07/25/2016
In 2002, Anderson shifted his career in journalism to lead TED, the conference-based public speaking venture that eventually became a social media sensation thanks to the development of online video streaming. Now he offers a resource covering all facets of presentation preparation. He has a plethora of excellent advice to offer based on past TED talks, including some of the most successful and popular ones. He covers important topics such as making a personal connection with audiences, explaining complicated subjects to laypeople, priming people to accept counterintuitive ideas, and cultivating a sense of showmanship. In giving voice to the audio edition of his title, Anderson faces the same overall dilemma that he addresses in his material. A “how-to” text—even one covering the matter of public speaking itself—does not necessarily lend itself to an inspiring listening experience. Anderson has no doubt mastered the fine points of vocal style, and his TED colleagues Rielly and Stoezel chime in to read the book’s checklists, bringing a welcome change of pace. But those in search of the same adrenaline rush that they get from actual TED Talks will not find it here, as Anderson earnestly seeks to keep his focus primarily instructional. A Houghton Mifflin Harcourt hardcover. (May)
TED Talks: The Official TED Guide to Public Speaking
Narrated by Chris Anderson, Tom Rielly, Kelly Stoetzel
Chris AndersonUnabridged — 7 hours, 31 minutes
TED Talks: The Official TED Guide to Public Speaking
Narrated by Chris Anderson, Tom Rielly, Kelly Stoetzel
Chris AndersonUnabridged — 7 hours, 31 minutes
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Overview
New York Times Bestseller
“Catnip for all the TED fans out there.” -Publishers Weekly
“The most insightful book ever written on public speaking...a must-read.” -Adam Grant, Wharton professor and New York Times bestselling author of Give and Take and Originals
Since taking over TED in 2001, Chris Anderson has shown how carefully crafted talks can be the key to unlocking empathy, spreading knowledge, and promoting a shared dream. Done right, a talk can electrify a room and transform an audience's worldview; it can be more powerful than anything in written form.
This “invaluable guide” (Publishers Weekly) explains how the miracle of powerful public speaking is achieved, and equips you to give it your best shot. There is no set formula, but there are tools that can empower any speaker.
Chris Anderson has worked with all the TED speakers who have inspired us the most, and here he shares insights from such favorites as Sir Ken Robinson, Salman Khan, Monica Lewinsky, and more-everything from how to craft your talk's content to how you can be most effective on stage. This is a must-read for anyone who is ready to create impact with their ideas.
Editorial Reviews
04/18/2016
This guide to effective public speaking—informed by the wildly popular TED (Technology, Entertainment, and Design) Talks—gives readers tips for winning over audiences big and small: wedding guests expecting a great toast, a client waiting to be wowed, or a lecture hall full of multitasking students. Anderson, whose nonprofit organization, the Sapling Foundation, runs TED, has a plethora of excellent advice to offer based on past TED talks, including some of the most successful and popular ones. He covers important topics such as making a personal connection with audiences, explaining complicated subjects to laypeople, priming people to accept counterintuitive ideas, and cultivating a sense of showmanship. He also addresses aspects of preparation, such as knowing what vocal styles to avoid, planning attire, and managing nervousness. The prose can be hard to muddle through—true to the topic, it reads more like a transcript of a speech than a book—but this is an invaluable guide to effective presentations, and catnip for all the TED fans out there. Agent: John Brockman, Brockman Inc. (May)
The TED Talk has reinvented the art of rhetoric for the twenty-first century. Goodbye to windy academese, scientific gobbledygook, pompous moralizing, powerpoint chloroform—we now know that “ideas worth spreading” can indeed be spread far and wide, and with clarity and panache. Behind this revolution lies Chris Anderson, who had a vision that powerful ideas can improve the world and has developed a coherent philosophy and a set of guidelines for compelling communication. This book may restore rhetoric to its time-honored place as one of the essential skills of an educated citizen.” —Steven Pinker, Johnstone Professor of Psychology, Harvard University, and author of How the Mind Works and The Sense of Style “Nobody in the world better understands the art and science of public speaking than Chris Anderson. He has nurtured, coaxed, and encouraged so many speakers over the years (myself included)—helping us to bring forth our very best performances onstage, even when we were at our most nervous and overwhelmed. He is the absolutely perfect person to have written this book, and it will be a gift to many.” —Elizabeth Gilbert, best-selling author of Big Magic and The Signature of All Things “This is not just the most insightful book ever written on public speaking—it’s also a brilliant, profound look at how to communicate. If you ever plan to utter a sound, this is a must-read. It gives me hope that words can actually change the world.” —Adam Grant, Wharton professor and New York Times best-selling author of Give and Take and Originals “Over the past twenty-five years, TED has revitalized the whole world of conferences and speaking events. Here for the first time, Chris Anderson and the TED leadership team set out all they’ve learnt about the dos and don’ts of public speaking. An essential read for all event organizers and speakers. Is there a single recipe for a great speech? Of course not. But there are some essential ingredients, which the TED team sets out here with