Alexei Kapterev's "Presentation Secrets": Chapter 3, The Story's Contrast

You need conflict

Without conflict, there is no story; every book on story will tell you the same thing. Even postmodern novels have some conflict, even if it's internal. Your presentation is the same way. You need conflict.

The way conflict enters presentations is through problem and solution. It's the problem versus the solution, after all. If there was no problem, then there was no need for your solution. So just think about the goal and why you did what you did. That's a built-in narrative.

Often the conflict comes through competition with another company or product. Compare products. Make yourself the underdog taking on the big, bad competition with all of their market share.

Keeping the tension

The problem is that most people mention the problem at the beginning and then state the solution...at the beginning. So the tension is over.

The key is to string it along. Leave an important question unanswered. State that you solved the problem, sure, but don't state how you did right away. Keep the tension.

Comparisons as conflict

Comparisons need four criteria, Kapterev says:

• Familiarity: The audience knows what you are talking about. Metaphors have to make sense.
• Emotional resonance: People want to know how things feel. Appeal to their frustrations, life goals.
• Avoid avoiding the obvious: Feel free to compare unlike things. 
• Unintended associations: Be careful with comparisons; some can be risky. Talk about sex, death, religion, politics, and people may take it differently.

Heroes and villains

Sometimes the story needs a hero. Well, most of the time, a story needs a hero.

Tell the client's story

This one is perfect. You have a person or a business who does well. But they have a problem that is holding them back. They may not even know it's a problem. But you know it's a problem. And you have the solution. The entire presentation can be centered around this kind of client testimonial. See "Meet Henry" as an example of this kind of presentation.

Tell the company's story

Speak about your company and the trouble it goes through and how it reaches a solution. It's similar to the "Meet Henry" presentation, but it's about the person presenting, the company that he or she works for. Often, the presenter will say "we" because they include themselves as the hero.

Tell your own story

You may be afraid of personal criticism, afraid that people won't listen to you, or afraid that you don't have good stories to tell. But you have to get over it and tell the story that you care about the most: your own. Think of the hero as a persona, though, as the brand, as the person you are acting as, not exactly as the YOU right now.

Alexei Kapterev's "Presentation Secrets": Chapter 2, The Story's Focus

Set a goal

Kapterev is adamant about this part: a presentation should have a single guiding idea or focus. Sure, it's not a fairy tale, he says, but it still needs a moral to the story. Setting the goal may be the most important thing. Kapterev always asks his consultants the question, "What is your goal?"

The answer I typically get is "I want to tell them that..." or "I want to inform them about..." Beep! Wrong answer!

Even experienced executives fall into this trap...The correct answer should sound something like "I want them to give me their business card or "I want them to believe that my plan is going to work." A good goal is phrased as an answer to "What do I want them to do?" or sometimes "What do I want them to remember?"

So to set a manageable goal, ask yourself, "What do you want from your audience?"

Vision and values

If the goal is what you want from the audience, you need to convince them why they should do it. And Kapterev doesn't just mean logic here; he wants values and vision. Appeal to people's vision or idealism, and they will be much more willing to act accordingly. Have a grand vision that guides your presentation, and people may actually respond.

Don't give the audience merely what it wants

The audience isn't always right, according to Kapterev, and sometimes it's best to be controversial. Controversy is inherently interesting, and telling people something they don't already agree with makes them perk up and listen. They will then want to know why their own beliefs are wrong. You don't want to entertain the audience; you want to make them better.

So go for it with a hierarchy of goals:

1. Hear your message
2. Remember your message
3. Do something based on the message
4. Improve themselves--the ultimate goal. Change the audience. Make them better. 

Wait to make your slides

Don't go straight to PowerPoint, though. Go for the outline. Go for sticky notes. Go for anything but slide software. What you want to do now is map out your story. Do some mind-mapping and brain-dumping first. Get all of your concepts out on the table where you can see them. Write down your examples. Write down every point. Only then can you even begin to make them into a coherent story.

Divide. Subdivide. Make a hierarchy. Break them into topics and subtopics.

At the end of this process, you should have two things:

• Your goal.
• A huge amount of points to make.

And that's when you can start to actually craft your story. 

