Saturday, June 20, 2009

Lecture as performance

What do Malcolm Gladwell and TED have in common? The well-crafted show:
But this wasn’t a book reading or a Q&A session of the kind authors traditionally submit to. Neither was it a slide show, as you might expect to find at a lecture. Instead, the author recounted a single vignette from the book – the tale of why a plane ended up crashing, from the perspective of the pilots and those in the control tower – and burnished it into a narrative with all the chill and pace of a traditional ghost story. Even the lighting was kept deliberately low to create the right atmosphere. The performance lasted precisely an hour and five minutes, and no questions were invited after Gladwell had finished speaking. Rather than a talk about a book, it looked more like a carefully choreographed stage show.
and you've heard about the TED Commandments for presentations, worth reviewing occasionally.

I'm not a big Financial Times reader, but the article is something to think about for anyone who gives presentations.

Speaking of lecture as performance, Thomas Friedman coming up on Thursday.