out loud) instead of writing to put your talk elements into different sequences (Ask: Does it sound right if I tell that story first, then give the fact? How about if I give the fact first, then tell the story?)
• Try any other method that works for you.

How will you know when the order is good?

Keep in mind that your goal is to create an understanding of your idea in the minds of your audience members , and try to arrange your explanations, comments, and stories in a way that leads to that goal. (You’ll get to test this on real people in Step 7.)

Trust your instincts: If something seems out of place to you, it probably is. Try moving it to a different part of your talk or even skipping it, and see if that works better.

And don’t expect to find the best organization for your talk the first time you try, because that almost never happens!

Step 6. Talk your way to a rough draft of your script

This is where your “speaking plan” becomes a “speech.”

Take your outline or list of ordered elements and talk about each item in turn.

When I’m writing a speech, I like to literally talk it out loud and type up what I’m saying as I’m saying it — but you can also use your computer’s voice recognition software to capture your words, or talk into the voice memo feature on your phone (this used to be called “dictating”) and type up the sound file later.

Why  record yourself talking  instead of just writing out the speech?

Because most of us get all formal and stiff when we write, and the ideal for a talk is that it sounds like you’re…  talking !

And here’s a hint:

As you do this step, pay particular attention to the way different elements (materials) that you’ve used in your talk are connected.

If, for example, you tell me that:

• The river flooded, and
• Some people moved out of the neighborhood…

I’ll want to know: Did people move  because  the river flooded? Did most people stay even though  the river flooded? Did the river flood  after  people had already moved?

When you spell things out clearly, people will form a clear picture of your point.

Step 7. Try out your Ted talk draft on a volunteer listener

The point of this step is to get feedback on how to improve the structure and clarity of your draft.

Ask someone you trust — a smart 10-year-old is perfect — to listen to your talk.

Read it to them (because you haven’t finalized, let alone memorized, it yet), and then ask them:

• Did I explain my idea clearly?
• Was there anything in my talk that you didn’t follow?
• Was there anything you didn’t understand?
• Did anything seem out of place?
• Did I lose your interest anywhere?

If your listener wants to discuss the 6,000 facts you left out, or how your talk should really be about X instead of Y, gently lead them back to these questions.

The point is not to  change  your talk. The point is to  improve  it’s effectiveness.

Step 8. Repeat the following steps as needed

• Based on your listener’s feedback, make changes that will improve your draft. But don’t get carried away editing; if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it! (And keep your old drafts in case you want to go back to something you did earlier; I number mine v1, v2, v3, etc.)

2. Practice delivering your new draft out loud.

3. Try out your new draft on a volunteer listener, get their feedback , and repeat these steps as often as needed until your talk has taken a satisfying shape.

And finally…

There’s no better time to start working on your talk than now. Even if your schedule is crammed, you’re better off working for a few minutes each day than leaving everything to the last minute!

And as you work this process, remember that perfection isn’t possible.

So instead of striving for perfection, prepare carefully, take your best shot, and try to  relax .

Your audience is going to love this talk — and you deserve to enjoy it, too!

Need Coaching or Speechwriting for Your TED Talk? Get in Touch!

• How can I help you? *
• How did you find me?

You May Also Want to Read...

• Giving a TED-Style Talk? Here's How They're Different from Business Presentations
• TED Has Eliminated Two Things That Used to Be Said In Most Speeches: Hello and Thank You. Should You?
• Masterful Public Speaking: Daniel Kraft's TEDx Talk

• Alternatives 🔥

How to do a TED Talks Presentation | 8 Tips to Make Your Presentation Better in 2024

Leah Nguyen • 08 April, 2024 • 11 min read

When you want to find a talk on a topic you are interested in, TED Talks presentations may be the first to pop up in your mind.

Their power comes from original ideas, insightful, useful content and impressive presentation skills of the speakers. Over 90,000 presenting styles from over 90,000 speakers have been shown, and you probably have found yourself related to one of them.

Whatever the type is, there are some everyday things among TED Talks Presentations that you can keep in mind to improve your own performance!

Table of Contents

• Make Your Audience Relate by Using Personal Stories
• Make Your Audience Work
• Slides are to Aid, not to Drown
• Be Original, be You
• Speak with Clarity
• Shape your Body Language
• Keep it Concise
• Close with a Strong Remark

Key Features of TED Talks Presentations

Ted talks presentation templates, frequently asked questions.

• More Presentation Tips with AhaSlides

Presentation Tips with AhaSlides

• Interactive presentation - The complete guide
• Tips on giving the right presentation outfit
• How to avoid Death by Powerpoint
• Multimedia presentation examples
• Simple presentation example

Start in seconds.

Get free templates for your next interactive presentation. Sign up for free and take what you want from the template library!

1. Make Your Audience Relate by Using Personal Stories

The fastest way to spur an emotional response from the audience in TED Talks Presentation is to tell a story of your own experience.

The essence of a story is its ability to invoke emotions and interaction from the listeners. Therefore by doing this, they can feel related by nature and immediately find your talk more “authentic”, and therefore are willing to listen to more from you. 

You can also intertwine your stories into your talk to build your opinion on the topic and present your argument persuasively. Apart from research-based evidence, you can use personal stories as a powerful tool to create a reliable, compelling presentation.

Pro tips: The 'personal' story should not be out of touch (for example: I'm in the 1% smartest people in the earth and make 1B per year ). Try telling your stories to friends to see if they can relate.

2. Make Your Audience Work

However interesting your speech may be, there may be times when the audience drifts their attention away from your talk for a moment. That is why you must have some activities that win back their attention and get them engaged. 

For example, a simple way to do this is to make good questions relevant to your topic, which gets them to think and find an answer. This is a common way that TED speakers use to engage their audience! The questions can be posed immediately or occasionally during the talk.

The idea is to get to know their perspectives by having them submit their answers to an online canvas like AhaSlides , where the results are updated live, and you can rely on them to discuss more in-depth. 

You can also ask them to do small acts, like close their eyes and think about an idea or an example relevant to the idea you are talking about, just like what Bruce Aylward did in his talk on “How We’ll Stop Polio for Good.”

3. Slides are to Aid, not to Drown

Slides accompany most TED Talks Presentations, and you would rarely see a TED speaker use more-than-colourful slides full of text or numbers.

Instead, they are usually simplified in terms of decoration and content and tend to be in the form of graphs, images or videos.

This helps draw the audience's attention to the content that the speaker is referring to and flatter the idea they are trying to convey. You can make use of it too!

Visualisation is the point here. You can convert text and numbers into charts or graphs and utilise images, videos, and GIFs. Interactive slides can also help you connect with the audience.

One reason the audience is distracted is their having no clue about the structure of your talk and feel discouraged to follow until the end.

You can solve this with the “Audience Pacing” feature of AhaSlides , in which the audience can pave back and forth to know all the content of your slides and always be on track and get ready for your upcoming insights!

4. Be Original, be You

This has to do with your presenting style, HOW you convey your ideas, and WHAT you deliver.

You can see this clearly in TED Talks Presentation, where one speaker’s ideas could be similar to others, but what matters is how they view it from another perspective and develop it in their own way.

The audience will not want to listen to an old topic with an old approach that hundreds of others might have chosen.

Think about how you can make a difference and add your individuality to your speech to bring valuable content to the audience.

5. Speak with Clarity

You don't have to possess a mesmerising voice that put the audience in a trance, but projecting it to be clear will be much appreciated.

By "clear", we mean that the audience can hear and figure out what you said for at least 90%.

Skilled communicators have reliable voices, despite any nervous or anxious emotions they may experience.

In TED Talks presentation, you can see there are barely any muffled sounds. All messages are communicated in a crystal clear tone.

The good thing is, you can train your voice to be better!

Vocal and speech coaches and even AI training apps could help, from how to breathe properly to how to place your tongue when enunciating, they greatly improve your tone, pace and volume in the long run.

6. Shape Your Body Language

Non-verbal expression has 65% to 93% more influence than actual text, so the way you carry out yourself really matters!

