Nomad Cruise V Speaker Guides

The first question that arises is probably: Do I really need a PowerPoint/Keynote presentation to go along with my speech? And the final answer is “ Probably you don’t. Most of the times, the visuals are distracting your audience. You lose eye-contact and engagement. If you are brave enough, and you practice a bit for your talk, you can actually do it without any visuals at all. At the same time if you choose to use any visual aids, here are some tips.

Keep it simple
Nobody has ever said: „I really loved this talk. The content was alright, but those audiovisual effects during the presentation really did it for me.“ Or if they have said this, they didn’t get what this is about in the first place. A Keynote is your support, not your main act. You are the main act, or more precisely: your content is.

Use clear visuals
Yes, please! To illustrate your story or your point, photos, graphs, and sketches are a great idea. They should be large enough so everybody can see them and they should be of high quality and easily readable. Videos are fine as well. But please make sure that they are no more than 2-3 minutes long.

Reduce copy
I know it’s funny that a person who just presented you with a two-page guide about public speaking tells you to reduce your copy. But. Please. Do. Use bullet points and key words. Use short quotes and try not to use anything if it’s not crucial for bringing you point across. Otherwise it will distract your audience from listening to your words.

Choose colors wisely
White on black, black on white. That’s the rough guideline. Use colors if you have to, but consider that contrast is king and that we never know how the current quality of the projector is. Don’t use crazy background pictures that clash with your copy. Make it easy for your audience to follow you and your presentation at the same time.

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Intro:
You probably already know, that the opening line of your talk is super important. So that you can build it up properly, you need to know, that you will be introduced before you come to stage, so you don’t need to give a full bio about yourself in the speech. The host of the conference will use the description that is on our website to introduce you, but you will also have a possibility to talk to her before your talk about what she should say about you.

The message:
You wouldn’t go on a cruise without knowing where you’ll end up, right? – Consider this for your talk too. Have a clear message: if the audience should tell what you speech was about what sentence you want to hear back? Write it down and have it as a conclusion, of what you build your speech to.

Then, it’s always nice to set a story telling frame for your content. We know, some of us just suck at story telling, but if there’s an anecdote that helps prove the point of your talk: USE IT! It makes you and your content so much more relatable! Talking about anecdotes, here is one for you too:
When Michelangelo created the statue of David, he took a big block of marble, and said David was in it. He just needed to get rid of the marble that wasn’t David.
We suggest you the same, take out the parts of your speech that are not necessarily leads you to your message. Your talk is done, where there is nothing else, you can take away from it. ( We also want to emphasize this part, as we want to keep the schedule:)).

We have a list of books that you can use for your preparation, but as said before, you are welcome to contact Bori too, if you need anything.

• Tim Ferriss – Public Speaking: How I prepare every time
• TED Talks (book & kindle) – The official TED guide to public speaking

Think of a workshop as an excellent lesson in school. It is a 90-minute long session, in which you introduce your audience to a very particular topic. However, a workshop is not a talk. In a workshop, participants should be required to work (as the word workshop implies).

You can make them develop, reconsider, structure, share, create or design. All participants should be activated at least 50% of the time and should have a profound take out product.

Don’t forget: even if you had 3 hours, you couldn’t cover your entire field of expertise in depth. So instead of blasting ALL THE INFORMATION out there at your listeners in a compressed version, we highly recommend that you narrow down your topic. Trust us: LESS IS MORE.

We suggest to start with a presentation of the core of your topic. Once this is over, you should allow your listeners to create something on your own. Either during individual tasks or in partner/group arrangement. A good sign for active involvement are participants who take a lot of notes as well engaged conversations. Finally, let them share their results (because they can learn from each other as well) and round up your workshop. Make sure that after 90 minutes you cleared the space so we can continue with the program.

Here are a few tips and suggestions that might help you come up with ideas to make your workshop more engaging:

1) Base your workshop on an issue that needs to be solved.

Nothing is worse than feeling like you don’t know where you’re headed. Make the issue your workshop is dealing with very clear beforehand. It allows the participant to decide whether or not the workshop is relevant to them at all (or else they will waste 90 minutes of their lives). And don’t try to solve ten problems at once. Focus on up to three and solve them well. It doesn’t matter if your workshop is on hard facts or emotional bonding.

2) Give your potential audience a reason why they should participate

e.g. This workshop will provide you with an insight into digital nomad banking. After the workshop, you will be able to find the right bank for your purpose, and you will know which tools and services you need to manage your banking from anywhere in the world.
This workshop will allow you the setting and space to share your fear of failure and learn from others. You will have the opportunity to share your most critical failures and the lessons you learned from them, but also listen to the experiences and growth of others.

3) Start your introduction with a question that applies to you and very likely to most of them.

Raise your arm as you ask the question, so your audience will respond with the same gesture if they are concerned. This method has three effects: 1. You learn sth. about your audience, 2. You allow your audience to bond with you and 3. You will allow the audience members to bond with their fellows. Make sure that this question reflects the problem that will be solved during your workshop.

e.g. Which of you has ever felt like they could be more focused and less distracted?
Which of you has ever dropped everything to start something new?

4) Keep the sections in which only you talk short.

Your audience is a bunch of digital people who are known for their short attention span. For the sections you spend on talking, this means that you should keep them to a maximum of 20 minutes. After that people tend to dose off and lose focus. If you have more things to say and don’t find a way around, make sure that you ask questions they need to respond to or allow them to put questions after parts. It will keep them active listening.

5) Use different formats.

As you give your participants different tasks to work on the content, let them cooperate in various social arrangements. An initial task often asks for a reflection of their own situation or progress or structure or else, it is useful to let them think for themselves and later share with a partner. Once they start developing ideas, strategies or products, let them get together in pairs or small groups (no larger than 4-5 people). Shuffling around makes them move, which is always an excellent energizer, and by forcing them to share their thoughts and ideas you create a ‚mastermind‘-effect, where more brains can work on the same issue.
Consider the T – P – S structure: THINK (individual tasks), PAIR (pairs share or co-create based on THINK-results), SHARE (pairs share with others in the large group).

Make sure that you:

e.g. THINK: come up with the three most crucial reasons that keep you from focussing.
PAIR: share your list with your partner and try to come up with solutions
SHARE: share in group by creating a mind map (with paper-slips) where all pairs put up their solutions and structure them. Add suggestions if sth. crosses your mind.

6) Bring material that helps audience follow.

You know what it’s like, right? When you only sit and receive, you usually slide lower and lower into your chair and eventually stop listening at all. You can prevent this reaction in your audience by providing them with a worksheet that allows them to follow along. You can leave gaps for notes or illustrate the tasks for them. It makes a massive difference, especially when they have something on hand when they leave your workshop.

7) Let them reflect on what they learned.

Finally, you can round up your workshop with one last task, to let participants sum up what they’re taking out of your session. Here are some ideas:

Flashlight: Everybody may say (only!) three words on what they take out of the session.
Everybody must write down three resolutions for what to change in the future.