Alexei Kapterev's "Presentation Secrets": Introduction

Alexei Kapterev's Presentation Secrets: Do what You Never Thought Possible with Your Presentations (2011) is one of several great newer books trying to change the way we make and give presentations. As Kapterev says in his preface,

This book is intended for those of you who disagree that contemporary slide presentations are the necessary evil. For those who believe that preparing and delivering presentations is something one might actually enjoy. For people who want more from their presentations: more fun, more adventure, more challenge, and more results. For people ready to explore, ready to stop being just "presenters" and become scriptwriters, graphic designers, and improv artists--at least to some extent.

Kapterev's book has three parts, and I will follow those parts in my review. Part 1 covers the content of the presentation with a focus on storytelling. Part 2 discusses slides and how to know what each slide should look like based on its purpose. Part 3 is about delivery, about public speaking, and about speaker authenticity.

Storytelling

Chapter 1 introduces the concept of storytelling, and Kapterev begins by introducing Aristotle's modes of persuasion: logos, ethos, and pathos. He doesn't concentrate on logos, or fact-telling, because his preferred term "storytelling" encompasses it anyway:

there isn't much difference between storytelling and fact telling anyway. Storytelling is and always was the essence of business presentations. Storytelling is nothing but putting facts in a sequence and making connections. 

But don't be confused here. Kapterev doesn't just mean telling stories or anecdotes; he wants the entire presentation to adopt the form of a story.

Slides

Kapterev is a slide geek. He's the kind of guy who piddles with slides for fun. That's the kind of guy I want to be. I want to be able to make good slides, just like I know you do, too.

He says there are two reasons why slides are good:

1. We no longer have to memorize our presentations. Slides keep us on track and let us know what to say. The problem is that people often use them as teleprompters instead of visual aids.
2. People remember visuals better than hearing words alone. But this same point doesn't go for text on a slide. We're talking visuals here, not text. 

We just have to learn about design to be able to make visuals that are professional and helpful.

Delivery

Actually giving a presentation is kind of scary, and Kapterev knows that, but he wants to help anxious presenters by teaching them to prepare and to improvise. Those are the keys.

He practices what he calls delivery 2.0, giving up control and reacting to the audience. That's what Kapterev means by improvisation.

Focus, Contrast, Unity

Kapterev's guiding principles are focus, contrast, and unity.

Presentations need focus. Slides need focus. The delivery needs focus. Focus is important because our brains can only handle so much information

Contrast is about conflict and comparisons. We understand only when we compare, and we pay more attention when there is conflict. Therefore, contrast is another of Kapterev's guiding presentation principles.

Unity is about structure, moving from randomness to understanding connections. It's also about creating slides that make unified sense and being your own unified self on stage.

Randy Olson's "Don't Be SUCH a Scientist," Chapter 5: Be the Voice of Science!

The danger of mass communication

Olson tells the story of Carl Sagan, who, though one of the most beloved scientists, was never admitted to the National Academy of Sciences. He was only the second person to make the final list and NOT be admitted. People attacked him at his nomination for being a lightweight and a poser, even though he had over 100 peer-reviewed articles to his name.

Sagan was popular. And scientists were vindictive. In a word, Olson says, they were jealous.

Communicating science to the masses is dangerous. Olson makes the claim that about 1/3 of scientists will hate you for trying it. Another third will love you for it. And another 1/3 will think it's fine. But that 1/3 that hates you can be extremely vocal about their hatred. As we talked about last time, scientists can let their cynicism and negating tendencies become a bit too much sometimes.

Good communicators

One of the best lines in Olson's entire work comes here at the end:

Good communicators believe in the power of communication. Poor communicators don't.

Ouch! That's a tough line. Biting and incisive, cutting through all the crap. In other words, the people who say that communicating science is a waste of time are probably poor communicators themselves. Take that, naysayers!

But Olson doesn't mean it to be as biting as it sounds. What happens, he says, is that scientists have tried to communicate in the past, but it didn't work. Why? Well, probably because they had poor communication skills in the first place. So now when people try to tell them their group should try to communicate, they say, "Nope, already tried that. Didn't work."

Those who believe in communication are those who are good communicators. They believe in communication because they have seen it work themselves. Because they're good at it, they saw it work, and so they believe in its power.