In your next TED Talks Presentation, remember to stand up straight with your shoulders back and head up. Avoid slouching or leaning against the podium. This projects confidence and engages the audience.

Use open, welcoming gestures with your hands like keeping them unclenched at your sides or palms facing up in a shrug.

Move around the stage purposefully as you speak to signal enthusiasm for your topic. Avoid fidgeting, pacing back and forth or touching your face excessively.

Speak from the heart with real passion and conviction that your big idea matters. When your own enthusiasm is genuine, it becomes contagious and pulls listeners in.

Pause for effect by going still and silent between key points. Motionless posture commands the audience's attention and allows them time to process your information, and also allows you time to think of the next point.

Take a big, noticeable breath before launching into a new section of your talk. The physical action helps signal a transition to the audience.

It's easy to say than to talk, but if you take into consideration that we are humans full of lively movements and expressions, which differentiate us from robots, we can allow our bodies to express freely in TED Talks Presentation.

Tips: Asking open-ended questions helps you to grab more audience opinions, which works perfectly fine with a suitable brainstorming tool !

7. Keep it Concise

We have the tendency to think our presentation points are inadequate and often elaborate more than we should.

Aim for around 18 minutes like in TED Talks Presentations, which is more than enough considering how distracting we are in this modern world.

Create an outline with main sections and time yourself to stay within the time limit as you practice and refine your talk. You can consider following this timeline format:

• 3 minutes - Tell a story with simple, concrete narratives and anecdotes.
• 3 minutes - Get to the main idea and key points.
• 9 minutes - Elaborate on these key points and relate a personal story that highlights your main idea.
• 3 minutes - Wrap up and spend time interacting with the audience, possibly with a live Q&A .

Foster an environment of density and richness within the constraints of a brief time limit.

Pare down your content to only what's essential. Delete unnecessary details, tangents and filler words.

Focus on quality over quantity. A few well-crafted examples are more powerful than a laundry list of facts in TED Talks Presentations.

8. Close with a Strong Remark

Believe it or not, your goal for perfect TED Talks Presentations goes beyond just sharing interesting information. As you craft your talk, consider the transformation you want to ignite in your listeners.

What thoughts do you want to plant in their minds? What emotions do you wish to stir within them? What actions do you hope they will be inspired to take when they leave the auditorium?

Your call to action can be as simple as asking the audience to view your central topic in a new light.

The very premise of TED talks presentations is that ideas worth spreading are those worth acting upon.

Without a clear call to action, your talk may be intriguing but ultimately indifferent to your listeners. With a call to action, you trigger a mental reminder that change is needed.

Your firm and focused call to action is the exclamation point signalling that something must now be done - and your listeners are the ones who should take that step.

So don't just inform your audience, push them to see the world anew and move them to take action that aligns with your important idea!

• Simplicity: TED slides are visually uncluttered. They focus on a single, powerful image or a few impactful words. This keeps the audience focused on the speaker's message.

• Visual support: Images, diagrams, or short videos are used strategically. They reinforce the core idea discussed by the speaker, not just decorate.
• Impactful typography: Fonts are large and easy to read from the back of a room. Text is kept minimal, emphasizing keywords or core concepts.
• High contrast: Often there's a high contrast between text and background, making the slides visually striking and easy to read even at a distance.

Make it fun! Add interactive features !

• Random Team Generator | 2024 Random Group Maker Reveals
• AI Online Quiz Creator | Make Quizzes Live
• Host a live Q&A
• AhaSlides Poll – Top 2024 Interactive Survey Tool
• 12 Free Survey Tools in 2024 | AhaSlides Reveals

Want to deliver a TED Talk-style presentation that lingers in audience's minds? AhaSlides has a plethora of free templates and a dedicated library for users like you! Check them out below:

General Knowledge Questions

Staff Appreciation

Monthly Team Meeting Agenda

Key takeaways.

The key is to distil your big idea down to its essence, tell a story to illustrate it and speak extemporaneously with natural passion and enthusiasm. Practice, practice, practice.

It's not easy to be a master presenter, but practice these 8 tips so often that you can make big progress in your presentation skills! Let AhaSlides be with you on the way there!

What is a TED talk presentation?

A TED talk is a short, powerful presentation given at TED conferences and related events. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment and Design.

How do you make a TED talk presentation?

By following these steps - focusing on your big idea, telling relevant stories, keeping it short, rehearsing thoroughly and speaking confidently - you'll be well on your way to delivering an effective, impactful TED talk presentation.

What is the difference between a TED talk and a standard presentation?

TED talks are designed to be: shorter, more concise and focused; told in a visually engaging and narrative-driven way; and delivered in an on-the-spot, inspiring manner that provokes thought and spreads important ideas.

Do TED Talks have presentations?

Yes, TED Talks are actually short presentations given at TED conferences and other TED-related events.

Leah Nguyen

Words that convert, stories that stick. I turn complex ideas into engaging narratives - helping audiences learn, remember, and take action.

Tips to Engage with Polls & Trivia

More from AhaSlides

Before your next presentation or speech, here’s the first thing you must think about

Share this idea.

• Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window)

The next time you’re preparing to speak to a group, remember to keep your audience at the center of your communication, says Briar Goldberg, the director of speaker coaching at TED. One way to do this is to ask yourself: “What gift are you giving to your audience?”

TED recently partnered with Marriott Hotels to offer a special day-long seminar on public speaking for Marriott Bonvoy members. Briar Goldberg — TED’s director of speaker coaching who has helped prepare hundreds of people for the TED stage — gave them tips and tools to be better communicators in their own lives.

Below, she takes a deeper dive into one aspect of public speaking that many of us overlook when drafting our speeches and presentations: our audience.

Let’s be honest, there’s no shortage of public speaking advice out there. There are countless books, blog posts and YouTube videos offering you instructions on how to tell engaging stories, make eye contact, use hand gestures, and more. I think that’s great, although I’ll admit I’m biased. I’ve spent my career teaching public speaking and coaching executives, and since 2015, I’ve been working with TED speakers. I truly believe that everyone benefits when we communicate more effectively.

But even with so much advice available, I still see one big communication mistake made all of the time. It’s this: Most people communicate in the wrong direction .

What is the wrong direction? Too many of us write our scripts, build our decks, or compile our talking points before we think about our audience and what they need or expect to get out of our communication. This has serious consequences. When your audience doesn’t feel like your words apply to them, when they don’t understand what you’re trying to say, or, worse yet, they don’t care about your ideas, then your carefully-crafted slides, agenda or jokes simply don’t matter.

My earliest mentor in this work, Jim Wagstaffe always tells speakers to practice their ABCs: Audience Before Content. I love that acronym so much because it captures the essence of what communication is really all about — it’s not about you, the speaker; it’s always about your audience. Your audience’s needs should always be your central focus.

At TED, when we’re helping speakers prepare their talks, we ask them to identify the “gift” they’re giving the audience. In my opinion, this is what every communicator should be asking themselves before any kind of communication — whether it’s a keynote or a TED Talk or something smaller like a pitch to your boss or a statement at a community meeting. What gift are you giving the audience?

The good news is, understanding how to put your audience at the center of your communication isn’t rocket science. And when you do it correctly, I can almost guarantee that your next speech, presentation or meeting will be a success.

What does it really mean to know your audience?

You’ve probably heard the phrase “know your audience.” I’ve even seen lists floating around that offer a series of questions designed to help you do this, with queries such as: “What’s the gender breakdown of your audience?” “Are they executives or middle-managers?” “Where are they from?”

While demographic information like this is important — for example, you should probably rethink a joke about swiping right if the average age of your audience is 76 — the kind of knowledge I’m talking about goes much deeper. It goes beyond the superficial to zoom in on these two key things: “What are my audience’s goals?” and “How do they make decisions?”

How to really understand your audience’s goals

This means you’ll need to ask a different set of questions — ones that get at your audience’s needs and expectations. These include:

“Why are these people taking time out of their busy schedules to listen to me speak?”

“What do they hope (or need) to gain from this presentation/speech/address/meeting?”

“What are their expectations coming in?”

“What can I say in order to meet or exceed those expectations?”

