How to Start a Movement-Derek Sivers
The first thing you notice when you start watching this TED Talk is that it is at least ¼ the length of almost any other TED Talks; however, I believe the length is one of the advantages of the talk. On some topics, it can be difficult to say all you have to say in such a short amount of time, but personally, I find that some talks tend to drag out longer than they need to. Sivers keeps it short, sweet, and to the point.
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The talk itself is actually a very innovative idea in my opinion. He bases his talk around a funny video of a guy dancing at a concert. He starts alone, but slowly, people join in his little, crazy dance party. Before long, other people start joining until there is a huge mass of crazy dancing. Sivers gives the talk while staying on pace with the video, describing what is happening, and interpreting the video all at the same time. There are things I both like and dislike about this approach. The thing I like is that it helps keep his pacing the absolute same from performance to performance, which gives him a sense of comfortability and security. The issue arises when people start laughing at what he says or things going on in the video when it is still a time he has to explain something. He ends up having to talk over the laughter, so it is easy to miss a few things he says your first time watching the video. To get the entire performance, you have to watch it a second time.
Another thing I enjoyed about his talk is how natural he is. I think he can partially accredit this to having a video playing. This takes all the eyes off him, and it gives him something to adjust his pacing on. If he were to get nervous while giving talks, the video diverts attention off him to the point where he could possibly be sitting while giving the talk and nobody would notice. I also assume that he is comfortable in front of crowds on top of this though because he seems very eager and willing to share his message. This also shows the passion he has for the subject.
All in all, I would say this is one of my favorite TED Talks ever. It is super quick and engaging the entire time and shares a powerful message. It also challenges the mainstream thought that being a leader is everything. He points out that the first followers are the ones that make a random person into a leader in the first place. The biggest takeaways from the talk are to stay short and concise, but be engaging and passionate the entire time.
Another thing I enjoyed about his talk is how natural he is. I think he can partially accredit this to having a video playing. This takes all the eyes off him, and it gives him something to adjust his pacing on. If he were to get nervous while giving talks, the video diverts attention off him to the point where he could possibly be sitting while giving the talk and nobody would notice. I also assume that he is comfortable in front of crowds on top of this though because he seems very eager and willing to share his message. This also shows the passion he has for the subject.
All in all, I would say this is one of my favorite TED Talks ever. It is super quick and engaging the entire time and shares a powerful message. It also challenges the mainstream thought that being a leader is everything. He points out that the first followers are the ones that make a random person into a leader in the first place. The biggest takeaways from the talk are to stay short and concise, but be engaging and passionate the entire time.
The Food We Were Born to Eat-John Mcdougall
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The reason I chose this talk is that this talk is what convinced me to become a vegan. Scrolling through TED videos on YouTube in my freshman year of college, I found this talk on the sidebar. Considering myself pretty nutritionally savvy at the time, I decided to take a look at his talk. He flipped everything I thought I knew about nutrition on its head. For a long time, I had hated vegans because I thought they were annoying, but after watching his talk, I did a complete 180.
First, I want to start with what he did well. His intro starts with him proclaiming, “Starch!” If people weren’t paying attention, now they were. He says it is what cured thousands of his patients, followed by 3 very brief anecdotes of people with different debilitating diseases who were cured by it. Finally he introduces himself as, “John McDougall…the luckiest doctor in the world because [his] patients get well.” Honestly, of all the talks I have seen, this is possibly the most effective and attention grabbing to me. I may be biased because I was previously interested in his topic, but I feel as though curing seemingly incurable diseases and proclaiming yourself a miracle doctor is enough to get people to listen. |
He then proceeds through his story of how he got to where he is as a doctor today, which is extremely important because it introduces where his ideologies came from. He gives a lot of good historical, epidemiological, and scientific evidence on why a vegan diet of starches is so effective. He reinforces his title. Starch is the food we were born to eat. He also reinforces his theoretical claims by putting it to practice successfully.