From Descriptive to Experimental

What we need, Olson tells us, is to move from the descriptive phase ("traditional, conservative, unimaginative") to the experimental phase ("bold, brave, confrontational, innovative"). Like the art world, science communication needs to be more innovative and experimental, more like Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth than standard PBS documentaries. (As an aside, Olson spends a lot of time debating the lack and merit of the Al Gore documentary. He is NOT uncritical of it, but it represents science communication that works.)

What science communication needs is voice. Humanity. People. Narratives. Not cold, hard objectivity.

In short, scientists need to be bilingual: "to be conversant in your area of specialty in both languages," that of science and that of the masses. In other words, scientists need to speak "the right language to the right audience."

Olson ends the main part of his book with the following:

Naomi Oreskes, star oof my movie Sizzle, talks about how a hundred years ago scientists were by traditiona very good at speaking to the lay public, as well as personally and passionately committed to do so. But that changed in the United States after World War II. The government began establishing enormous science agencies and programs and creating a new breed of research scientist who no longer needed to appeal to the public for support. A new standard emerged in which these scientists felt entitled to the right to conduct research without having to explain it to average folk. The heads of science organizations acceded to these desires of scientists, and the idea of communicating science to the public was shifted from second nature to a secondary priority.

Today, however, a change is in the air.

Randy Olson's "Don't Be SUCH a Scientist," Chapter 4: Don't Be So Unlikeable

The point is for the audience to like what they're hearing. So it doesn't matter if you avoid the problems Olson has described in the previous three chapters (Don't Be So Cerebral, Don't Be So Literal Minded, Don't Be Such a Poor Storyteller). If people don't like you, they won't listen to you.

Scientists generally feel that they need to play truth-teller to the masses' fantasies. So they tell them things aren't real, such things could never happen, that the universe doesn't work that way. And they strip life from life.

In fact, according to Olson, many scientists have the trait of common villains: arrogance. They think they're smarter than everyone else, so they want to shut up the people who are not as smart who don't agree with them. Or they want to yell at those who aren't as smart (which means those who disagree).


But is it possible to be a scientist and be well-liked?

A negating profession

Part of the problem, according to Olson, is that science is a "negating profession":

The entire profession of science has at its core a single word, and that word is "no." Science is a process not of affirming ideas but of attempting to falsify ideas in the search for truth...When you give a scientist a paper, he or she reads it with the assumption that the writer is guilty of being wrong until proven innocent.

And that doesn't make scientists that popular at dinner parties. As Olson goes on,

You meet scientists who have lost control of this negating approach to the world and seem to sit and stew in their overly critical, festering juices of negativity, which can reduce down into a thick, gooey paste of cynicism.

You see, science is a combination of "creativity and discipline," and both are necessary. Without discipline, scientists spend time on worthless flights of fancy. But discipline without creativity isn't human. It's just cynicism. And most people, i.e. nonscientists, like inspiration and hope, not destructive "truth-telling."

But when it comes to dealing with the public in forums such as debates or blogs or other non-scientist-y forums, scientists sometimes resort back to their negating tendencies. It's hard to be inspirational and full of hope, Olson says, but it's easy to rage against a devil. For scientists, that devil is inaccuracy. But they need to learn to get past merely fighting against the devil and find something to believe in, not just to fight against.

 

Being likeable

The key is to be likeable, to go for style as well as substance, to go for "yes" instead of "no," to be gracious to those who think differently. We may not like it, but people make decisions based on the person they like the best:

Lacking the time and energy to evaluate the information being presented, people end up evaluating the presenter. They are no longer able to transcend style to get to substance...Style becomes the substance.

So scientists have to be likeable, but there's no manual for how to do that. (And we all know, scientists love manuals!)

If likeability came down to a formula, scientists would figure it out and be the most popular people in the world. Of course, it's far too subjective for that. But we do know likeability is inextricably tied to elements arising from those lower organs [outlined in Chapter 1]: humor, emotion, passion.

But they have to do it. In this age of mass communication, scientists have to learn how to communicate with regular people. And to do that, they have to be likeable.

Randy Olson's "Don't Be SUCH a Scientist," Chapter 3: Don't Be Such a Poor Storyteller

  

Olson opens his chapter on storytelling by telling his own story about the time he got up to ask a question in a packed auditorium and couldn't get to the point and never did really ask an actual question.