Once you know the answers to these questions, you can craft a communication that is tailored to your audience; when you do, your audience is more likely to stay focused, remember what you said, pass on the information you shared, and remember you as a good speaker.

But what happens if your goals as a speaker don’t align with the audience’s goals?

As a communicator, you will have your own goals. Perhaps you’re an executive and you have an important message that you need the rest of the company to hear. Maybe you’ve designed a new product that you want your customers to get excited about. Getting clear on your own communication goals is important because then you can evaluate if your goals line up with your audience’s goals. If they do, that’s great — and you can start crafting your communication.

But sometimes they won’t. When this happens, it’s your job to figure out how to close the gap and persuade the audience that your goals can — and should — be their goals, too. I’m not talking about manipulation or asking you to trick people into thinking something different. What I am advocating is that you work to understand your audience well enough to know how they make decisions and what kind of information they need to have to be persuaded of their own accord.

One of the most persuasive TED Talks this year was delivered by sleep expert Matt Walker . Everyone has different goals when they decide to watch a talk about sleep. But Matt was clear on his goal: to convince people to prioritize sleep above all else. To get the audience on his side, he had to persuade them that getting enough sleep is the single most important thing they could do with our time.

Understand how your audience makes decisions

You can’t effectively persuade anyone unless you know what kind of information they need to make a decision. Think about it this way: If a salesperson was trying to sell you a new computer, you wouldn’t decide to buy it until they told you the price. With your audience, you can’t expect to influence them until you provide them with the information they need to decide if they want to change their minds.

But every audience is different. How do you know what kind of information you need to offer in order to sway them? There are entire bodies of research that cover audience persuasion strategies. But let me offer a simple framework to get you started.

In general, audiences can be broken down into three types: expert, novice and mixed. An expert audience understands your topic and they might already know you, the speaker. If you’re a real-estate broker addressing an annual meeting of the nation’s realtors, you’re speaking to an expert audience. A novice audience doesn’t know much about the topic and doesn’t know anything about you. An example of this would be a real-estate broker speaking at an open-house for community residents interested in buying a first home. But more often than not, your audience will be a mix of experts, novices and everyone in-between. The large, international TED audience is a perfect example of a mixed audience.

When you’re speaking to an expert audience: Use logical/quantitative arguments to persuade them.

In general, expert audiences are more likely to be persuaded by logical arguments and quantitative information. If you’re a real-estate broker trying to convince your expert audience to invest in a new kind of property, you’re more likely to be successful if your presentation is built around data and statistics that support this plan.

When you’re speaking to a novice audience: Lean into your own credibility.

Because a novice audience doesn’t know much about you or your topic, they tend to make decisions based on your credibility and the credibility of your sources. Therefore, it can be important to build up your reputation and credentials so they’ll trust what you’re saying and follow your recommendations.

When I’m giving a lecture on public speaking to a group who doesn’t know me, I always mention the universities I’ve taught at and some of the names of executives I’ve coached. This isn’t to brag — and let me be clear, you’ll need to use your judgement to figure out how much information to give so it doesn’t sound like you’re bragging — but it’s a quick way for me to get my audience to accept that I’m a solid source of communication advice and that they should listen to me. In some cases, I’ll tell my audience where a particular piece of information in my lecture came from. By saying “Harvard published this study last year…” I’m referencing a respected source, which reinforces my credibility as a speaker.

When you’re speaking to a mixed audience: Appeal to their emotions.

Emotional appeals can be very persuasive, especially when you’re speaking to a mixed audience. After all, everyone has made a decision based on their emotions at one point or another in their lives. Last year, TED speaker Nora McInerny shared her own experience with death to teach us about moving forward with grief. It was an A+ example of an emotional appeal.

OK great, but how do I find out all this information about my audience?

Well, that’s part of the fun. OK, maybe it’s not always fun but it is your responsibility to take a deep dive into your audience, their needs, and their motivations and — trust me — this work will pay off ten-fold. If you’re speaking at an official conference or meeting, I recommend starting with the person or organization who asked you to speak. What can they tell you about the audience? Are they willing to share any of registration information? How did they market the event? If you’re speaking on an earnings call, what about the analysts who follow your company — have you ever asked them what they need or want? If you’re speaking at your company’s town hall, can you talk to your team and find out what they expect to hear from you? If you’re speaking at an event in another country, can you find a translator or local who can help you better understand the expectations of that audience?

The information is out there — you just need to find and use it. You’ll know when you’ve done it right, because your audience will stay engaged and, when you’re done speaking, they’ll help pass your message along.

This post is part of TED’s “How to Be a Better Human” series, each of which contains a piece of helpful advice from someone in the TED community; browse through all the posts here.

About the author

Briar Goldberg is the Director of Speaker Coaching at TED.

• briar goldberg
• business advice
• communication
• public speaking

TED Talk of the Day

How to make radical climate action the new normal

3 strategies for effective leadership, from a former astronaut

Feeling unseen by your boss? Here’s what you can do 

Let’s stop calling them “soft skills” -- and call them “real skills” instead

There’s a know-it-all at every job — here’s how to deal

The 7 types of people you need in your life to be resilient

Perfectionism holding you back? 3 ways to shift the habit

The unseen forces that can cause your great new idea to crash and burn

Have you quietly quit? Your next step: Go to the neutral zone

6 ways to give that aren't about money

7 Zoom mistakes you might still be making -- and how to raise your video skills

The skill you need now: presentation literacy

Storytelling is a powerful communication tool — here’s how to use it, from TED

7 ways to be a better communicator -- by tweaking your body language

• Wellbeing Keynote Speaker
• High-Performance Habits
• Communication Keynote Speaker
• Storytelling Training for Leaders: How to Lead with A Story
• For Event Planners

How to present like a TED Talk: 15 Pro Tips

by Akash Karia · Updated Jun. 21, 2024

Want to present like a TED Talk? Whether you are going to be presenting at the TED conference or simply delivering a TED style talk in the boardroom, this guide will help you master the art of preparing and presenting your message with confidence and poise.

If you’ve ever watched a TED Talk, you’ve most likely been captivated by the speakers you’ve seen on the stage. Speakers on the TED stage are some of the best public speakers on the planet.

Over the last decade as a speaker coach, I’ve studied over 200 TED talks and written 3 books on the subject. This article distills some of the key concepts from my bestselling book, “ How to Deliver a Great TED Talk . ”

Note: If you came here because you read the book “How to Deliver A Great TED Talk”, then you can find links to all the talks referenced at the bottom of this post. 

What Makes A Good TED Talk?

A good speech is one that:

• Engages the audience
• Takes them on a journey
• Provides the audience with a new perspective or insight
• Leaves the audience inspired to take action

And does all that in only 18 minutes – i.e. a tight time limit.

In this post, you will discover 15 public speaking tips from the best TED speakers. These include:

• How to choose a TED Talk topic
• How to write a TED Talk outline
• How to open your presentation
• How to end your presentation
• How to build the body of the speech
• Books you should read to level up your presentation skills

Let’s dive into it:

How to Choose Your TED Talk Topic

Photo by Brands&People on Unsplash

Before you dive into writing your speech or creating your presentation slides, it’s important that you find a message that’s worth sharing. But, how exactly do you come up with a TED Talk topic?

TED’s mission is “to discover and spread ideas that spark imagination, embrace possibility and catalyze impact.”

This means that the message matters more than the delivery.

While having charisma and being able to present with confidence help, what truly matters is the idea you are presenting.

The first step is to ask yourself: What is my message? What is the core idea I want to share?

Whenever I coach leaders and executives , I ask them to write out their core idea out in 3 short sentences or less. If you can’t summarize your core idea in less than 3 sentences, then you probably don’t have a clear grasp on your message.

But, what exactly makes a good TED Talk topic?

Also check out: 8 top public speaking tips 

Tip 1: Uncover Your Message from Your Mess

I once asked a friend who went through a messy divorce how she was able to rebuild her life so quickly afterward.

“I looked for the gift in the tragedy.”

Isn’t that remarkable?