concision, verve, and wit (which are also some of the ingredients). An inspiring, contemporary guide to the venerable arts of oratory.” —Sir Ken Robinson, best-selling author of The Element, Out of Our Minds, and Creative Schools “The TED Talk may well be the defining essay genre of our time: what the pamphlet was to the eighteenth century, and the newspaper op-ed was to the twentieth. TED Talks is the guidebook to this new language, written by the man who made into it a global force.” —Steven Johnson, best-selling author of How We Got to Now “Anderson shares the secrets behind the best TED presentations, believing that anyone can be taught the skills to deliver a compelling speech—TED-style or otherwise. It’s all presented very naturally and with an upbeat, positive tone . . . Readers will be able to use the techniques for any manner of public speaking.” —Booklist “[Anderson] covers important topics such as making a personal connection with audiences, explaining complicated subjects to laypeople, priming people to accept counterintuitive ideas, and cultivating a sense of showmanship. He also addresses aspects of preparation, such as knowing what vocal styles to avoid, planning attire, and managing nervousness.This is an invaluable guide to effective presentations, and catnip for all the TED fans out there.” —Publishers Weekly
05/15/2016
Anderson is the curator of TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design), the nonprofit known for its TED Conference and eponymous TED Talks lecture series. In this first book, the entrepreneur offers advice on acquiring and honing public speaking skills, while also delivering a history of TED Talks themselves, including profiles of several speakers and public feedback to their presentations. The text is structured along the lines of Rule 1, Rule 2, etc., throughout 21 chapters. As a guide to public speaking, the work is conveniently searchable through its section titles, and many well-received TED Talks are represented. The author documents TED's progress, from its origination as an on-site conference in California to the development of TEDx events in communities around the world. For instance, in the section on the power of stories, he references author Elizabeth Gilbert's statements that storytelling is key to persuasion. He later notes actor Salman Khan to explain the significance of focusing on main ideas. Though some mundane details are included, the book still provides solid public-speaking wisdom. VERDICT For readers who appreciate TED's mantra of "ideas worth spreading" and those who are inspired to improve their own performances, no matter their line of work.—Jesse A. Lambertson, Metamedia Management, LLC, Washington, DC
Narrating all but a small portion of this excellent audio, Chris Anderson provides thoughtful pacing and subtle intensity that are perfect for his discussion of succeeding on a TED stage. With his British accent giving an old-world tone to the production, he sounds intimately connected not just to his well-formed advice but also to the ancient practice of creating impact with the spoken word. Both his delivery and his memorable insights make his guide much richer than a typical how-to manual. He explains in accessible terms how a skillful speaker can bring an audience’s attention and excitement into the same neurological space that the speaker and his ideas occupy. Colorful examples of common mistakes and best practices make his meta-message powerful: Public speaking is more important than ever, and the skills needed to be part of this renaissance can be learned. T.W. © AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine
2016-03-28
The head honcho of the much-watched (and oft-satirized) TED Talks shares how he gets the best out of speakers.Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech, writes Anderson, clocked in at 17 minutes, 40 seconds: just a hair under the 18 minutes allotted to speakers at the TED Conference, a group that's included high-wattage thinkers like Bill Gates, Andrew Solomon, and Steven Pinker. The King comparison is apt, since Anderson writes with a preacher's enthusiasm and messianic demeanor about the virtues of TED Talks and about why you might want to master the skills involved in presenting one. From appropriate dress to calming your nerves to revising to pacing, the bulk of the book is filled with tips. Hone the "throughline" of your talk—its (usually counterintuitive) point—into 15 words. Own your vulnerability and express it onstage. Emphasize parable and metaphor in your storytelling. Avoid bombarding people with slides, especially ones with lots of bullet points ("bullets belong in The Godfather"). Avoid airy expressions of gratitude when you start and finish, and focus instead on more earthbound questions and assertions that stoke curiosity. Anderson provides examples from the TED vault to bolster his points, mentioning speaker shipwrecks anonymously and calling out particularly surprising and successful ones by name—he refers a few times to Monica Lewinsky's 2015 talk as an example of intense preparation, fending off fear, and telling a story that resonates. The author's exhortations to constantly revise, rehearse, and rethink your story are all unimpeachably practical. (Indeed, the book unintentionally doubles as a helpful writing guide.) So it's disappointing that the closing chapters devolve into a TED history lesson and overenthusiastic cheerleading about the organization's world-changing powers—an oddly soft conclusion from a writer who demands we stick the landing. A handy guide for novice and moderately experienced speakers, once you've dodged the TED boosterism.
Product Details
| BN ID: | 2940169935653 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Brilliance Audio |
| Publication date: | 05/03/2016 |
| Edition description: | Unabridged |
Read an Excerpt
1
Presentation Literacy: The Skill You Can Build
You’re nervous, right?
