[MUSIC]
Who can guess what this graph is depicting?
All right, I'll just tell you. >> [LAUGH]
>> It's a chart showing the attention of
college students during a 50-minute lecture.
So as you'll notice, most students lose focus after about 10 minutes and
at 40 minutes it spikes back up just a little bit.
And the leading theory is that the professor says something like,
in summary or in conclusion, which sparks students' interest and
makes them listen. >> [LAUGH]
>> And those transition words are called
attention reset buttons.
Today, in the age of ever-shortening attention spans,
it's even more important to know about these buttons and
have them in your tool kit so we're going to tell you about four of them.
The first question you might ask is,
how often do I need to hit one of these reset buttons?
And a general rule of thumb is about ten minutes.
However, you do need to keep in mind your audience.
If it's in the morning and you know your audience is intrinsically
very interested in the topic you're given, you can lengthen that to about 15 minutes.
But if it's right after lunch, it's a beautiful day outside, and
you know your students didn't get much sleep the night before,
you might want to shorten it to five.
And a word of warning before we dive into the four topics.
You need to use a variety of these buttons.
You can't just choose one and let it be your favorite.
People become immune to your tricks and they just become less and
less effective each time. >> [LAUGH]
>> Your attention graph will be getting
like this.
So first button, tell a story or a joke.
We all know that we're intrinsically wired to enjoy stories.
As soon as someone says, let me tell you about a time when this happened to me,
even the sleepiest audience member will start listening.
Alternatively, you can tell a joke.
We live in a world of fan mail and everyone in the room begins laughing,
you're going to want to know what everyone's laughing at and
start paying closer attention.
So we did prepare a couple of example jokes for you guys.
>> [LAUGH]
>> So, what lies at the bottom of
the ocean and shakes a lot? >> What?
>> A nervous wreck!
>> [LAUGH]
>> Thanks guys.
And what does a nosey pepper do?
It gets jalapeno business. >> [LAUGH] Yeah so, maybe
you don't want to use those exact jokes, but I think you guys all get the idea.
[LAUGH] >> Okay so
the second way to hit this reset button, is to really get your audience involved.
So before I move on to the specifics, let's just take a quick poll in here.
Everyone grab your phone and just type in this address please.
>> Got the computer.
We need the link back. >> Sorry
>> That's right, it's right there on
that line. >> Yeah.
Okay.
[LAUGH] >> Okay,
so it seems that we have pretty even answers in here.
But everyone seems to really appreciate the opportunities to practice public
speaking in general.
>> It's right there. So I begun to really think about this
method because last quarter, I had 8 A.M classes every morning.
And then it was really really difficult for me to stay awake or pay attention
during the lecture but in my ethics class, which was also an 8 A.M session,
my professor always asked us to a poll of this very controversial topics like,
what do you think about the incest or what do you think about, like eating a dog?
At 8 a.m in the morning.
And then it always like, helped me wake up and then we engaged in the lecture.
So, from my experience, this is a highly effective methodology.
Another thing that you guys can try is you can make the audience
move around the room if they look very sleepy or not energized or
you can make them stretch a little bit.
Or you can even make the audience pair off into two or
three different groups of small size, two or three people, and
discuss about the topics that you're presenting.
So getting your audience involved is always more interactive and
fun way compared to you just speak to the audience one way.
It has a live element to it which is going to hook your audience and
then give your presentation more energy. >> The fourth reset
button is to change it up a little bit. >> [LAUGH]
>> The fact that I'm talking here,
standing here, and not with my team there, made you all look up to me and
pay attention to me.
[LAUGH] We pay attention to change.
You probably aren't aware of the air condition which is humming in
the background in this room right now, but when it stops you will notice it.
The second way to change things up a little bit in your presentation
is to use a different form of visual aide.
Instead of using a regular Powerpoint slide,
I can choose to use a white board or a flip chart to convey the same point,
like this one, which talks about how best to structure your presentation,
by using effective audience engagement techniques that we then added into it.
Or this visual which talks about the need for
a reset button at all The third
effective way to change things up a little bit is to actually change your voice.
I can stand here all day long talking my normal pace or I can
sit down, speak really slowly
to convey a deep and profound thought. >> [LAUGH]
>> I can speak very fast
with a sense of urgency around a certain topic of my interest.
Or I can stare right into your eyes,
yell at the top of my voice to convey my anger or excitement.
But no matter how interesting or
animated my voice is, you will get bored of it if you listen to the same voice for
a long period of time and that's when you can either introduce an audio or
video clip to infuse new ones into the room.
You can even have a mini question and
answer session in the middle of your presentation to engage the audience, or
you can have a new goal presenter. >> [LAUGH]
>> Finally.
The last way to re-engage your audience is to make a transition.
So I notice several of you, like Fatima,
you looked up from your computer when I said finally.
So why did you do that? >> [LAUGHTER]
>> The reason is our brains are programmed
to pay attention to these changes.
We understand that there's new information that's coming, so
we make a conscious effort to re-engage and focus what the speaker's saying.
So these are some of the common transitions that you can use.
In addition, moving on, in contrast, or on the other hand.
So in conclusion. >> [LAUGH]
>> There are four ways
that you can reengage your audience.
The first is to tell a joke or a story.
Second, to get your audience involved which could be giving them a poll or
getting them to talk to each other.
The third is to change it up as Soosh demonstrated with maybe your voice or
your presentation style.
And last is to make a transition.
These tactics have never been more important than they are today because with
every presentation that we give, we have to compete with the ultimate distraction,
the cellphone.
Adam, for example, could have just gotten a message from his
most recent Tinder match. >> [LAUGH]
>> And that is the bar that we
have to compete with. >> [LAUGH]
>> That's the bar.
So I hope next time you're giving a presentation, you keep this graph in mind
and always remember the red reset button.