Something he did that I have mixed feelings about is explain what starch is almost every time he mentions the word. “Starch: rice, corn, potatoes.” The fact that he explains what it is so many times is very effective and helpful repetition, which he reinforces later to remind people that when you give up meat and dairy, you should eat starch. He explains that people are always at a loss of what they are able to eat when they give up the animal products, and reinforcing starch and what it is helps people remember. The only criticism I have with this is that I felt he sometimes said it too many times in the middle of his arguments which may have detracted from his sentences.
The only other two complaints I have with his talk is that he dragged the whole thing out too long and randomly tried to insert some pathos arguments to make people feel bad about making the kids of today fat, which is sometimes good argument but out of place in his talk. Besides some of those minor points to fix in his talk, it is one of the most inspirational and life changing talks that TED has ever experienced. I would highly suggest this talk to anyone looking to make a healthy change in their life.
Something he did that I have mixed feelings about is explain what starch is almost every time he mentions the word. “Starch: rice, corn, potatoes.” The fact that he explains what it is so many times is very effective and helpful repetition, which he reinforces later to remind people that when you give up meat and dairy, you should eat starch. He explains that people are always at a loss of what they are able to eat when they give up the animal products, and reinforcing starch and what it is helps people remember. The only criticism I have with this is that I felt he sometimes said it too many times in the middle of his arguments which may have detracted from his sentences.
The only other two complaints I have with his talk is that he dragged the whole thing out too long and randomly tried to insert some pathos arguments to make people feel bad about making the kids of today fat, which is sometimes good argument but out of place in his talk. Besides some of those minor points to fix in his talk, it is one of the most inspirational and life changing talks that TED has ever experienced. I would highly suggest this talk to anyone looking to make a healthy change in their life.
How to Sound Smart in Your TED Talk-Will Stephen
This is possibly the most creative talk out there. It is a satire of other TED Talks where a man takes five and a half minutes to talk about nothing. The crazy thing is that you can’t stop listening to him. He is so engaging while talking about nothing that it is impossible to not pay attention. This is extremely effective in teaching people how to be charismatic by drawing attention to actions and gestures that make a speaker effective because there is no content for the listener to focus on. This truly proves that an effective speaker is not one who has the best information, but one who presents it in the best fashion.
The first thing you can recognize in the speaker is his passion. Because he is being so passionate about nothing, it is hard for people not to listen. They want to hear why he likes his topic so much and learn. People immediately start drawing parallels between what he is doing and saying on stage and relating it to all the other talks they have seen from TED. All the speakers they have liked have really cared about their topics, and he exemplifies how this works. Because he is interested, you are interested.
Another big focus point is that body language and vocal inflections are more powerful than the words that are coming out of his mouth. Unless you are internally motivated to listen to a boring speaker, you would never be able to keep your attention straight. Unless you are actively disengaged, it is hard to not pay attention to an energetic speaker. The content of the presentation does not matter much, but the delivery is so crucial that it makes or breaks a presentation.
The final point I would like to discuss from his presentation is that he teaches people through an underlying message. Although it is very effective to explicitly state your point, it can be just as effective, if not more, to present a narrowed path of information that allows the listener to draw their own conclusions. As long as you are not too broad, you can steer listeners to ask themselves questions about a topic to devise their own answers and conclusions. This results in higher engagement because people are mentally stimulated by the talk. While it is not always appropriate to use, I believe this is a tool that could be highly effective in some talks that I could give in the future.
The first thing you can recognize in the speaker is his passion. Because he is being so passionate about nothing, it is hard for people not to listen. They want to hear why he likes his topic so much and learn. People immediately start drawing parallels between what he is doing and saying on stage and relating it to all the other talks they have seen from TED. All the speakers they have liked have really cared about their topics, and he exemplifies how this works. Because he is interested, you are interested.
