Confessions of a Public Speaker (24 page)

In February 2002, I was invited to TED to talk about Project Orion
(the post-Sputnik pre-NASA interplanetary space vehicle). At TED,
everyone gets 18 minutes on stage—no exceptions. I had 18 minutes of
slides all set. The conference closely followed 9/11, and all eyes were
on the invasion of Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. At the last
minute—and I mean last minute—Chris Anderson, who was just taking the
helm of TED, managed to secure Zohra Yousuf Daoud, the first (and so far
only) Miss Afghanistan, as a speaker. Could I cut my time to eight
minutes? I guess so! No time to edit my slides, so I divided 80 into 480
seconds and set them on 6-second auto-advance, climbed on stage, and
tried to keep up. Finished right on time, but I don’t remember anything
else.

Last year, I had a morning speaking engagement in Florida. Always
the prepared flyer, I planned my flight for the day before. One
hurricane-level winds in Houston warning, a stopover in Cleveland, a
layover in Nashville, and 24 hours later, I landed in Orlando. On the
bright side, I only travel with carry-on luggage. My computer, clothes,
and everything I needed were right there with me. On the downside, I
realized somewhere between Nashville and Orlando that I would be
arriving with minutes to spare, and I was in my jeans-and-T-shirt travel
outfit.

With the help
of a sympathetic stewardess, I did my hair and makeup,
then I changed into my suit, using every yoga position imaginable within
that tiny airplane bathroom.

My cab got me from the airport to the convention center with 10
minutes to spare. I made it onstage, gathered myself, and walked out
with a smile. I made it through the hour, and wrapped up the
presentation (a training for the IT-challenged about online software)
with a line I used often:

“You see, you don’t have to be a techie to understand even the
more complicated programs, you just have to know how to explore.”

Then an audience member piped up, “No, but it helps if you’re a
Trekkie!”

I noticed the sound guy trying not to fall over laughing offstage.
He pointed to me, then pointed to his chest.

I glanced at the video screen behind me to discover that the shirt
I had hastily dressed over was clearly showing off its main graphic—a
yellow and black Star Trek communicator—right through my blouse.

At TED I did a live, and unfortunately, unrehearsed demo of the
Nanotex waterproof khakis. I took a glass of water and splashed my waist
with vigor to show how it would leave no mark. In a freak instance of
fabric folding, the bolus of water hooked into a gaping open pant
pocket. The inner pocket lining did not have any Nanotex coating…. So,
for the entire talk my boxers were soaking wet, but you wouldn’t know it
because none
of the water could seep through the outer pants
fabric.

My flight arrived into Boston, Massachusetts, at 5:05 p.m., and I
needed to be at Tommy Doyle’s bar in Cambridge for a 7 p.m. keynote. I
planned to take the subway, but it turned out the Silver line from the
airport was actually just a twice-an-hour van driven by an idiot. I
arrived at the bar at 6:59 p.m. The place was packed, but packed with
people who had been drinking since happy hour while waiting for the
event, Ignite! Boston, to begin. At 7:02 p.m., I learned the only laptop
I could use was a Mac, a Mac that completely rejected my remote control.
I was forced to stand on stage, with someone else’s laptop on a bar
stool, and manually click through my slides.

The bar was long with my small stage at the far, short end,
creating a wind tunnel of
bad acoustics. Not only could I not hear myself well, but
the long, tunnel shape of the bar channeled all the noise from the large
crowd of people drinking in the back up and over the much smaller crowd
trying to listen. This made everyone unhappy and not so interested in
listening to me. In response, much of the crowd, even those up front,
were having their own conversations, often commenting to one another
about what I was saying as I said it. Just minutes in, struggling to
feel in control of the room, I was heckled by a woman when I mentioned
Crick and Watson discovered DNA, without recognizing the
often-overlooked Rosalind Franklin. I had enough and was pissed off. I
made a joke about how now we know where the feminists in the crowd are.
A joke that received mostly boos. It was all downhill from there. I
finished as quickly as I could. I made a beeline for the bar, downing
beers and shots of vodka, trying to forget what happened.

Hours later, Ignite! nearly over and me finally in a proper
drunken stupor, the organizers found me. They wanted me to speak
again
. To the same hostile crowd in the same awful
room as the dreaded unannounced closing speaker. I did something I would
never do again: I said yes. They were friends who seemed desperate, and
I was shitfaced, so how could I say no? I got up on stage, grabbed the
microphone, and extemporaneously talked about…I don’t remember what I
said. Which is probably the best for all involved.

If you want to know what sources beyond life experience shaped my
opinions, or want advice on what to read next, this is for you.

There are two bibliographies—one annotated, the other ranked—and a
summary of other research used to support the writing of this book.

Go back and listen to your favorite stand-up comedians do their
long routines. They have all of the challenges speakers have, plus the
burden of working without slides in front of intoxicated, paying
audiences who demand not only that they make sense, but that they’re
funny, too. Many of the little tricks I’ve learned as a speaker come
from listening to comedians—the master speakers of our age. Richard
Pryor, Steve Martin, Henry Rollins, George Carlin, and Chris Rock are
all exceptional and diverse profiles in how to communicate complex ideas
effectively to crowds. They often take on surprisingly serious issues
like politics, race relations, psychology, and war—issues most of us are
afraid to discuss openly. They pull it off in part because they offer
potent insights while making us laugh. Simply ask yourself, “How would
give this presentation I’m supposed to give
next week?”, and you’ll be forced to think more critically about how you
might present the material. Of course, don’t actually present it like
unless you’re either amazingly good or you
want to find out exactly how the unemployment system works.

The documentary film
Comedian
, starring Jerry
Seinfeld, is perhaps the best 90 minutes any frequent public speaker can
spend in understanding how much effort is required to seem as effortless
as good comedians seem. Even if you don’t like Jerry Seinfeld’s humor,
you’ll also hear from Chris Rock, Colin Quinn, Bill Cosby, and various
other well-known comedians on how they prepare, find material, and
perform. The focus of the film is on the year Seinfeld abandoned all his
old material, and how he went about creating, practicing, and developing
the new material—through many less than spectacular gigs—into an
entirely new live show.