It's hilarious. And it has happened to most of us.

The arouse and fulfillment method he outlined in the previous chapter can only take you so far. The hook can hold an audience for a little while, but not forever. What you really need is a good story, one that arouses and fulfills at the same time.

But scientists are poor storytellers. They understand the formulaic structure part but not the art of character.

Here's how to do it:

So much of our daily lives consists of having real-world experiences that are...just a bunch of random events. But the way we make sense of events is by editing, trimming, rearranging, and massaging the information in an effort to slowly move it toward archplot. We try to make it into one of the simple stories we best know how to understand and relate to We try to simplify things into a single good guy and a single bad guy with a single clear conflict that leads to a climax and then a resolution We can't always  make this happen, but when it does, it's very satisfying. And very accessible to the general public. 

He goes on to describe the scientist's primary problem with storytelling: the urge to keep it accurate and the need to make it interesting. Accuracy versus boredom.

And there's more to mass communication than accuracy. Sure, scientists want to be 100% accurate, but that's really not feasible when it comes to actual mass communication.

Stories need conflict, and they need to be concise:

Set up your subject (first act), give it the twist at the end of the first act (first plot point), explore several possible ways to untwist it and relieve the tension (second act), reveal a possible solution (second plot point), and then weave all the content together to release the source of tension (third act).
Something like this: "I study starfish on teh California coast--the only species that spawns in teh dead of winter. I thought it might be due to predators of the eggs being less common at that time of year, then I thought it was due to the best timing for the spring algae bloom, but now it looks like it probably has something to do with a seasonal migration of the starfish which is what I now study--the way that spawning season might be related to adult movements of starfish." 

So being an effective science communicator is about telling stories that are concise and that include conflict. If you can do that, the public may just listen.

Randy Olson's "Don't Be SUCH a Scientist," Chapter 2: Don't Be So Literal Minded

 

Scientists think they can just explain the facts and their point is made.

This chapter is all about how it's never that simple.

From a media campaign called "Shifting Baselines" to a story about an intelligent design debate that end up with "expressions of resentment and looks that seemed to say, 'You think you're such a smarty-pants'" to the Pew Oceans Commission's report, this entire chapter is about how "science think" can go wrong. People just aren't moved by the head; they want the heart, too.

After all, think about how movies spend just as much on marketing as they do on the movies themselves. Or how successful advocacy and policy groups spend so much on lobbying. It's at least partially about communication. Sure, you have to have a good product, but without good communication, the good product can't succeed.

He says,

Sometimes, particularly with the mass audience, pepole don't want their information told to them directly. You can pound them with the facts all you want. They're just going to clamp their hands over their ears until finally you figure out a more indirect pathway to their brains. 

He illustrates the point by describing his experience going back to an academic conference after spending five years in Hollywood. He always knew that scientists gave terrible presentations, but now he had learned how to give better ones. So he raised some money and made a film called "Talking Science: The Elusive Art of the Science Talk." One of the communications professors he interviewed said,

When it comes to mass communication, it's as simple as two things: arouse and fulfill. You need to first arouse your audience and get them interested in what you have to say; then you need to fulfill their expectations.

Scientists jump right to the fulfillment part without getting anyone interested. Scientists need a hook, something to get people interested in the subject.

And people prefer style of substance, Olson explains. He ends the chapter by explaining how film is a great tool to arouse, to get people interested, not really a great way to teach people material

But what people really want is a good story. A good story can both arouse and fulfill. But we'll get to that next time.


 

Randy Olson's "Don't Be SUCH a Scientist," Chapter 1: Don't Be So Cerebral

This chapter is all about how not to be a dork.

The importance of communicating science

First of all, you have to know that scientists must connect with their audiences. He goes through examples of Gregor Mendel, now know as the father of genetics, and Alexander Fleming, the discoverer of penicillin, and how they only published in obscure journals and never received any attention. But their discoveries could have not only changed the world but saved lives. Scientists may not like to think they have to communicate well, but really, it's all of communicating those great discoveries.

And communicating means have substance but using style.

And we all like style.

