Title: How urban spaces can preserve history and build community
Presenter: Walter Hood
Evaluation
Delivery
- You project confidence, and you seem comfortable speaking to the group. And that gives you lots of credibility.
- You do a nice job gesturing with both hands. The gestures are very natural and don't distract from your message.
- You moved across the stage easily, and I felt that it contributed to the comfortable feeling of listening to you.
- You are a wonderful storyteller. You have natural vocal variety, and the whole presentation is very conversational, as if you're telling a story to me in my home. It's so easy for me to listen to you. Sometimes, I feel that you force extra drama into your voice, and I don't feel that you need it. I felt that it distracted from the natural drama that I hear in the rest of your presentation.
Content
- You began with a rhetorical question that is interesting and then jumped to e pluribus unum.and told us that you want to explore the connection. The language you used was "how landscape might imbue those memories of diverse perspectives ... as well as trying to force us to now things down to a clean set of identifies." I stopped the tape and listened three times to this. To me, you've introduced a complex idea before I'm (maybe the audience in general is) ready to hear it. I'd like you to spend more time in the introduction, perhaps give us an example or at least some more rhetorical questions to lead us to this point, before you transition to the main portion of the presentation.
- I like that you've forecasted that you're going to cover five topics and describe five projects. I also saw you do something uncommon in an organization, and that's to include in your introduction a forecast of what your conclusion will be. There's nothing wrong with that; it's just unusual. I think I would've appreciated it a lot more if I weren't already feeling a bit behind in following you.
- I found the stories very interesting and entertaining. Of your five concepts: Great things happen when we exist in each others world; Twoness; The traditional belongs to all of us, those words don't mean anything to me without the stories. Even after the stories, though, I'm not sure I understand the point of the concept.
- And that gets me to what I felt was the weakest part of the presentation, the conclusion. It was too abrupt for me. The entire conclusion was "And hopefully, when we remember, e pluribus unum." These would be a good transition from your fifth concept to the conclusion, but where's the conclusion. Where do you pull the concepts together and show us what e pluribus unum means to you and how these concepts lead us to it. I felt like you told vivid examples to set the stage, and then you left us hanging. I coach people to start with the conclusion when creating the presentation, but I felt that you had these five remarkable stories to tell so you looked for a way to tie them together. But the conclusion is where you tell people what the next step is, what you want them to do. Next time, I want you to close the sale.
Chuck Hinkle has been formally evaluating and coaching speakers worldwide for over thirty years.
“Chuck took my story I was giving at a TEDx conference and turned it into a powerful presentation. Then he coached me so that I could deliver it confidently and effectively. It was the most impactful presentation of all the speakers.” Sr. Business Analyst & TEDx Presenter
“Even more than being terrified of public speaking I am more terrified of sharing my personal past with others. That was until I encountered Chuck Hinkle. Chuck listened to my ideas for my first TEDx talk and gently coaxed me to share part of me that was not a part of my work persona. He helped me develop the skills I needed to convey a message that would reach the hearts and minds of folks literally around the globe. My New Years resolution was to overcome my fear of speaking in public by possibly talking to a group of school children or at a senior center as part of a group. By working with Chuck, I gained the confidence and skills to stand on the stage alone and reach out to over 17 different countries and Dare them to make a difference. And what is even more amazing is they took the challenge and told how they did. Chuck used a combination of presentation techniques on how to use PowerPoint and pictures, to what stories to tell and how to paint a visual picture. I grew personally and was able to land an amazing new role professionally thanks to Chuck.” Commercial Contract Manager & TEDx Presenter