Stepping out onto a public stage and having hundreds of pairs of eyes turned your way is terrifying. You dread having to stand up in a company meeting and present your project. What if you get nervous and stumble over your words? What if you completely forget what you were going to say? Maybe you’ll be humiliated! Maybe your career will crater! Maybe the idea you believe in will stay buried forever!
These are thoughts that can keep you up at night.
But with the right mindset, you can use your fear as an incredible asset. It can be the driver that will persuade you to prepare for a talk properly.
That’s what happened when Monica Lewinsky came to TED. For her, the stakes couldn’t have been higher. Seventeen years earlier, she had been through the most humiliating public exposure imaginable, an experience so intense it almost broke her. Now she was attempting a return to a more visible public life, to reclaim her narrative.
But she was not an experienced public speaker, and she knew that it would be disastrous if she messed up. She told me:
"Nervous is too mild a word to describe how I felt. More like . . . Gutted with trepidation. Bolts of fear. Electric anxiety. If we could have harnessed the power of my nerves that morning, I think the energy crisis would have been solved. Not only was I stepping out onto a stage in front of an esteemed and brilliant crowd, but it was also videotaped, with the high likelihood of being made public on a widely viewed platform. I was visited by the echoes of lingering trauma from years of having been publicly ridiculed. Plagued by a deep insecurity I didn’t belong on the TED stage. That was the inner experience against which I battled."
And yet Monica found a way to turn that fear around. She used some surprising techniques, which I’ll share in chapter 15. Suffice it to say, they worked. Her talk won a standing ovation at the event, rocketed to a million views within a few days, and earned rave reviews online. It even prompted a public apology to her from a longtime critic, feminist author Erica Jong.
Indeed, everywhere you look, there are stories of people who were terrified of public speaking but found a way to become really good at it, from Eleanor Roosevelt to Warren Buffett to Princess Diana, who was known to all as “shy Di” and hated giving speeches, but found a way to speak informally in her own voice, and the world fell in love with her.
THE DAY TED MIGHT HAVE DIED
Here’s a story from my own life: When I first took over leadership of TED in late 2001, I was reeling from the near collapse of the company I had spent fifteen years building, and I was terrified of another huge public failure. I had been struggling to persuade the TED community to back my vision for TED, and I feared that it might just fizzle out. Back then, TED was an annual conference in California, owned and hosted by a charismatic architect named Richard Saul Wurman, whose larger-than-life presence infused every aspect of the conference. About eight hundred people attended every year, and most of them seemed resigned to the fact that TED probably couldn’t survive once Wurman departed. The TED conference of February 2002 was the last one to be held under his leadership, and I had one chance and one chance only to persuade TED attendees that the conference would continue just fine. I had never run a conference before, however, and despite my best efforts over several months at marketing the following year’s event, only seventy people had signed up for it.
Early on the last morning of that conference, I had 15 minutes to make my case. And here’s what you need to know about me: I am not naturally a great speaker. I say um and you know far too often. I will stop halfway through a sentence, trying to find the right word to continue. I can sound overly earnest, soft-spoken, conceptual. My quirky British sense of humor is not always shared by others.
I was so nervous about this moment, and so worried that I would look awkward on the stage, that I couldn’t even bring myself to stand. Instead I rolled forward a chair from the back of the stage, sat on it, and began.
I look back at that talk now and cringe—a lot. If I were critiquing it today, there are a hundred things I would change, starting with the wrinkly white T-shirt I was wearing. And yet . . . I had prepared carefully what I wanted to say, and I knew there were at least some in the audience desperate for TED to survive. If I could just give those supporters a reason to get excited, perhaps they would turn things around. Because of the recent dot-com bust, many in the audience had suffered business losses as bad as my own. Maybe I could connect with them that way?
I spoke from the heart, with as much openness and conviction as I could summon. I told people I had just gone through a massive business failure. That I’d come to think of myself as a complete loser. That the only way I’d survived mentally was by immersing myself in the world of ideas. That TED had come to mean the world to me—that it was a unique place where ideas from every discipline could be shared. That I would do all in my power to preserve its best values. That, in any case, the conference had brought such intense inspiration and learning to us that we couldn’t possibly let it die . . . could we?
Oh, and I broke the tension with an apocryphal anecdote about France’s Madame de Gaulle and how she shocked guests at a diplomatic dinner by expressing her desire for “a penis.” In England, I said, we also had that desire, although there we pronounced it happiness, and TED had brought genuine happiness my way.
To my utter amazement, at the end of the talk, Jeff Bezos, the head of Amazon, who was seated in the center of the audience, rose to his feet and began clapping. And the whole room stood with him. It was as if the TED community had collectively decided, in just a few seconds, that it would support this new chapter of TED after all. And in the 60-minute break that followed, some 200 people committed to buying passes for the following year’s conference, guaranteeing its success.
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