No matter what mess you’ve gone through, if you’ve emerged on the other side of it, you’ve probably done so with  valuable lessons and insights. Consider how one of your messes might actually be a message worth sharing.

For example, brain researcher Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor shared on stage the lesson she learned when a blood vessel exploded in the left half of her brain. She used that as the personal story to lead into a message about brain health:

Related: Storytelling Training for Leaders

Tip 2: Use Their Problem to Share Your Solution

Your message might also lie in providing a solution to a challenge that the audience faces.

What’s a struggle that you’ve had to overcome? A problem that you’ve had to tackle? What there a specific solution you uncovered that helped you, that you’re convinced would help the rest of the world?

Here’s an example:

Have you found it difficult to pay attention? How you found that you’re always feeling stressed? Overworked? And unable to stay focused and present?

If you’re like most people, you probably answered yes to the above questions. Which is why Andy Puddicombe – a man who left college midway through a sports science degree to become a monk – has made it his calling to help people restore mindfulness.

What about you? What’s something you’ve discovered – no matter how small – that you think would benefit the audience listening to you? If you genuinely believe in the power of the thing you’ve discovered, then it’s your duty to share it with the world.

Tip 3: Delight Them with Your Discovery

If you’re a keen scholar or observer of human nature, you might have discovered a pattern to the way in which the world functions.

Perhaps you undertook a formal course of study. Or maybe it was informal observation and experience. But somehow, and in someway, you’ve uncovered a pattern into why things are the way they are. Or perhaps a pattern that suggests how things will be.

Patterns are particularly fascinating. And being able to codify those patterns could make for a very useful speech. In fact, it’s exactly what Simon Sinek did in his TEDx talk, which has since racked up over 10 million views on the original view:

Tip 4: Show Them The Future

If you’re working on a project or technology that will shape the future, then this makes for a particularly fascinating TED talk.

In his presentation, Pranav Mistry got a standing ovation for his talk on the thrilling potential of SixthSense technology . He gave his audience a glimpse into the future by demonstrating how his SixthSense device would allow people to browse the Internet on any surface, create a telephone keypad on their palm and draw on any surface:

Because it was such an exciting and new topic, Pranav had the audience hooked into his talk right from the start:

Now that you’ve learned how to choose your TED Talk topic, let’s move on to the next part of your process: how to write a TED Talk outline.

How to Write A TED Talk Outline

The right outline consists of:

• A clear and engaging speech structure
• A compelling opening
• A body that that drives home your main point
• A powerful conclusion with a call to action
• Visual aids that will complement your talk

Let’s look at each of those in more detail:

Source: TED (creative commons license)

Selecting Your Speech Structure

The second stage is to figure out an appropriate structure for your talk.

The mistake most presenters make is that they structure the message in the way that happened to them. Example:

• I did this. Then I did that. And I found this problem. Then I tried this. And it worked.

See how that’s a very speaker-centered structure?

While that linear progression might make sense, there are many other presentation structures that you can use. Structures that are more  audience-centered.  Here are two of the most common ones:

• The problem / solution speech structure
• The step-by-step speech structure

Let’s have a look at these in turn:

Tip 5: Outline Using A “Problem-Solution” Speech Structure

In his fascinating presentation, Sir Ken Robinson uses a loose version of the problem/solution structure.

For example, most of his speech focuses on the problem with the current educational system.

Here’s a paragraph from the first half of his speech:

Tip 6: Outline Using A “Step-By-Step” Speech Structure

In this speech structure, you logically walk your audience through the different steps towards an event.

For example, in her TED talk on domestic violence, Leslie Morgan Steiner walks her audience through the different stages in a domestic violence relationship.

Tip 7: Outline Using A “3-Part” Speech Speech

Another very popular way to structure a TED Talk is to use a “3-part” structure.

With this structure, you make 3 main points. For example, you can see Steve Jobs using this structure as an outline in his 2005 Stanford Commencement Address when he says:

“ Today, I want to tell you three stories from my life…”

Simon Sinek also uses this 3-part speech structure in his TED Talk to make his key points:

Here’s what Simon Sinek’s TED Talk outline might have looked like:

• Opening: Use questions to engage the audience
• PART 1 : Story about Apple + key point
• PART 2 : Story about Samuel Langley vs. Wright Brothers + key point
• PART 3 : Story about Martin Luther King + key point
• Closing : Emphasize the main point, “start with why”

Of course, the above is a very simplified version of the outline. But you can see that it follows a very distinct 3-part structure.

Develop An Irresistible Opening

Now that you’ve figured out the right structure and outline for your TED Talk, we can move into developing a powerful opening for the talk.

The opening of your TED talk is one of the most important parts of your presentation:

It sets the tone for the rest of your presentation.

Here are two great tactics you can choose from:

Tip 8: Start with a story.

A story is a great tactic to grab attention and get transport the audience into your mental movie.

For example, this is exactly what Susan Cain does to open her TED Talk:

For more storytelling tools, here are 7 storytelling tactics and how to use them

Tip 9: Start with a series of questions which creates curiosity.

Notice how Simon Sinek hooks the TED audience in with a series of questions that ignites your imagination.

If you want to learn how to present like TED, then you need to embrace using more rhetorical questions in your presentation.

Build A Compelling and Convincing Argument in the Body of Your Presentation

Building out the body of your presentation could entail:

• Providing examples
• Anchoring your points with statistics and data
• Using analogies to make a point
• And many more…

However, in this post, let’s explore two common ways to build out a presentation like TED:

Tip 10: Build the Story with the Sitation-Complication-Resolution Framework

In his TED talk on “Choice, Happiness and Spaghetti Sauce”, Gladwell brings to life the story of Dr. Howard Moskowitz.

To do so, he uses a simple yet powerful storytelling framework called SCR: Situation-Complication-Resolution

• Situation: Pepsi came to Howard and asked him to figure out the perfect concentration of aspartame for a Diet Pepsi
• Complication: Howard does the analysis, and the data doesn’t make any sense
• Resolution: One day, while mulling over the data, Howard suddenly realizes that there is no such thing as a single perfect Diet Pepsi

Watch the talk and you’ll see this Situation-Complication-Resolution structure at play:

Tip 11: Draw on Academic Research to Build Your Argument

Using academic studies to back up your point not only anchors your point, but also adds credibility to it. Research studies, if told well, are usually very fascinating because they arouse people’s curiosity.

Consider the following portion of Dan Pink’s TED talk, where he talks about Dan Ariely’s research .

Research studies by nature try to answer questions.

Thus, an explanation of the research study followed by the words “What happened?” raises the audience’s curiosity.

If you are able to use an academic study in your speech to anchor your point, use it.

Explain the study in the form of a story, and use rhetorical questions to build people’s curiosity before you reveal the results.

Ending with A Clear and Compelling Call to Action

The final piece of a great TED Talk is a call to action.

What do you want your audience to think, feel or do differently as a result of your presentation?

In fact, the entire point of giving a talk in the first place is to drive change .

The change could be in how the audience does something. Or the way in which they look at something.

What’s the change that you want to drive with your talk?

Every part of your talk – from each story to statistic – should be built to drive that change.

Tip 13: State what you want the audience to do differently

For example, in her now scientifically-debunked TED Talk on body language , Amy Cuddy clearly states her call to action: “try power posing”:

“So I want to ask you first, you know, both to try power posing, and also I want to ask you to share the science, because this is simple…”

Leslie Morgan Steiner, in her talk, states her clear call to action in her talk on domestic violence:

“Recognize the early signs of violence and conscientiously intervene, deescalate it, show victims a safe way out. Together we can make our beds, our dinner tables and our families the safe and peaceful oases they should be. Thank you

Using Visual Aids that Will Add, Not Distract, From the Presenter

OK, so far in your journey to present like a TED Talk, you have discovered:

• How to create a powerful opening
• How to craft the perfect conclusion for the talk

Now, you may need to consider whether or not to use visual aids.

It’s important to note that visuals aids are exactly as the name implies. They’re visuals for the audiences; not speaker notes for you!

The most common form of visual aid is a presentation slide deck . But before you start building your slides, consider whether you even need one to start with.

