Visually Speaking 1:
Making Lasting Impressions

One thing all the experts can agree on is that the success of communication is dependent on the presenter. In case you were unsure, that’s the person in the front of the room trying to keep the audience awake. The visuals are secondary to the concept, which is subject to the delivery skills of the person. All three elements are important, but without the person, you really can’t call it a presentation. If you think the content and the visuals are most important, try this at your next presentation. Get there early and place a chair in the front of the room, right about where you are expected to stand. For added effect, place your jacket over the back of the chair. Now, with a ipod player running a voice recording of your presentation, let the PowerPoint visuals advance automatically for the "audience." Then, while using an egg-timer, see how long the group remains in the room!

Communication is about people. Competition is so strong that products or services in the same category are starting to look the same. From household goods to cars to electronics --- everything seems on par with everything else. The offerings of a company don't make the difference; instead, the people skills used to express those offerings are often what causes us to make a decision. The role of the presenter has taken on new meaning for companies who expect to compete in the coming years.

Here's a fact. People under the age of forty are visual creatures. They get their information and stimulation from television, movies, computers, and video games. All of these forms are driven by action and eye contact. Visual creatures demand both. In fact, they crave it! Think about it! Where do you get most of your news information? TV, right? That’s because you like all the little pictures and you like when people look at you. Who doesn’t?

If we are not there already, we are all destined to become visual creatures! Even the "Eco-boomers" (Generation Y, born between 1979 and 1995) require a high degree of visual stimuli just to remain attentive and interested in a subject. Now those are some serious visual creatures!

To be successful, presenters need to match the needs of an audience of visual creatures by becoming visual presenters. A visual presenter embodies a message and delivers it with action and eye contact, creating a lasting impression on the audience.

The development of the concept, the design, and the delivery must follow a consistent set of principles based on the needs of visual creatures. Keeping that in mind, I will focus on tips and techniques used to enhance the messages, media, and mechanics related to presentations. The goal is to blend concepts and visual support with a person’s individual delivery style so that he or she can become an effective visual presenter.

The challenge for today's presenter is to tune into a speaking style and tune out to statistical jargon. People remember people, not data. Very few people will come up to a presenter at the end of the presentation and say "You know. The third pie chart? The fourth slice? Loved it! The other slices, nahhhh, but the THIRD slice, wow!" No way! But a person might say "You know. The story you told about the young woman and the two kids? That proved your point!"

The trick behind messaging is to ask yourself how long after the presentation is your message still memorable? Remember: "Quality" content stimulates thinking and makes a lasting impression.

When you develop content for a presentation, the messages you place in the script should stay with an audience long after the event takes place. It’s not about the messages alone; rather, it’s about the way those messages are conveyed. People communicate ideas to people. Quality content is only quality content if presented that way. Obviously, if an actor plays Hamlet poorly, the quality of the content is lost.

People and ideas need to be brought together for content to flourish and for messages to be remembered. To create a lasting impression, you’ll need to capture attention. You can do that with words, with visuals, and with a person who believes in the message. Presenters who create lasting impressions are better when they are "Visually Speaking".

COMMUNICATION IS MOSTLY PHYSICAL

In the communication game the MESSAGE, the MEDIA and the MECHANICS all play a role. Let's talk about delivery mechanics for now. According to the Book of Lists, the greatest fear is speaking in front of a group. There are hundreds of books and articles on the subject of public speaking and yet the fear continues to plague many who must, at one time or another, deliver information in front of other people. The fear stems from a lack of knowing how to physically communicate a message to a group of people. After all, if you can effectively interact, discuss, present, persuade, convince and converse in front of ONE person, then why would the presence of additional people suddenly reduce your communication abilities? Logically it doesn’t follow. Yet, fear of public speaking exists and an understanding of the communication process itself can help address that fear and overcome it.

Studies suggest that 55% of everything you say is what you LOOK like when you speak. 38% more is in how you actually DELIVER the information and only 7% is what you SAY. Even if these statistics vary to some small degree the point is that the message is shaped by the messenger, not by the words themselves. You spend most of your time worrying about content and it's the smallest part of the real story. This is not to say that content needs to be ignored. Content is very important. Yet, the actions of the presenter, from a physical and vocal standpoint can add value to the visuals and make the entire event more effective.

Since 93% of the story is delivery, you need to consider an approach that is effective and based on simple concepts. Most of these concepts, believe it or not, are rooted in theatrical skills. Theatre has existed in all cultures since the dawn of man. From storytelling to play-acting, a message is "delivered" to group of listeners. Presenting offers a similar metaphor. A presenter seeks the attention of an audience for a short period of time in the hopes of delivering an important message. The inherent delivery "mechanics" can be separated into two categories, FORM and FUNCTION. The mechanics of form (the external presentation skills) involve your body and your voice. The mechanics of function (the internal skills) relate to your mind and your heart. It is easier to start with the tangible, external skills of form, since they are the most obvious.

Your physical and vocal delivery skills involve your relationship to both the room and the audience in the room. It all stems from your body positioning. There are a few universal concepts that you need to adhere to in order to maintain maximum effectiveness. The rules involve anchoring the eye and playing the angles.

You MUST stand on the left side of the room --- that is, the left side from the audience point of view. In the English language, we READ words from left-to-right. The eye is less distracted if it sees the presenter speaking from the left, then glances slightly right to read the visual (left-to-right) and then returns to view the speaker again. The pattern is circular and clockwise. But if you stand on the opposite side of the room (the audience's right), the natural pattern of the way we read and listen is disturbed and the effectiveness is reduced. From the opposite side, the eye of the viewer must navigate backward through text to find the anchor to begin reading. This is an extra step, a distraction, which reduces the ability of the audience to concentrate at the highest level possible. As a presenter, you want to reduce all distractions.

So, your first external effort is to anchor your body to same side as the way the language is normally first scanned (left-to-right or right-to-left). In Israel, you could be on the other side. In China, I'm afraid you'll just have to stand on your head. Sorry.

Of course, if you have no visuals for the audience to view then it doesn't matter which side of the room you present from, as long as people can see and hear you.

Choosing a side of the room is just the first step in establishing your relationship with the "space" you occupy. There are other things to consider including body angles, depth, proximity and more. We'll cover those topics the next time we find ourselves "Visually Speaking".

Learn more about Tom Mucciolo and MediaNet in our Contributor's section.