How TED Talks are influencing the way organizations communicate

The golden rules for delivering a powerful presentation are to know your audience, know your material and make your delivery memorable and real. These certainly come into their own when presenting a TED Talk.

TED Talks were developed thirty-five years ago in California by Richard Saul Wurman as a way of delivering an idea or view in a short, enticing and thought-provoking manner.

TED is not a person but a way of presenting. The title gives a clue to the content (Technology, Entertainment, Design) – with an emphasis on entertainment. The presenter will talk, without notes, on a core subject they are passionate about for a total of 18 minutes (considered to be the optimum attention-span) using simple, powerful imagery and visual aids to get across a key point they want to make and leave the audience wanting to know more.

This has become an extremely popular form of address, with TED Talks being delivered across all corners of the world and attracting many millions of views online. A masterclass TED Talk was given by Bill Gates to raise awareness of Malaria and public health in Africa: https://www.ted.com/talks/bill_gates_mosquitos_malaria_and_education.

However, there is also a body of opinion questioning the effectiveness of a TED Talks format and its appropriateness to explain a complex situation, versus the more business-like presentation we are all accustomed to.

So, what is the right approach for business?

We believe there are more similarities than differences between the two styles. This makes the “TED Talks” style a viable option for delivering a business presentation as it adopts many of the same disciplines and techniques required for a business-style format – audience engagement, content structure, presentation delivery and use of strong imagery – in order to deliver an engaging and memorable presentation.

We are seeing increasing interest from organizations wanting specific TED Talks-style training. If you want to learn more on how to develop a powerful TED Talks-style presentation, please contact Dave Scallan.

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