For example, speakers like Simon Sinek, Sir Ken Robinson and Malcolm Gladwell use no slides at all! And they have some of the most viral TED talks of all time. I believe this is partly because not using slides means that the audience can focus fully on them (instead of having to read what’s on the slide).

However, if you are going to be using visual aids, here’s what you need to consider:

Tip 14: Use a prop as a visual aid

Notice how Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor uses a  real human brain  as a prop to explain what’s she talking about:

Could she have simply used a slide showing a picture of a human brain?

Would it have been as effective?

Using a real human brain adds shock value that gets the audience to keep paying attention. And it also allows her to interact with the brain in a way that makes the whole talk more concrete for the audience.

Tip 15: If using a slide, make it visual

You do not want your audience reading your slides.

More importantly, you – as the speaker, do not want to be reading your slide.

You want your slides to be  visual  aids that complement what you are saying, not compete with what you’re saying.

What this means is that your slides should be mostly pictures, with as minimal text as possible.

Here’s a good example:

In her TED talk about escaping poverty, Jacqueline Novogratz displays photos of a slum she visited in Kenya.

The photos make the situation much more real for the audience and help them understand the poverty in Kenya because they can see proof of it.

Click the video below and it’ll play at the part with the slide:

Summary: How to Present like a TED Talk

Those are the elements that will help you become a powerful and persuasive speaker:

• Uncover your message – build your talk around a message that’s useful, interesting and worth sharing
• Structure your talk so that it’s clear and easy to follow
• Craft a compelling opening that’ll captivate audiences – start with a story, a startling statistic, or a series of questions
• Build the body of your presentation – use stories, case studies, research, examples, and statistics
• End with a clear and compelling call to action – state what you want the audience to do, think or feel differently and paint the vision of a better future
• Use visual aids that will complement your speech , rather than competing with you

Books To Level Up Your TED Talk Presentation Skills

If you are interested in some resources on TED Talks presentation skills books, then I recommend:

• TED Talks: The Official Guide to Public Speaking by Chris Anderson
• How to Deliver a Great TED Talk by Akash Karia
• TED Talks Storytelling by Akash Karia

Take the Next Step: Coaching / Workshops?

Hi, I’m  Akash . I’m an introvert turned communication keynote speaker and wellbeing keynote speaker .

I’ve been invited to speak in 15 countries, with clients including the executive team at Gucci, leaders at Sony Pictures, managers at Ernst & Young, and government members in Dubai.

In 2024, I was ranked the # 14 communication guru globally (Global Gurus, 2024). If you’d like to explore my 1:1 coaching programs or corporate keynotes and workshops, then please get in touch and I’d be happy to have a conversation:

#1: One-on-one Coaching:  Whether you’re gearing up for an important presentation, want to level up your communication skills or prep for an interview, I can help.  Please apply here for coaching.

#2: Corporate Programs:  Looking for an engaging and transformative keynote or workshop for your event? My programs on communication, resilience and storytelling training for leaders may be a fit.   Get in touch here and I’ll email you the details. 

Full list of TED Talk Speakers Referenced in this guide:

• Jill Bolte Taylor
• Andy Puddicombe
• Simon Sinek
• Ken Robinson
• Leslie Morgan Steiner
• Pranav Mistry
• Barry Schwartz
• Malcolm Gladwell
• Jacqueline Novogratz

Let’s Energize Your Team & Supercharge Your Business  

Please fill out the information below to get in touch with Akash and his team.

• Keynote Speaking
• Leading For Innovation
• Winning Through Wellbeing
• The Big Idea
• Books By Akash
• Free Resources

[email protected]

©2024 Akash Karia. All Rights Reserved

Site by: digitalONDA | Privacy | Contact Akash

• VisualStory®
• Duarte DataStory®
• Presentation Principles™
• Slide:ology®
• Slide Design

Speaker Coaching

• Presenting Virtually™
• Illuminate™
• Adaptive Listening™
• Team training
• Learning journeys
• Brand and product storytelling
• Keynotes and events
• Sales enablement
• Communication systems
• Accelerator Lab™
• Our culture
• Our leaders
• Case studies
• Media mentions
• Guides and tools
• Learner support

11 ways to prepare: How to give a TED Talk

Nancy Duarte

I’ve given all types of talks . And while all presentations take an investment to make them effective, the creation of a high-stakes, beautifully staged TED Talk often proves to be especially difficult. It takes work to craft the talk, and then even more to make the delivery sound natural.

How long are TED Talks?

A TED Talk is 18 minutes long — a length that was chosen by TED organizers based both on  neuroscience and strategy . They understood that 18 minutes was long enough for a speaker to flesh out an idea, but short enough that a listener could take in, digest, and understand all of the important information.

TED Talk format: What makes preparing for a TED Talk so tough?

TED curator  Chris Anderson explains :

“The 18-minute length 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.”

In reality, creating a talk that is ONLY 18 minutes, instead of 45, is tougher than you might imagine. Woodrow Wilson summed up the process of giving a short, but effective speech best when he said:

“If I am to speak ten minutes, I need a week for preparation; if fifteen minutes, three days; if half an hour, two days; if an hour, I am ready now.”

Not only is the editing process for a TED Talk format (or an 18-minute speech) challenging, but the rehearsal process takes a lot of time, too. In fact, I discovered that the amount of rehearsal time required is inversely proportionate to the length of the talk.

True story: For the last 18-minute TEDx Talk I gave, it took me approximately 18 hours to rehearse.

Nancy Duarte’s TEDx Talk: The secret structure of great talks

How to do a TED Talk that gets a lot of views

While I’ve given a few TED Talks and TEDx Talks in my time, my firm has helped multiple TED speakers prepare for the stage. Whether it was for their TED Talk speech or just making sure folks sound smart in their TED talks, we’ve compiled a list for anyone to get started on their TED Talk journey.

Here are 11 preparation tips for how to give a TED Talk that fits within the TED Talk duration and results in a presentation that’s as effective as possible.

1. Make a TED Talk outline

When making your TED Talk, the structure of your presentation matters. It’s actually what my original TED Talk was about, and I’ve since produced a book and training workshop on it called Resonate ®.

From there, you can set up your slides, and begin to outline your TED Talk speech.

2. Print your current slide deck as 9-up handouts

You’ve made your slide deck, but now it’s time to prepare them for the TED stage . The  9-up format  is conveniently the same size as the smallest sticky note. When I prepared for  my TEDx Talk , I arranged and re-arranged my message onto sticky notes — adding sticky notes until I was happy with the flow.

If I’m whittling down my talk from, say, a 40-minute talk, I make sure I cut at least half of my slides. Keep trimming and trimming until you feel you are close to 18 minutes. During this process, it becomes clear that your Big Idea ™ can be communicated in a succinct, distilled manner.

3. Solicit feedback

Assemble a handful of people who are effective presenters that you trust to give honest, unfiltered feedback on your narrative and slides. Verbally run the ideas by these folks (it doesn’t have to be a formal presentation). Have them look at all the slides at once so they give feedback on the “whole,” not the parts. And have them give you feedback on the content you’ve chosen, asking whether they think it will resonate with your audience.

Consider doing this a handful of times. When I did my TEDx Talk, I repeated this step four times, twice with my External Communications Manager and twice with my company President. After they added their insights, I was ready to have the slides designed .

4. Rehearse with a great (honest) communicator

Choose someone you trust and also that understands how to give a TED Talk, and rehearse with them. In my case, I rehearsed with an Executive Duarte Speaker Coach . She would say honest things like:

• “When you say it that way, it can be interpreted differently than you intended.”
• “When you use that term, you come across as derogatory.”
• “I thought that when you said it last time it was better, you said … ”

She worked hard tracking phrases and rounds of what was said. When it comes to preparing for a TED Talk, honesty is the best policy. Make sure your communication coach is not afraid to speak up because 18 minutes goes by fast! You love your material and you want to include all of it, but if you want to master how to give a TED Talk successfully, you need someone you trust to help you murder your darlings .

