Giving a Speech Like TED

The art of persuasion is a learned and practiced endeavor.  A TED talk is a great place to watch and learn the art of public speaking (church is also a great place to learn public speaking and the art of persuasion).

Sam Leith has a good columen on talking like a TEDer in the Financial Times On public speaking column on February 18, 2014 - Lessons on how to talk like TED.  I love the nine aspects of public speaking outlined in the column:

1. Be passionate about your topic.
2. Engage the audience by telling stories (Engineers need to get much better at this - - ministers learn this in Theology 101).
3. Treat your speach like a conversation.
4. Tell the audience something it doesn't know.
5. Include a few jaw-droppers.
6. Use humour (Engineering 101 needs to include going to see improvisational comedy).
7. Keep it brief.
8. Engage all the senses by painting word pictures (Words yes - - but we live in a world of incrediable visualization technology - - sometimes just let the picture or graph or chart tell the story - - let the graph be the stunning jaw-dropper).
9. Be authentic.