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Dear speaker: If I see you mention that you “write a talk”, my assumption is you will read it instead of presenting, which means you’ll bore your audience to death.Permalink On twitter.com
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I’ve recently seen more and more conference speakers read from a prepared script. If you ask for my advice as to when this is appropriate, my answer is “never”, with a possible exception for your gramdmother’s 80th birthdayOn twitter.com
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Even more annoyingly, I’ve seen speakers read prepared talks from a script where I’m 100% certain they would have been able to just “wing it” to much better resultsPermalink On twitter.com
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The final thing that drives me completely crazy: A disproportionate number of speakers “reading” their talks are women, for completely wrong reasons, likely because they lack the male cowboy attitude, which means their talks will be worse even though they might have been awesomePermalink On twitter.com
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And if I were to add a comment like this to a specific talk, it would (rightly) be considered condescending mansplaining. So my request to experienced women speakers is: Tell other women they’re completely capable to deliver great talks, no need to “read” them.Permalink On twitter.com
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Of course it’s perfectly possible to deliver a fantastic scripted talk, if you’re able and willing to put in the effort. Most likely that’s not the case, so don’t. waitbutwhy.com/2016/03/doing-a-ted-talk-the-full-story.htmlPermalink On twitter.com