5. Close the loop

A lot of times, as the presenter, you know your material so well that you think you’re making each key point clear. Here’s a tip: You might not be. Your speaker coach should make sure you are telling people why . It’s the “why” around our ideas that make them spread, not the “how.” Articulate the why so your audience understands what’s magnificent about your Big Idea™.

6. Practice with your clock counting up

The first few times, rehearse with your clock timer counting up. That’s because if you go over, you need to know how much you’re over. Do NOT be looking at the clock at this time. Have your presentation coach look at it because you don’t want to remember any of the timestamps in your mind. Finish your entire talk and then have your coach tell you how much you need to trim.

Keep practicing until you’re consistently within 18 minutes. Your executive speaker coach should be able to tell you to trim 30 seconds here or add 15 seconds there so that your content is weighted toward the most important information.

7. Practice with your clock counting down

Once you’re within the timeframe, begin practicing with your clock timer counting down. This is a great strategy to really maximize your presentation rehearsal time . You need to set a few places in your talk where you benchmark a time stamp.

• Calculate where you need to be in the content in six-minute increments.
• You should know roughly where you should be at 6, 12, and 18 minutes.
• You should know which slide you should be on and what you’re saying so that you will know immediately from the stage if you’re on time or running over.

8. Be noteworthy

Your executive speaker coach is there to jot down what you say well and what you don’t. They should work from a printout of the slides and write phrases you deliver effectively so they can be added to your script. They should help you capture phrases so you can type them into your notes. It goes without saying, but with an 18-minute time limit, they will also make sure you remove those pesky filler words , too!

9. Don’t be camera shy

Videotape some of your final practices. It doesn’t have to be a high-end video setup — I’ve used my iPhone camera on a tripod in a hotel room before. You just need to feel like something’s at stake. Videotaping yourself helps you get used to looking at the camera, and you can review the video to look at your stage presence, eye contact, gestures , plus identify any expressions that need modification.

Also, if you do an especially good practice run, you can go back and listen to the audio and add the best snippets to your slide notes. The TED audience has only about 1,000 people in it, but the TED.com audience will have millions. So, talk to the camera like there are humans on the other side of it.

10. Do one more full-timed rehearsal right before you walk on the TED Talk stage

Right before you go on stage (we’re talking the day of), do one more timed rehearsal. This will ensure that you know the speech and that you’re well aware of where you might need to slow down or speed up.

11. Have two natural ending points in your TED Talk speech

I gave a TED-style talk in India with a head cold. Despite all my rehearsals and prep, I knew I’d possibly lose track of timing. To prevent this, give your talk two natural ending points. Pick two natural places you could stop in your talk, then demarcate those as possible endings. That way, if you’re running way over, you can stop at your first ending point, and while your audience may miss out on some inspirational or emotional ending, they’ll have heard all the most important information that matters.

How to give a TED Talk: The easy way

Preparing for a big stage moment doesn’t have to be a TED Talk. It can be a meeting with investors , or it can be an hour-long keynote on a really big stage. If you want a pressure-tested solution to nail your high-stakes moment, hire a Duarte Speaker Coach . They can help you with both your speech outline, delivery, and even overcoming a stutter.

And if you’d rather take things slow, an award-winning public speaking workshop like Captivate ™ is your best choice.

This article was originally published on April 5, 2018. It has been updated in August 2024 for relevancy.

Check out these related courses

Captivate™

Improve your public speaking

Overcome bad habits, conquer fears, and increase your confidence in any speaking setting. Discover your strengths and build on them to improve your delivery.

Personalized help for speakers

Up-level your speaking skills with one-on-one support. We’ll help you rehearse your talk, polish your presence, and transform your message delivery.

Presentation Principles™

Learn presentation basics

Follow a step-by-step method to write compelling stories, amplify ideas visually, and present with confidence while learning at your own pace.

Check out these related resources

Facial expressions matter when presenting, here’s why

Nonverbal communication can aid, or hinder, your next presentation. Learn 6 tips from an Executive Speaker Coach on how to make sure your facial expressions help you nail your big-stage moment.

The secret to unforgettable events and memorable speeches

Need to guarantee your next event is unforgettable? Read on about S.T.A.R. Moments™, why they work, and the types you can use so that your next high-stakes moment is a standout success.

Remembering the Challenger: One of history’s greatest speeches

He’s known as The Great Communicator for a reason. Learn what made Reagan’s Challenger speech a famous one, and what lessons you can learn from it.

Tips for kids on how to nail presentations in the classroom

Why wait until they’re adults? Get 6 tips on public speaking tips kids and teens to own their classroom presentations now and often!

11 audience engagement strategies for all presentations

Need help keeping your audience engaged? It could be your presentation structure, delivery, or both! Dive into these strategies to keep your audience engaged the entire time you take the stage.

Why you should absolutely avoid using filler words (and how to actually stop)

Want to learn what are filler words and how to stop using them for good? Use these expert public speaking tips to nail your next board meeting, presentation or keynote and learn to embrace the “pause for effect.”

• SUGGESTED TOPICS
• The Magazine
• Newsletters
• Managing Yourself
• Managing Teams
• Work-life Balance
• The Big Idea
• Data & Visuals
• Reading Lists
• Case Selections
• HBR Learning
• Topic Feeds
• Account Settings
• Email Preferences

How to Give a Killer Presentation

• Chris Anderson

For more than 30 years, the TED conference series has presented enlightening talks that people enjoy watching. In this article, Anderson, TED’s curator, shares five keys to great presentations:

• Frame your story (figure out where to start and where to end).
• Plan your delivery (decide whether to memorize your speech word for word or develop bullet points and then rehearse it—over and over).
• Work on stage presence (but remember that your story matters more than how you stand or whether you’re visibly nervous).
• Plan the multimedia (whatever you do, don’t read from PowerPoint slides).
• Put it together (play to your strengths and be authentic).

According to Anderson, presentations rise or fall on the quality of the idea, the narrative, and the passion of the speaker. It’s about substance—not style. In fact, it’s fairly easy to “coach out” the problems in a talk, but there’s no way to “coach in” the basic story—the presenter has to have the raw material. So if your thinking is not there yet, he advises, decline that invitation to speak. Instead, keep working until you have an idea that’s worth sharing.

Lessons from TED

A little more than a year ago, on a trip to Nairobi, Kenya, some colleagues and I met a 12-year-old Masai boy named Richard Turere, who told us a fascinating story. His family raises livestock on the edge of a vast national park, and one of the biggest challenges is protecting the animals from lions—especially at night. Richard had noticed that placing lamps in a field didn’t deter lion attacks, but when he walked the field with a torch, the lions stayed away. From a young age, he’d been interested in electronics, teaching himself by, for example, taking apart his parents’ radio. He used that experience to devise a system of lights that would turn on and off in sequence—using solar panels, a car battery, and a motorcycle indicator box—and thereby create a sense of movement that he hoped would scare off the lions. He installed the lights, and the lions stopped attacking. Soon villages elsewhere in Kenya began installing Richard’s “lion lights.”

• CA Chris Anderson is the curator of TED.

Partner Center

How to create and deliver a powerful presentation introduction inspired by the most watched TED talks

Moments before each presentation, the air is thick with expectations. The audience is bustling with curiosity and unuttered thoughts, waiting for you, the speaker, to break the silence with a good presentation introduction. Within those first few minutes, the audience is hanging on your every word, gauging whether or not the rest of your presentation is worth listening to.

Have you heard of the 20-minute rule for public speaking ? Or the idea that we only have 7 seconds to make a strong first impression ? Regardless of the specific time stamp, there’s a reason why so much importance is put on that initial encounter between speaker and audience. It’s the moment when the audience is naturally most engaged and when the speaker has the opportunity to set the tone for the rest of the presentation.

The presentation introduction has three goals: to get the audience hooked, to identify the main topic and core message and to give the audience an overview of the points that the presentation will cover. It is the most important part of any talk and the most difficult hurdle to overcome for a speaker. But it doesn’t have to be. Featuring some of the most watched TED talks, we’ll walk you through how to create and deliver to a powerful introduction. Keep reading.

