The TED Talk I listened to was titled, “Why we have too few women leaders”. It was given by Sheryl Sandberg.
One thing I noticed was her intentional use of pauses and movements. She paused after important statements to allow the audience to gather their thoughts and form an opinion. This pause allowed the audience to identify her previous point as important. She also incorporated movement but limited this movement to key moments. In my opinion, this created a feeling of comfort with the audience.
Sheryl included personal antidotes in her speech. This helps the audience see how the claims she is making are applicable and relatable. Each claim she makes is supported either by a personal example or a statistic.
One story that stuck with me was one Sheryl shared about a pitch meeting she attended. She presented to a room of men, and at the end of her presentation, she asked where the restroom was. None of the men could direct her to the location of the women’s restroom. Immediately, she thought that the office space was new, but upon further investigation, she learned that she had been the first female to pitch an idea in the office. This exposed the message Sheryl was trying to share, without her having to state it.
The last aspect of Sheryl’s speech that I think was very effective was her organization. Following her introduction, she shared 3 messages for women in the workforce. She did not offer any explanation for the three messages, instead simply listed them. After listing them, she explained each individual message and provided the audience with context.
This gave the audience a road map of Sheryl’s speech, while also building suspense. For example, one message was “Sit at the table”. This is very vague prior to listening to the explanation, but after it makes complete sense. Sheryl uses this method to keep her audience engaged in her message.
The delivery of this speech was different than a non-TED speech because it felt like a conversation. Sheryl engaged with her audience often. This allowed the presentation to feel less like she was speaking to the audience, and more like she was speaking with the audience.
The personable aspect of a TED Talk is really important, and I found it really interesting how you explained it. I hadn’t thought about how pauses can make the audience feel at ease and comfortable. It makes sense because it also creates a relaxing pace, so the audience doesn’t feel stressed about keeping up with the information.
TED-talks are infamous for their strategic pauses and conversational feeling, and your speech appears to be no exception. I do find your analysis of the organization of her speech very interesting, for her choice of listing 3 examples without explanation and then explaining each individual message with context is an interesting way to build suspense while keeping the audience’s attention. Each TED-talk speech has their own unique style when presenting their information.