They look bored at their shoes, check their Whatsapp or worse, they openly answer their emails: listeners with the attention span of a goldfish. The increasingly volatile way in which we consume information visibly decreases our ability to concentrate. According to a controversial Microsoft study, we would keep our attention even worse than a goldfish: 8 versus 9 seconds. Fortunately, this turns out to be an urban legend, but it remains an interesting question: how long can you actually keep your listeners captivated? And which presentation format goes with it?
The American researcher Bryer researched this. He compared lectures of 20 and 50 minutes with each other, with identical subjects. Immediately afterwards, he tested what the students remembered. A few weeks later, he asked again what they had remembered from the lecture. And guess what: the students who had followed the short version retained as much information as the students who had attended a 50-minute lecture.
So, presenting briefly seems like a good idea. But how do you go about it, and which presentation formats are best to use? To help you get started, I’ll share some of the best-known short presentation formats with you, from 18 minutes to thirty seconds, and discuss their pros and cons.
18 minutes: the TED Talk
The TED presentation format challenges speakers to give the ‘presentation of a lifetime’ about their expertise in a maximum of 18 minutes. The talk should not contain heavy theoretical fare, and should be made as accessible as possible. In addition, absolutely nothing may be sold, the goal is to contribute to a better world by sharing knowledge. The TED talk is seen in America as the gold standard for contemporary presenting. The format was developed in 1984 during the first Californian TED conference (Technology, Entertainment, Design).
The advantage of this form is that, if done well, it bites away nicely. It is therefore made for a less involved audience, with little prior knowledge and a limited attention span (because on YouTube). The disadvantage is obvious: this form does not really work out well if your audience is highly involved and wants to go into depth. That happened when a scientist gave a TED-like talk to a grant committee. It especially irritated them: they needed statistics and theoretical foundations to grant subsidies, not cool anecdotes.
The recognizable structure and style of the TED talk is brilliantly mocked during this talk. It flawlessly exposes the techniques of the TED speaker: from the ‘conversational style’ of speaking, to the smooth interactions with the audience and the personal outpourings. Feast for both fans and haters.
6 minute 40: PechaKucha
PechaKucha is a presentation format in which you are instructed to speak on the basis of 20 slides, each of which remains on screen for 20 seconds. This results in a story of exactly 6 minutes and 40 seconds, with as little text as possible being used on the slide.
The PechaKucha presentation was developed in 2003 by two architects working in Japan, Astrid Klein and Mark Dytham. PechaKucha is Japanese for ‘chit chat’. The whole idea behind this form is delayed telling, or as they say themselves:
“We want people to stop and look, listen and think about the presentations and that is really, really important; it’s kind of like a Zen form of presentation.”
PechaKucha Nights are held all over the world, including in the Netherlands. Although the popularity of this form seems to have declined in recent years. The advantage of PechaKucha is that the speaker has to get to the point in a short time and make the story visual.
The downside is that it requires a strong performer, with a good sense of timing (20 seconds are a very long time if you drop a silence too early). Personally, I think the biggest disadvantage of this form is that 20 x 20 seconds leaves no room for dynamic variation at all, it is a cadence that suits an informative story better than a convincing one.
Handy: a PechaKucha presentation about a PechaKucha presentation. No satire this time, but a clear manual if you want to get started with this form yourself. So keep in mind that this format requires a lot of preparation.
3 minutes: FameLab
The FameLab format was developed in 2005 for the English Cheltenham Science Festival, but is now used all over the world. The speakers (always scientists) give a presentation of up to three minutes in which they explain their idea to a general audience. No slides may be used and the subject is always in the field of STEM: Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics. The goal is to involve an audience without any prior knowledge in their field. A jury of communication experts assesses the stories on ‘the 3 C’s’: content, clarity and charisma.
The strength of this format lies in its length, of course, and challenges scientists enormously:
“My FameLab experience helped me to understand better how to convey my research, how to dissect the key information from the huge body of data. When you have only 3 minutes – every second counts.”
Working within this format is a learning experience in itself for many scientists, but the disadvantage is of course that you can only make, explain and illustrate one point. Those who want to get rid of more content will inevitably get stuck.
This winning FameLab talk shows the power of the concept. The structure is super simple: an illustration (a fish in the big sea looking for coral), with an explanation (what is actually happening here?) and a clear statement (sound helps restore the coral). Because the illustration takes the form of an anecdote, we are hooked from the first moment and we effortlessly retain the content.
30 seconds to 2 minutes: the elevator pitch
During an elevator pitch, you share an idea for a product, service, or project. The idea behind it is that you can tell your story in the time when an elevator goes from the bottom to the top floor: about 30 seconds to 2 minutes. The format is often simple. A short attention grabber, a problem statement, the solution (the message) with an elaboration of the benefits and a call to action.
The elevator pitch was initially mainly used by entrepreneurs who wanted to get financing from a venture capitalist. But nowadays it is also used during networking, to profile yourself powerfully. It is an exercise in itself: can you tell your story clearly and appealingly within two minutes, and at the same time connect with the other person? This is really about the essence of the essence, the form forces you to make radical choices. And that you can tell a surprising amount in a minute and a half, is shown by the winning pitches of the TV show Dragon’s Den.
The disadvantage of this form is of course that there is no room for deepening. But being complete is not the goal here: the other person should want to know more as a result of your pitch. A strong elevator pitch challenges a dialogue. It’s the beginning of a conversation, not the end.
This Dragon’s Den pitch for Gener8 shows how much you can say in a minute and a half. Here too, the story shines with clarity. The structure is classically rhetorical: an attention-grabber that effortlessly continues into a problem statement, which in turn raises a question. This question is then answered with the core message (Gener8 wants to change this), substantiated with three practical arguments and concluded with a call to action. Excellent example.
Prefer longer?
Sometimes 20 minutes are really too short, because there is a lot at stake, for example, or because there is a lot involved in your proposal. If you want to present for longer, realize that the concentration of your audience makes an undulating movement: after an adjustment period of 2 to 3 minutes, your audience can concentrate for 10 to 18 minutes. After that, the concentration temporarily drops and a little later it recovers. The tension that follows becomes shorter and shorter, even to 3 to 4 minutes at the end of a 50-minute presentation.
So for a longer presentation, choose a strong, dynamic and challenging structure. If your story is convincing in character, you can use the rhetorical or story design story structure. This structure is based on the psychological principles behind becoming convinced. It takes your listener step by step into your new world, and lets them draw and internalize the right conclusions themselves. It is crucial that you ensure sufficient variety between statements, substantiations and illustrations.
Say it, explain it and above all show it. This way your listener gets new stimuli every time. And last but not least: connect with the thinking and living environment of your audience. Because if they recognize themselves in your story, they suddenly have a surprisingly long attention span.
Natalie wrote this article for Tekstblad Premium, where it appeared earlier.
Want to know more about designing strong stories? Read more about our presentation training courses here.