How to grasp your audience’s attention

No big deal: this is only the moment when, as a speaker, you convince your audience that your presentation is worth listening to. Nervous? You shouldn’t be. Grasping your audience’s attention doesn’t require you to make an entrance riding a carriage pulled by a white horse. (—although that would surely do the trick) Keep in mind that, at this point, the audience members are still naturally attentive. So keep it simple, and keep it human .

Start a conversation

Think of it as a conversation. Like the simplest of human interactions, all it takes is a simple “Hello. How are you?”

In the most watched TED talk of all time “Do schools kill creativity?”, speaker Ken Robinson starts his talk with just that, a: “Good morning. How are you?”.

Much like a conversation, he greets the audience and proceeds to talk about the TED talks that came before his. He creates a rapport with the audience by talking about an experience that he shared with them. Drawing from that shared experience, he humorously introduces his topic: education.

Involve your audience

If Ken Robinson’s hilarious conversation starters aren’t for you, try creating a rapport with your audience by getting them to do something. Being interactive with your audience is a surefire way to get their attention. Also, involving them in your presentation has the added benefit of increasing their retention rate.

In the TED talk “Your body language shapes who you are” that has over 40 million views, Amy Cuddy kickstarts her presentation introduction by asking the audience to take a minute to assess their posture. “How many of you are sort of making yourselves smaller?” she asks, acknowledging what many of the audience members are doing. She creates a rapport with the audience by acknowledging their behavior and eventually connecting this behavior to her own topic: body language.

Try something similar in your presentation introduction. Ask your audience to stand if they’ve been sitting for a while. Ask them to introduce themselves to the person they’re sitting next to.

Ask a question

Simon Sinek opts for something arguably more classic: asking a rhetorical question. In his TED talk called “How great leaders inspire action” that has raked over 30 million views, he starts off by asking: “How do you explain when things don’t go as we assume? Or better, how do you explain when others are able to achieve things that seem to defy all of the assumptions?”.

He then continues by citing a few references that the audience is familiar with, namely Apple and Martin Luther King. The question he asks are simple: “Why him?” “Why are they different?”. He creates a rapport with the audience by inviting them to ponder the answers to the questions that he is asking, albeit rhetorically.

Introduce your topic by asking the questions that your presentation is going to answer.

Tell a story

In “The Power of Vulnerability” talk, which is the fourth most watched TED talk after Robinson’s, Cuddy’s and Sinek’s, Brené Brown begins her presentation with an anecdote. She tells the story of how, a few years back, an event planner was struggling to sell her title as “researcher” at a speaking event, arguing that it sounded too boring to attract an audience. Brené Brown told the story lightheartedly, connecting to the human side of the audience by explaining her personal struggle with the situation.

Appeal to the human side of your audience by drawing from your own experiences. Talk about a struggle that you overcame, a flaw that you are trying to work on, an experience that changed your life. The power of storytelling is that the audience doesn’t need to experience exactly the same thing for them to relate to your story. Sharing your own experiences encourages them to draw from their own, thus helping them grasp your message better as they relate it to something that they have experienced themselves.

Introduce your core message

Contrary to the dramatic structure where the story gradually builds up to a climax, your core message needs to be introduced in your presentation introduction. The audience’s attention curve when it comes to presentations tends to plummet shortly after the introduction, so you want to deliver the main message while you still have their attention.

Identifying the main topic and the core message of your presentation is as straightforward as that — telling the audience what your presentation is all about. Your presentation introduction needs to convey the core findings of your study, your eureka moment, your discovery or your core belief.

Ken Robinson, Amy Cuddy, Simon Sinek and Brené Brown all revealed the main idea of their talk within the first 3 minutes of their presentation introduction. Julian Treasure’s talk is no different. Within 3 minutes, he has outlined the main points of his talk by citing the “Seven deadly sins of speaking”. Within 3 minutes, the audience knows what they are about to sit through, making it easy for them to decide whether or not the rest is worth listening to.

Implement the same principle in your presentation introduction. Hook your audience within the first few minutes and drop the most important part of your talk while they’re still taking the bait.

Create professional presentations online

Other people also read

6 Presentation Styles of Famous Presenters

The seven worst presentations of all time and why they went ...

How to create the perfect Pitch Deck presentation

• Newsletters
• Best Industries
• Business Plans
• Home-Based Business
• The UPS Store
• Customer Service
• Black in Business
• Your Next Move
• Female Founders
• Best Workplaces
• Company Culture
• Public Speaking
• HR/Benefits
• Productivity
• All the Hats
• Digital Transformation
• Artificial Intelligence
• Bringing Innovation to Market
• Cloud Computing
• Social Media
• Data Detectives
• Exit Interview
• Bootstrapping
• Crowdfunding
• Venture Capital
• Business Models
• Personal Finance
• Founder-Friendly Investors
• Upcoming Events
• Inc. 5000 Vision Conference
• Become a Sponsor
• Cox Business
• Verizon Business
• Branded Content
• Apply Inc. 5000 US

Inc. Premium

16 Ways to Dramatically Improve Your Presentation Skills From 16 Powerful TED Talks

Want to deliver better presentations learning by example -- especially from outstanding ted talks -- can sometimes be the best way to learn..

You may not be delivering a TED Talk , but still. You want to captivate your audience. You need to captivate your audience. (Here's looking at you, Colonel Jessup .)

But you're worried that you don't have the skills.

That's okay. There are a number of ways to instantly improve your speaking skills . It's all about preparation and practice --and using some of the following tips.

And as a bonus, each tip is accompanied by an awesome TED Talk, so not only do you get to use some awesome speakers as role models, you can broaden your knowledge while you're at it:

1. Harness the power of genuine emotion.

Now let's look at unusual ways to instantly improve your presentations. Many speakers tell self-deprecating stories, but simply admitting a mistake is a waste if you only use it to highlight how far you've come. Instead, tell a story and let your emotions show. If you were sad, say so. If you cried, say so. If you felt remorse, let it show.

When you share genuine feelings, you create an immediate and lasting connection with the audience. Emotion trumps speaking skills every time.

2. Always have a secondary goal.

Say you're speaking to a civic group on behalf of a charity and you realize your presentation is falling flat. In response, people usually either try too hard or basically give up. If your primary goal is to land a contract and you can tell you won't succeed, shift to planting the seeds for another attempt down the road.

If you see you won't get what you really want, ask what can you accomplish? Then, when the room doesn't go your way, you can stay positive, focused, and on top of your speaking game.

3. Always give the audience something to take home.

Always provide something specific the audience can do almost immediately. No matter how inspiring your message, every audience appreciates learning a tangible way they can actually apply what they've learned to their own lives.

Inspiration is great, but application is everything: Never be afraid to say, "Tonight, think of an employee who is really struggling... and then tomorrow, do (this) and (this) to try to rescue them."

4. Don't wait to answer questions.

If a question pops up in the middle of your presentation, that's awesome: Someone is listening! So seize the opportunity. If you would have addressed the point in a later slide, skip ahead. (If you've practiced skipping around, it won't throw you.)

The best presentations feel like conversations, even if one-sided...so never ignore the opportunity to foster that sense of interaction. Never do anything to disengage your audience.

5. Fuel up wisely.

Let's start with some preparation tips. Dopamine and epinephrine help regulate mental alertness. Both come from tyrosine, an amino acid found in proteins. So make sure to include protein in the meal you eat before you need to be at your best.

And don't wait until the last minute. When you're really nervous, the last thing you may want to do is eat.

6. Burn off some cortisol.

Cortisol is secreted by your adrenal glands when you're anxious or stressed. High levels of cortisol limit your creativity and your ability to process complex information; when you're buzzed on cortisol, it's almost impossible to read and react to the room.

The easiest way to burn off cortisol is to exercise. Work out before you leave for work, take a walk at lunch, or hit the gym before a speaking engagement. (If you've ever felt more grounded after slogging through a solid workout, you now know why.)

7. Develop two contingency plans.

If you're like me, "what if?" is your biggest source of anxiety: What if your PowerPoint presentation fails, someone constantly interrupts, or your opening falls flat? Pick two of your biggest fears and create contingency plans. What will you do if the projector fails? What will you do if the meeting runs long and you only have a few minutes to speak?

