Tempo and time.
Went through the presentation too slowly,
was number two on Stephen cost lands list,
and number four overall.
So, that's pretty important.
Some people are just way too slow,
some people are just way too fast,
and the comfortable middle ground is somewhere between
140 words per minute and 160 words per minute.
There's multiple research studies confirming this actually.
The first figure you get if you google it it is probably correct.
You may talk faster.
I don't think there's a problem.
You are actually perceived as more competent the faster you speak,
however, there's a U-shaped curve for benevolence.
People think you are more competent, but they don't like you.
So, overall just speak normally still is the best advice.
Maybe a little bit faster but not too fast.
Make pauses to see how the audience is doing.
"Am I going too fast?"
is a great question to ask,
because sometimes you are.
If you're in doubt, do ask.
Am I going to fast? People will say "No, it's alright."
Means you're safe.
You regain your confidence in a way.
You can continue. Sometimes they say "Oh yeah,
it is a bit too fast."
So, you have to adjust, slow down a little bit.
Sometimes you ask "Am I going too fast?"
They say, "No, you're going too slow."
That means you are in trouble.
That means that something is wrong and
something is wrong mostly with your material, I think.
It's not about speed,
it's mostly about the contact you have with the audience,
it means that you've lost them completely at some point,
and it is about the importance to them of whatever it is that you are talking about.
Resist the urge to speed up.
Most lecturers, should they say lecturers,
at this point when they see that their audiences falling asleep,
they try to speed up the information transfer.
This is not what we should be doing.
It is not the slow pace problem most of the time.
Most of the time it's a problem of too much irrelevant detail.
You need to explain to them why whatever it is that you're saying is important.
You need to have this improvised conversation with the audience.
I know it's departing from the script feels uncomfortable,
but I think you are at the stage where you should be doing precisely that.
Thing number three, went over the allotted time or rushed to finish in time.
Now, it mostly happens when the speakers do not watch the clock,
happened to me quite a few times actually.
So, you do need to have a clock.
It could be this clock,
some venues have those kinds of clocks,
or it could be this clock,
the clock you set up on your computer.
It could be, I don't know,
a tablet or a cell phone.
Do turn off energy savings mode.
Happened to me a couple of occasions.
I put the cell phone and then I forget to turn off the energy saving.
So, for five-minutes just snaps and I have no clue what's going on,
and the venue and doesn't have any other clock to watch.
So, I need to really watch the organizers at this particular point in time.
Now, if you see that you will be overtime,
you better do this in advance.
You need to understand how strict the time limit is,
because even the TED,
sometimes people TED is famous for it's very steep 18 minute time limit.
But even in TED, people sometimes go over time.
I know Tony Robbins went over time,
the accomplished speaker he is.
He made no attempt to stay,
he admitted that he is over time,
and then he had a lot of chat with Chris Anderson who allowed him to stay,
because the audience loved him.
The audience's satisfaction is more important than the time limit most of the time,
but you need to check,
you need to ask sometimes well, you have to go.
So, you have to know in advance whether you're overtime or not.
Do ask for more time,
sometimes they give you more time.
Sometimes it happened to me I think once,
but I've heard many people telling me the same story that at first,
they told me that I have 45 minutes so I prepare the 45-minute presentation.
But then they said, "Oh my God,
turns out you only have 15 minutes."
Or the previous speaker spoke for too long and you only have 15 minutes.
You really need to work with the structure.
If your presentation is scalable,
if it's built like a tree where all the proper priorities,
you know what to cut,
you know what information is important what information is not important.
You can remove parts of your presentation without the whole tree collapsing.
So, you have an introduction, problems,
solution which is divided into parts,
and then you have conclusion.
So, you cut the introduction almost completely.
You proceed straight to the problem because you don't have enough time,
and then you talk about the problem,
problems are important, then you talk about the solution,
and you give people a broad overview and you say "Okay, this is a complex thing,
I will tell you about part one and part two,
and three, I will really condense.
Come to me after the talk," and they will actually come to you after the the talk.
This is you buying more time.
Well, few interested people will come.
You do not condense the conclusion,
you not cut the conclusion and you do not do abrupt endings.
Conclusions are important.
Please do not go, "Oops! I'm overtime.
Goodbye." This is not a way to end your presentation.
Two minutes before the timer goes zero, zero, zero,
you need to start concluding,
start making a come to a resume slide.
Something like this. Please do conclude properly.
So, in conclusion, speak at a comfortable rate but do check it with the audience.
Observe their non-verbals, ask if in doubt.
If they say you're going too slow or too fast,
you have to adjust, "I'm sorry."
Finally, set up the clock to watch.
You need to watch the clock.
If you feel like you're going overtime,
you need to know about this in advance.
Because time you perceive as a speaker at the stage,
and time as perceived by the audience,
and time as perceived by the organizers,
and the actual calendar time,
those are four different things.
You need to know the objective truth,
you need to know the objective reality.
Time on your cell phone or computer is the objective reality.
Do know how much time you have left.
This is very important.
Alexei KapterevLomonosov MSU BS
