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For anyone interested in speaking and listening to interesting speakers, TED is always a great place to visit. Recently I came across the “TED Commandments” which are given to all TED speakers to help them focus their talk for a TED audience.
The commandments are useful not just for TED speakers but for anyone who has to stand up and speak in front of an audience. They’re filled with guidelines that, if followed, will make your speech entertaining and interesting for the audience while at the same time allowing you the chance to enjoy yourself.
The TED Commandments are:
- Dream Big. Strive to create the best talk you have ever given. Reveal something never seen before. Do something the audience will remember forever. Share an idea that could change the world.
- Show Us The Real You. Share your passions, your dreams … and also your fears. Be vulnerable. Speak of failure as well as success.
- Make The Complex Plain. Don’t try to dazzle intellectually. Don’t speak in abstractions. Explain! Give examples. Tell stories. Be specific.
- Connect With People’s Emotions. Make us laugh! Make us cry!
- Don’t Flaunt Your Ego. Don’t boast. It’s the surest way to switch everyone off.
- No Selling From The Stage! Unless we have specifically asked you to, do not talk about your company or organization. And don’t even think about pitching your products or services or asking for funding from stage.
- Feel free to comment on other speakers’ talks, to praise or to criticize. Controversy energizes! Enthusiastic endorsement is powerful!
- Don’t Read Your Talk. Notes are fine. But if the choice is between reading or rambling, then read!
- End Your Talk On Time. Doing otherwise is to steal time from the people that follow you. We won’t allow it.
- Rehearse your talk in front of a trusted friend … for timing, for clarity, for impact.