Another big focus point is that body language and vocal inflections are more powerful than the words that are coming out of his mouth. Unless you are internally motivated to listen to a boring speaker, you would never be able to keep your attention straight. Unless you are actively disengaged, it is hard to not pay attention to an energetic speaker. The content of the presentation does not matter much, but the delivery is so crucial that it makes or breaks a presentation.
The final point I would like to discuss from his presentation is that he teaches people through an underlying message. Although it is very effective to explicitly state your point, it can be just as effective, if not more, to present a narrowed path of information that allows the listener to draw their own conclusions. As long as you are not too broad, you can steer listeners to ask themselves questions about a topic to devise their own answers and conclusions. This results in higher engagement because people are mentally stimulated by the talk. While it is not always appropriate to use, I believe this is a tool that could be highly effective in some talks that I could give in the future.
Why City Flags May Be the Worst-Designed Thing You Never Noticed-Roman Mars |
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The talk starts out a little bit different. He is sitting down behind a desk and microphone, and he draws attention to it right away. Mars is a radio host who talks about design and the importance of the creativity of things. Right away it is a big point that is applicable to life, which I find interesting. He draws attention to the unnoticed in everyday life.
As far as his presentation skills go, since he is a radio host, he has a silky smooth voice. He appears to be very comfortable in front of an audience, and it is most likely because he has the stage set up to be something comfortable to him. I have a gut feeling that he may be a little awkward standing and walking around while giving the talk like most other people do; however, because he does have the excuse of being a radio host, he appears very professional and poised in his presentation.
While presenting, he continues as he would as if it his radio show. He actually stops for a second a reproduces the intro of his radio show live, which is certainly unique. He has his own music playing in the background, and he brought an entire soundboard on a tablet. His speaking style is also very unique in the sense that he has a very frequent back and forth with his sound board. He will play a clip of someone speaking a sentence, and then he will give some color commentary. It isn’t a back and forth as if there were two news casters or NFL announcers, but rather the sound board acts as a way to highlight main points and add some comedic value to what he is saying. It isn’t an easy thing to describe because it is very unique, and while it isn’t the typical TED talk in the slightest, I do find the format engaging and effective.
He ends up giving his main points numerous times in order for people to recognize and remember them, which is a good tactic used by marketers all the time. His talk ends up becoming very specific, though, so many of the main points that are repeated can only be applied to, “What makes a flag appealing?” At the end he does open it back up from flags to design. Not just what makes a flag great, but what makes any design great. I feel like flag design is an interesting topic that most people seem to not care about, but his passion and humor draw people in. He makes people actually care about flags and design, and for that reason, his TED talk was super successful.
As far as his presentation skills go, since he is a radio host, he has a silky smooth voice. He appears to be very comfortable in front of an audience, and it is most likely because he has the stage set up to be something comfortable to him. I have a gut feeling that he may be a little awkward standing and walking around while giving the talk like most other people do; however, because he does have the excuse of being a radio host, he appears very professional and poised in his presentation.
While presenting, he continues as he would as if it his radio show. He actually stops for a second a reproduces the intro of his radio show live, which is certainly unique. He has his own music playing in the background, and he brought an entire soundboard on a tablet. His speaking style is also very unique in the sense that he has a very frequent back and forth with his sound board. He will play a clip of someone speaking a sentence, and then he will give some color commentary. It isn’t a back and forth as if there were two news casters or NFL announcers, but rather the sound board acts as a way to highlight main points and add some comedic value to what he is saying. It isn’t an easy thing to describe because it is very unique, and while it isn’t the typical TED talk in the slightest, I do find the format engaging and effective.
He ends up giving his main points numerous times in order for people to recognize and remember them, which is a good tactic used by marketers all the time. His talk ends up becoming very specific, though, so many of the main points that are repeated can only be applied to, “What makes a flag appealing?” At the end he does open it back up from flags to design. Not just what makes a flag great, but what makes any design great. I feel like flag design is an interesting topic that most people seem to not care about, but his passion and humor draw people in. He makes people actually care about flags and design, and for that reason, his TED talk was super successful.
