“I smell smoked meat. The smoke comes from the skin of my left arm.” This is how a Dan Brown Novel kicks off on the first page. Gooooosebump! How much goosebump makes your talk? Yesterday I joined the TEDx MünchenSalon and learnt a lot about telling stories, about the landscape of innovation (Andy Goldstein) and how to conduct the perfect interview (Moritz Von Ursal). Have you met Ted? The whole Ted-concept is legen – wait for it – dary! It’s about sharing knowledge on ‘ideas worth spreading’. Some independent event organizers such as the advertising man Stephan Balzer (Red Onion) book a lecture hall and invite 5 to 10 interesting speakers on stage to share their thoughts on technological innovation (T), on entertaining issues (E) and new Design approaches (D).
They charge a lot of money to get a seat (between 50 and 5.000 Euro) and the best thing: All talks are being recorded on video in a highly professional quality and put online: for free! And another legendary fact: There is no copyright! Everything is under Creative Commons License. And there is another innovative thing: Everybody can create a TED conference (as long as you respect the guidelines). If you spend 10 minutes everyday on a TED talk of your choice (Ted talks are in average quite short: Between 4 minutes and 15 minutes) you will be inspired for the whole week. And there are thousands of TED talks online from San Francisco (USA) up to Lahore (Pakistan) people organize TED events all over the world. TED is the forum romanum 2.0
And besides the content you can learn so much about story telling, about how to design your powerpoint and prezi slides. After having seen the first TED talk slides I have abandonned all logos and corporate design typos and decorative stuff from my slides. Actually the background now is always black and I display pictures on the whole slide and try not to use words. And when I use words, I only show quotations or a bullet word in bold letters. My one-sqm-house-presentation at the Schaustelle-exhibition at the Pinakothek Museum just consisted of three slides: The first one was my name in white typeface (futura), not too big so it floats like a thought close to my head if you look at the photos taken from my talk later. White on black, why black? Because I don’t want people to see the rectangle box created by the projector. This works best if the wall is white and not covered by a canvas screen. The worst thing is when the bottom ledge of the screen hangs at the height of your head. There will be always a line shooting through your head! So dear event managers, make sure the canvas hangs above the speaker’s head or try to waive the screen in general. I see my slides not as nicely designed layouts, but always as a second stage. (The first stage is me). That’s why it’s bullshit to refer to Corporate Design guidelines, because these guidelines don’t know how big the projection will be, where the speaker stands and how big the hall is (the audience must have the chance to read the typo even in the last row). Another rule: Design your slides on your own! Don’t let others make your second stage! Otherwise it will always look like you tell things that someone other has put in your mind – eh pardon me – slides. You want to tell something? Tell it with your words. Tell it your way. Don’t be a corporate puppet!
The second slide was a figure: “1 sqm” in bold letters very big!
The third slide is simply black, because people pay more attention to my words when there are no pictures or words around.
Actually my presentation slides are so simple I create them a few minutes before my talk – directly on location in the lecture hall. Important: switch off the beemer while you do that. That’s how I did it in the Harry Clarke Hall at the National College of Art and Design in Dublin where I spoke in front of design students two years ago. I just wrote my headline in white on black to have a nice background for my talk: Build more buy less. No logo, no picture, no color. Less is more.
A guy called Veit Etzold was one of the speakers at the TEDx MünchenSalon and talked about the art of storytelling. I also was one of the speakers. A design thinking coach called Ole Tillmann helped me structuring my talk. I said, I want to present the One-Sqm House and the Unreal Estate House. And I would like to show some flicks of wooden treehouses in Laos. And at the end of that exercise he recommended me to do it without Powerpoint or prezi. No pictures. We make “Kopfkino” – which in english means Braun cinema. That means, all pictures you want to show, you make them pop up in your audiences brain. He is really right: There is no stronger image than the ones, you see in your inner eye. Kopfkino. And he said: You have to bring that house on stage. And grace to a helper called Anne Maria Amman the house was in Munich a few days later – thank you so much Anne! The talk was fun but I left out the Unreal Estate house part and was irritated by the countdown-clock which displays on a screen at the border of the stage.