The effort won't be wasted, because the more you think through different scenarios, the better you can think on your feet if something truly unexpected occurs.

8. Create a pre-presentation ritual.

Superstitions are an attempt to "control" something we're afraid of. (Lucky socks don't make an athlete perform better.) Instead of creating a superstition, create a routine that helps center you emotionally. Walk the room ahead of time to check sight lines. Check microphone levels. Run through your presentation at the site to ensure it's ready to go.

Pick things to do that are actually beneficial and do them every time. You'll find comfort in the familiar--and confidence, too.

9. Find something the audience doesn't know.

I've never heard someone say, "I was at this presentation the other day, and the guy's Gantt chart was amazing!" I have heard someone say, "Did you know when you blush the lining of your stomach also turns red?"

Find a surprising fact or an unusual analogy that relates to your topic. Audiences love to cock their heads and think, "Really? Wow...."

10. Always benefit; never sell.

Most business people assume they should capitalize on a speaking engagement to promote a product or service, win new clients, and build a wider network. Don't. Thinking in terms of sales only adds additional pressure to what is already a stressful situation. Put all your focus on ensuring the audience will benefit from what you say; never try to accomplish more than one thing.

When you help people make their professional or personal lives better, you've done all the selling you'll need to do.

11. Never make excuses.

Due to insecurity, many speakers open with an excuse: "I didn't get much time to prepare..." or "I'm not very good at this...." Excuses won't make your audience cut you any slack, but they will make people think, "Then why are you wasting my time?"

Do what you need to do to ensure you don't need to make excuses.

12. Keep your slides simple...

Here's a simple rule of thumb: Make your font size double the average age of your audience. Roughly speaking, that means your fonts will be between 60 and 80 points. If you need to fit more words on a slide, that means you haven't tightened your message.

13. ...And never read your slides.

Your audience should be able to almost instantly scan your slides--if they have to actually read, you might lose them. And you'll definitely lose them if you read to them. Your slides should accentuate your points; they should never be the point.

14. Focus on earning the audience's attention.

Now let's look at a few things to immediately start doing. Instead of playing the "turn off your mobile devices" game, because no one will (and you just look stodgy), focus on earning their complete attention. Make your presentation so interesting, so entertaining, and so inspiring that people can't help but pay attention.

It's not the audience's job to listen; it's your job to make them want to listen.

15. Use the power of repetition.

Your audience probably hears about half of what you say...and then they filter that through their own perspectives. So create a structure that allows you to repeat and reinforce key points. First explain a point, then give examples of how that point can be applied, and at the end provide audience action steps they can take based on that point.

Since no one can remember everything you say, what you repeat has a much greater chance of being remembered--and being acted upon. So repeat away!

16. But don't ever run long.

If you have 30 minutes, take 25. If you have an hour, take 50. Always respect your audience's time and end early. As a bonus, that forces you to hone your presentation--and to prepare to shift gears if your presentation takes an unexpected turn.

Finish early and ask if anyone has questions. Or invite them to see you after the presentation.

But never run long...because all the good will you built up could be lost.

A refreshed look at leadership from the desk of CEO and chief content officer Stephanie Mehta

Privacy Policy

10 tips for speaking like a Ted Talk pro

Advice from the experts on how to make any presentation sing

By Katherine Lee

February 2017, Vol 48, No. 2

Print version: page 64

Psychologists and graduate students are often called upon to speak to an audience, whether to give a conference presentation, deliver a lecture to a class, lead a meeting or give a talk in the community. But public speaking is a skill that comes more naturally to some than to others, and there are some common pitfalls to avoid, such as seeming disorganized or looking down at notes rather than at your audience.

Regardless of how practiced you may be at public speaking, there are some very effective strategies to use to deliver engaging talks. The next time you have a speaking engagement, try these tips to deliver your message like a TED Talk presenter:

1. Know your audience. Keep in mind whom you are going to be addressing when you craft your presentation, says Robert Sternberg, PhD, a former APA president who is a professor of human development at Cornell University. Is the audience going to be mainly fellow psychologists, health professionals, other professional groups, students or consumers? What do they want and need to hear? Knowing whom you are speaking to will help you tailor the talk and will help keep the audience engaged.

2. Keep it simple, especially if you're going to give a talk to a general audience. "People have a tendency to give presentations the audience doesn't understand," says Barry Schwartz, PhD, a psychology professor emeritus at Swarthmore College and a visiting professor at the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley. He suggests giving a talk that makes people feel like they're smart and like they want to learn more about the topic. "The curse of knowledge is that once you know something, you forget what it was like when you didn't know it," he says. "I imagine that I'm going to present to my grandmother, who had a fifth-grade education."

3. Emphasize connection over content. To best engage listeners, build your speech from an emotional place rather than from the content, says Kristi Hedges, leadership coach and author of the 2011 book "The Power of Presence: Unlock Your Potential to Influence and Engage Others." Rattling off facts and figures and talking at the audience isn't effective if they aren't interested in what you are saying. "Be clear about what you want the audience to walk away with when they leave and use that intent as a structure to frame your talk," says Hedges. Your passion for a topic can draw people in; talking without any enthusiasm for the topic can deplete energy in the room and eclipse your message. "Talk to persuade, not just to inform," adds Sternberg.

4. Be authentic. Some speakers may try to sound like someone they admire instead of being themselves, notes Daniel Gilbert, PhD, professor of psychology at Harvard University. "Some people try to sing like their favorite singer or dance like their favorite dancer," says Gilbert. "Similarly, some speakers may try to sound like Martin Luther King Jr. or John F. Kennedy." Authenticity—sounding like yourself and using everyday language—is key to getting your message across to an audience, says Gilbert.

5. Diversify your delivery. People don't learn just by listening—different people learn in different ways, says Susan H. McDaniel, PhD, APA's 2016 president. Use visual tools (such as slides or a video), incorporate research and tell stories. Anecdotes can be a particularly effective way to connect with an audience. "It could be a story about yourself, especially if you're using humor and making fun of yourself," says McDaniel. One important tip to keep in mind about multimedia presentations: Don't let the technology obscure what you're trying to say, says Schwartz. "PowerPoint is incredibly powerful, but use it to get halfway there, rather than expecting it to do the whole job for you," he says.

6. Shake it up. Another reason to use different media in your talk is to make it more dynamic and compelling. "Using mixed media creates energy and vibrancy," says Hedges. Think about ways to use slides, video, audio, handouts, props and even spontaneous smartphone polls to engage your audience. You might, for instance, start with a video and then use powerful images later in your talk, says Hedges. Or you can begin with an engrossing question and use the audience feedback as data with polling software such as Poll Everywhere .

7. Stick to your points. Before you talk, determine your main points and outline them, says McDaniel. Some people refer to notes on stage while others may use PowerPoint or Keynote slides as prompts. One cautionary tip: Avoid simply putting the text of your speech in slides. "Writing out the words you'll be saying on slides is boring," says McDaniel. "Slides should be used for emphasis."

8. Know the setup. Have a run-through in the space you'll be speaking at if possible, especially if you'll be talking in front of a large audience. Test the tech system during that practice run to troubleshoot possible problems in advance. For instance, the sound may not run properly with your video or your slides may be set up behind you (which would mean you'll have to constantly turn your head to see where you are in your talk).

9. Don't lecture the whole time. Keep in mind that people don't have long attention spans. If you need to explore a topic deeply, use humor, an engaging video or other media to present various aspects of the topic. You can also break up a long talk by posing questions to the audience, suggests Hedges.

10. Leave time for questions. Talking until the last minute is a common mistake many speakers make, says Hedges. If you have an hourlong presentation, plan for 45 minutes of talking and 15 minutes for questions.

A Ted Talk on Ted Talks: To watch a video on how to give a great talk, go to www.ted.com/talks/chris_anderson_teds_secret_to_great_public_speaking .

Related Articles

• How to keep fear of public speaking at bay

Letters to the Editor

• Send us a letter

TED is supported by ads and partners 00:00

Why good leaders make you feel safe