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The World's Ugliest Music-Scott Rickards |
Scott starts with a pretty inquisitive question: “What makes a piece of music beautiful?” He answers it with what many musicologists say would be the answer: repetition. He is sort of rushing through the beginning of his talk, but his points appear strong. He talks about the absence of repetition and what music would be like without it: the ugliest music in the world. The content of his opening is there, but it isn’t nearly as effective as it could be because Rickards does not seem comfortable speaking on stage. He has a glaring problem with talking to fast and not allowing any pauses when he makes a point. This lack of pausing causes people to glance over his main points and doesn’t give the words a chance to sink in.
He then starts the body of his talk with a cardinal sin of speech giving. He finally takes a pause in what he is saying, but it is to try to remember what he is saying. In order to do this, he turns his back to the crowd to look at the PowerPoint. Along with this, rather than just allowing a bit of silence, he fills the room with an “uhm.”
He then glosses over a couple pretty complicated subjects without simplifying them too much. He implies that people already know how sonar works by using the word, “recall,” and explains it extremely quickly. He then talks about complicated mathematical algorithms with slightly simplifying it, but I have the feeling that if I showed to someone like my mother, she would have zero idea what the man was talking about.
The talk continues poorly and awkwardly until the end where he brings the mathematical concept back to music and performs what is mathematically considered one of the ugliest pieces of music. While hearing the ugly piece of music was interesting, it is probably also the only reason people clicked on the video. If the name of the video had been something else, this talk would be far less popular and probably never watched.
He then starts the body of his talk with a cardinal sin of speech giving. He finally takes a pause in what he is saying, but it is to try to remember what he is saying. In order to do this, he turns his back to the crowd to look at the PowerPoint. Along with this, rather than just allowing a bit of silence, he fills the room with an “uhm.”
He then glosses over a couple pretty complicated subjects without simplifying them too much. He implies that people already know how sonar works by using the word, “recall,” and explains it extremely quickly. He then talks about complicated mathematical algorithms with slightly simplifying it, but I have the feeling that if I showed to someone like my mother, she would have zero idea what the man was talking about.
The talk continues poorly and awkwardly until the end where he brings the mathematical concept back to music and performs what is mathematically considered one of the ugliest pieces of music. While hearing the ugly piece of music was interesting, it is probably also the only reason people clicked on the video. If the name of the video had been something else, this talk would be far less popular and probably never watched.
Keep Your Goals to Yourself-Derek Sivers
After seeing Derek Sivers talk on how to start a movement, my impression of him was very high, so when I saw that he had another TED talk, the first thing I thought was, “How the hell did this man get two TED talks? He must be in cahoots with someone at TED.” The second thing I thought was, “He did my favorite talk, though, so I have to check this out.”
I don’t personally like commenting on peoples’ appearances, but Derek Sivers looks just like his personality. He is all smiley and kind of goofy looking with his shiny head and chubby cheeks, in the most endearing way possible. I could see some people hating his style because his talks tend to be very short, punny, and silly with an underlying against the norm message, but I personally like the way he gives his presentations. The way he makes mistakes and laughs at himself makes him feel very human and personable. It feels like you can connect with him through his talk, which is weird because most talks aren’t as much personality based. His unprofessionalism makes the talk more enjoyable while it would take credibility away from most other people.
This talk again was a short and sweet message about keeping your goals to yourself because science actually says that if you share them, you are less likely to chase them. He backs it up with some science and then makes jokes with some pictures to try to get people to open their mind. I think the short time of Derek’s talks are integral into having his talks be successful, because over longer periods of time, people would most likely grow bored with him. Because of the short time of his talk, I do believe it ended up being effective. Far from the best talk I have ever seen but definitely enjoyable and worth the time,
I don’t personally like commenting on peoples’ appearances, but Derek Sivers looks just like his personality. He is all smiley and kind of goofy looking with his shiny head and chubby cheeks, in the most endearing way possible. I could see some people hating his style because his talks tend to be very short, punny, and silly with an underlying against the norm message, but I personally like the way he gives his presentations. The way he makes mistakes and laughs at himself makes him feel very human and personable. It feels like you can connect with him through his talk, which is weird because most talks aren’t as much personality based. His unprofessionalism makes the talk more enjoyable while it would take credibility away from most other people.