Later on our way back to the airport Veit and I sat in the taxi cab and had the chance for a little talk. Veit said that it is so important to begin a talk with a few strong words. Try it out: Don’t begin your talk with filling words like “Also ich …” “Grundsätzlich…” “Prinzipiell…” or “Äh…” “Ehm…” and so on. I know germans love to kick off their talk with a definition (Wolf Lotter – a columnist at BrandEins – always begins with a etymological analysis). Well that’s cool, but if you find a way to open the hearts of your crowd in a more fun way, do that. Laughing is a door opener. What about nervousness? Actually why the hell are we so nervous while speaking in front of a group? Let me tell these things in a face to face situation and I will feel comfortable. Is there a reason why we fear public speaking moments? What does evolution theorists say? Fear is a good thing, because it alarms us and preserve us from danger. But what actually is so dangerous about having a bad talk? Or performing ridiculously? We do all the time bad, wrong and ridiculous things all the time. But why do fear so much a wrong or ridiculous performance in front if people?
Here is a theory I learnt from a rhetoric coach: back in time, when human beings were hunters and lived in caves it was a vital reason to survive. Because if you behave shitty or ridiculous in your group you simply didn’t got something to eat and died from starvation. Does it help you to know, that today you won’t die from starving, after a bad talk.
This is how I do it to get my nervousness under control (believe it or not: I am always flurried before a talk even if it doesn’t look like). I had to pee every 30 min before my TED talk at 4 pm. I was wondering if the staff thinks that I take drugs in the bathroom, which I don’t (never was drunk in my life, never was high on marijuana, never sniffed kokain or LSD or crystal meth): I start with a “hello” little 2 sec pause and then “my name is Van Bo” (smile!) and then I tell something which is straight from my heart. I never plan this. Sometimes I say: “I really feel honored to be here.” or at the Baukongress 2013 in Mainz I began my talk to the audience (most of the listeners were Home Improvement market leaders such as Hornbach or Bauhaus): “Thank you very much for the baumarkt stores you created. They inspire me so much, you open already at 7 AM and this is why I hang out once in a while between your shelves smelling fresh wood and admiring drills before I go to the office. My wife hates you.” Laughter. Pause. Huggingtime is over. Now I add a little spice of drama in my beginning: “But I have some bad news for you: In the next 5 to 7 years you will all be bankrupt.”
Or at the talk of the Wood congress in Bern (Switzerland) I began my talk like this: “Thank you for inviting me. I would like to share two love stories with you today: The first one is when I fell in love with a girl. I wanted to impress her and that’s why I have booked a class at the VHS Adult school to learn carpenter’s skills. The result is a movement called “Hartz IV Möbel”. The second love story is wood. I fell in love with this material. Wood has a lot of inspiring friends from all over the world. There is a saw from japan. She is amazing, she even sings. And so on…”
I found out that people will get your messages easier if they have a personal connection to your person. So be couragous and reveal some emotions, some private moments (as long as they are not undelicate).
My first talks I had, I always began with success stories: Things I have achieved, awards I have won, facts and skills I have gained. It makes me bigger. It makes me more important. But where does this motivation come from? From worries not to be heard, not to be taken serious. Worries, that people don’t listen up. But this artificial blow up strategy makes you often appear arrogant or showing off. And most of the people don’t identify with people that they don’t like. So one day I began not to tell how dope I am. I started to tell why I think how dope you are, my listeners. Appreciate the audience – celebrate your crowd!
This is why I have started my talk at Ted like this: “TED gave me 12 minutes on stage and before I start my talk I would like to share my time with you: I give you 60 seconds of my talk time.” TED talks are inspiring and people who are interested in TED talks often are inspiring themselves. But there was no time for networking between the talks, so I decided to create some networking atmosphere. I set up a game, a task. People always need tasks! That’s why games are so addictive (Can I rescue the princess? Donkey Kong task; Can the Wendler win the jungle camp? Can my favorite singer make it to the Voice of Germany …). The task is: Please find out what the most beautiful thing your neighbor to the left AND right has seen was this year. 60 seconds and go!
This is what I call collaborative priming. Believe it or not, but people begin to listen to your talk in a more positive mood, psychologists say, they are primed. Influenced. That’s why I would never start a talk with problems or things that went wrong or bad news such as: Sorry, I was very sick last week, that’s why I could not prepare this and that.
I could have created my talk around the tiny house movement as I did it on the Creative Morning event. I decided to make it very personal. I talked about my mother, who always wanted to build a house. She never made it. When she died I was 20 something and started to study architecture. It’s a story about legacy, a story about unfulfilled dreams. It’s bigger than than the tiny house movement.
What is your legacy? What is your story you want to reveal? What is the smoke you smell? Hopefully not the skin of your left arm.
(PS: What I also love to do at the end of m talks is referring to things I mentioned in the beginning. I call it story-brackets.)