TED has some of the best talks ever – the content, the message, and the delivery are unparalleled. Needless to say, some of the best brains of the world contribute here. This is an exemplary instance of such a skill:
Here, Hans Rosling, Professor of International Health at Karolinska Institute and Director of the Gapminder Foundation, which developed the Trendalyzer software system gives a mind blowing talk on how and when Asia will catch up to the Western super powers. It’s a powerful talk. Watch it once for the message and then watch it again to learn. He owns the presentation, he owns the stage, and he owns the audience. For those of us wanting to be the future movers of the global economy, what can we learn from it?
1. Mastering the art of Presenting <—– Leadership skills
TED or not-TED, every talk you give is momentous. For those 15 minutes, every single person in the room eagerly gives you their undivided attention. At least they want to. So do your audience a favor and deliver. Expectations are high and attention spans are low. You can grab on it, unleash their imagination, and take them on a guided tour of your choosing. You need to use everything within your disposal to your advantage. It’s not just the slides and a memorized speech any more. You have your whole body – use it. Body language, facial expressions, actions, and motion can all be used to communicate. Use articulation – customize tone, speed, volume, and emphasis to the point at hand.
Watch Hans walk around stage, use facial expressions, actions, and gestures to deliver this talk – he even uses props! Pay extra attention to how he matches his voice to the speed of the animation to convey excitement. He engages you, and you are simply drawn in.
Professionally, what can your talk do for you? Talks are where you plant a seed for powerful change, unveil your expertise, initiate collaborations, and bag deals. Not only does passion for a venture and level of knowledge come through, but people will know if you are a natural leader. They are, after all, witnessing an ultimate test of leadership – can you make people listen? You can establish your stance, making it natural for people to fund your ventures or recommend you to the C-level. It’s also a natural icebreaker – you have given them an easy opening line- “nice talk”! Professionally, you need not only excel at giving talks- but you should be seeking them out.
2. Data Showcasing <—– Product placement
All data are not created equal – some are more interesting than others. Having said that, even if you have the most important message in the world, it will be lost if you don’t know how to showcase it. The era of pie charts and excel figures are long gone. Apart from being clear and to-the-point, your graphs need to be alive, dynamic, and the center-of-attention. They need to capture attention, help understanding not confusion. Your data contains the meat of the message – serve it tastefully.
How can you boost your business via a talk? This is the man’s product – Trendalyzer is a software for animation of statistics. Clearly, he had a very interesting message. This would have been an amazing talk – simply for the message. But he didn’t just stop there. Neither did he parade his wares. Hans has a great product, and he knows it. He highlights the features of his product by simply using it remarkably well.
Aside: Notice how he casually acknowledges and offhandedly cheers Trendalyzer’s new owner and Gapminder’s business affiliate, Google. Everyone likes to be remembered.
3. World Changing <—– Stepping up your game
It appears to take more than just in depth know-hows and covetable soft skills to be a successful business leader. What is it that sets these visionaries apart? There is a trend these days – aspirations to set make a venture bigger than just the product, to integrate business models with the ever changing socio-economic patterns of today’s society, or simply put, to include the guy-in-country-next-door in what you do. Such social moves is not necessarily just a feel-good holier-than-thou reaction or a cosmetic move to erase the popular notion of evil corporations, or even a use-behavioral-economics-to-increase-sales effort, but a necessary step in the evolution of capitalism or a good business. The world is getting flatter, the economy more global, and thus capitalism more innovative. Capitalism not only lifts the entire society economically but thrives with the overall health – successful businesses open up doors for new ventures, more capital flow helps create new capital, and great ideas inspire new ones. Enterprise success, like happiness, is addictive. You can see this happening in India right now. Ever since India opened its business doors in the 90’s, the country is booming, the middle class expanding, and the overall health is improving. Measures to uplift society at large is more than an admirable goal – it makes long-term business sense. You are simply making the playing field better. So this new trend, creative capitalism specifically, is an inevitable, but nonetheless brilliant, step in upping the anti. This is what sets the Googles, the Microsofts, and Whole Foods of the world apart. Capitalism doesn’t work against society – properly executed, it works for the society.
Hans could have used Trendalyzer to track statistics of shoppers and predict hot retail stocks for the holidays- this would have also been quite useful, informative, and interesting. From an advertising and clientele point of view, this actually makes more sense. But, he reached out to a wider audience, used his business to impact the world and reached out at TED. By seamlessly integrating a socio-economic message into the product over his entire talk, he made Trendalyzer stand out without ever once mentioning the product. None of this appeared fake or superficial. Here is a visionary entrepreneur, and he CARES. Far from suffering for his actions, he now has random blogs blog about his product and obscure scientists think about using Trendalyzer. Absolutely brilliant.
What global impact will your venture have?