This talk again was a short and sweet message about keeping your goals to yourself because science actually says that if you share them, you are less likely to chase them. He backs it up with some science and then makes jokes with some pictures to try to get people to open their mind. I think the short time of Derek’s talks are integral into having his talks be successful, because over longer periods of time, people would most likely grow bored with him. Because of the short time of his talk, I do believe it ended up being effective. Far from the best talk I have ever seen but definitely enjoyable and worth the time,
How to Stay Calm When You Know You Will be Stressed-Daniel Levitin |
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This talk starts off right away with a story, which happens to be a very good one. He is calm on stage describing a ridiculous situation where he is stuck outside in -40 weather and rash decision making. The content of the story itself was quite interesting and worth listening to; however, what I noticed is that he used many of the story telling tricks that Ira told us to incorporate. He used humor, like when he told people not to ask whether it was -40 Fahrenheit or Celsius because that is where the two scales meet. He used internal dialogue to explain his inner conflict of what to do, and he uses senses to explain to people just how awful it was outside. He ties in many tools for a good story and gives a strong delivery with a tie into his topic of operating under stress.
He then goes on to give a few tips about how to avoid stress, and it all sound like sound advice. He seems like a very credible man and carries himself extremely well. He is also doing a very good job of making his topic relevant to lives of everyone.
After becoming so engaged in this talk, if you pause the video and take a step back for a second, you may realize that what he ends up talking about seems to have no relevance to how to avoid stress. He goes on a pretty big tangent about the prescription drug market and how most drugs don’t work on the majority of people, including statins which lower cholesterol only working in 1/300 people.
He eventually brings it back and says that you should ask questions to figure out this kind of information before you take drugs, as well as the amount of people to get side effects. If you know these numbers, you can figure out how likely you are to be negatively affected by the drug, which might help you prepare for or avoid the stress. While I do think this is an interesting point and topic, I do feel as though it did not fit the main theme of his talk.
He concludes with reminding people that when you are stressed, your mind releases cortisol, which clouds your thinking. This was his original talking point, but there was a disconnect between each topic. I personally enjoyed the talk because I am a fan of an educated ramble with fun information, but I do feel that the body of his talk needs to be reworked to better fit his main point. His charisma made it enjoyable to listen to, which shows how important body language and voice are even when giving a talk that does not logically flow.
He then goes on to give a few tips about how to avoid stress, and it all sound like sound advice. He seems like a very credible man and carries himself extremely well. He is also doing a very good job of making his topic relevant to lives of everyone.
After becoming so engaged in this talk, if you pause the video and take a step back for a second, you may realize that what he ends up talking about seems to have no relevance to how to avoid stress. He goes on a pretty big tangent about the prescription drug market and how most drugs don’t work on the majority of people, including statins which lower cholesterol only working in 1/300 people.
He eventually brings it back and says that you should ask questions to figure out this kind of information before you take drugs, as well as the amount of people to get side effects. If you know these numbers, you can figure out how likely you are to be negatively affected by the drug, which might help you prepare for or avoid the stress. While I do think this is an interesting point and topic, I do feel as though it did not fit the main theme of his talk.
He concludes with reminding people that when you are stressed, your mind releases cortisol, which clouds your thinking. This was his original talking point, but there was a disconnect between each topic. I personally enjoyed the talk because I am a fan of an educated ramble with fun information, but I do feel that the body of his talk needs to be reworked to better fit his main point. His charisma made it enjoyable to listen to, which shows how important body language and voice are even when giving a talk that does not logically flow.