Key Takeaways
Make complex ideas more accessible, applying principles such as:
- Diagramming
- Deconstructing
- Comparing
- Visualizing
- Backward mapping
- Chunking
Explore Further
optional exercises for further reflection and practice
READ
- 10 Simple Tips to Present Complex Information (Connor Brooke, Business2Community)
- How to Communicate Complex Information: 4 Strategies (Esther Choy, Forbes)
DO
Think about a complex activity you do in your daily life or work – it could be driving, cooking, building, spreadsheeting … anything that involves multiple steps to complete. Now, imagine explaining how to do this activity, to someone who has never done it before. What techniques might you use to make this activity “accessible” to someone seeing and hearing you explain it?
Build Your Checklist
this list grows throughout the academic quarter
- Create Anxiety Management Plan (AMP) and use when speaking publicly
- Define audience and speaking goals:
- Who am I speaking to?
- What are their needs?
- What do I want them to know, feel, or do differently after hearing me?
- Choose and apply an identifiable structure, such as:
- What, so what, now what?
- Problem, solution, benefit
- What is, what could be, new bliss
- Create a powerful opening and closing
- Create transitions that:
- Resummarize prior section
- Introduce next section
- Signpost overall structure
- Prepare visual aids that reinforce structure and story:
- One big idea per slide
- Quick impact
- Clean and crisp
- Plan and prepare specific audience engagement techniques such as:
- Inclusive language
- Cognitive / rhetorical exercises
- Questions and polls
- Engaging data or anecdotes
- Practice and digitally record talk repeatedly, refining:
- Visual delivery: Stance, movement, gestures, eye contact
- Vocal delivery: Volume, dynamics, pace, tone
- Verbal delivery: Clear and vivid word choices, minimize fillers