The Four Organs Theory of connecting with a mass audience

Olson uses what he calls the "four organs theory" in the first half of the book to show how scientists' typical communication style falls flat for lay audiences:

• The head: the cerebral part of reason and analysis
• The heart: home of sentiment, passion, and emotion
• The gut: where humor and instinct rule
• The lower organs: the opposite of logic, where thinking doesn't even play a role

It's an interesting analysis of communication because his point here is that scientists tend to stay in the cerebral realm, but that isn't where most effective mainstream communicators stay. The first chapter is "Don't Be so Cerebral," and he means it. Get out of being purely logical and try using emotion and instinct.

As a side note, Olson generally steers clear of the lower organs. He leaves that to pure Hollywood and advises scientists to stay away from trying to be sexy. It doesn't really work, and when it fails, it can fail spectacularly. And possibly hilariously.

Because Olson has been to film school, most of his anecdotes come from his experiences there including one repulsive but supposedly brilliant acting teacher who appears to have used shame and humiliation rather tactically. But his stories are always fun to read and his metaphors are easily brilliant.

For example, when contemplating his own feelings about scientists, he is sure to say that he isn't telling people not to be scientists:

Well, I spent six wonderful years at Harvard University completing my doctorate, and I'll take the intellectuals any day. But still, it would be nice if they could just take a little bit of the edge off their more extreme characteristics. It's like asking football players not to wear their cleats in the house. You're not asking them not to be football players, only to use their specific skills in the right place.

Using all of the organs

Olson wants scientists to use more of their heart and gut, to use their intuition and not to remain solely in the head:

They provide extra vitality, sparks of energy, and organic element--in general, they create the essence of what is meant by the word "human." 

It's good advice. 

Randy Olson's "Don't Be SUCH a Scientist: Talking Substance in an Age of Style," Introduction

 

"Intellectuals don't act, they think and talk."

At least that's what Randy Olson's acting teacher told him, and that's the entire point of Don't Be Such a Scientist: Talking Substance in an Age of Style.

This guy know what he's talking about, too. He went from being a tenured professor of biology at a major research university to becoming a documentary filmmaker who first wanted to become an actor. So he knows all about the difference between intellectuals and actors. He's tried it both ways. And now he kind of has it both ways. After all, he makes films about scientific subjects like climate change.

In essence, he communicates science.

If, like me, you have sat through a conference on communicating science, then this book is probably for you. When he presented at such a conference, Olson says,

"I sat there that morning in disbelief as the speakers--supposedly the best of the best when it comes to presenting science to the public--gave some of the dullest, most uninspiring presentations I've ever seen." (7)

And the book's full of "inspirational" anecdotes like that, almost like he's goading scientists into communicating better. Because he desperately wants scientists to do better. In fact, he says, they must do better, or our planet will suffer through various problems such as, well, climate change.

Randy Olson is great at explaining this stuff. As a "scientist-turned-filmmaker," he went to Hollywood to learn to communicate with people, and his stories fill Don't be Such a Scientist.

As we will see next time, he describes the way scientists are and then tries to make suggestions for how they can do better. Doing better, for Olson, means communicating better. And he makes his points primarily by relating hilarious stories.

Stay tuned.

Randy Olson's "Don't Be SUCH a Scientist: Talking Substance in an Age of Style"

Randy Olson has a PhD in marine biology, and he worked as a professor before moving to Hollywood and going to film school. He now makes documentary films such as Flock of Dodos: The Evolution-Intelligent Design Circus (2006) and Sizzle: A Global Warming Comedy (2008). His perspective as a scientist turned filmmaker gives him insight into how scientists could communicate better to lay audiences. And that's really his point in Don't Be Such a Scientist: Talking Substance in an Age of Style.

The title of the book is a bit misleading, though. He usually italicizes the title as "Don't Be Such a Scientist" or Don't Be SUCH a Scientist. It makes me want to emphasize the "such" of the title, but that isn't what he means. It's more like his wife hanging her head in frustration and muttering, "Don't be such a scientist, Randy. You're too rational and cold. Just talk to me." Or something like that.

He is careful to say that the title is not Don't Be a Scientist. There's a place for the cold, rational communication of scientists, he claims. But when talking to non-scientists, scientists need to talk like non-scientists. They need to learn the communication styles of Hollywood and others that actually grab people and make them want to take action.

Stay tuned for more about Randy Olson's remarkable and effective book about how to become a better scientist by becoming a better communicator.