Your ability to shape your future depends on how well you communicate where you want to be when you get there. When ideas are communicated effectively, people follow and change. Nancy Duarte More Quotes by Nancy Duarte More Quotes From Nancy Duarte The future isn't a place that we're going to go, it's a place that you get to create. Nancy Duarte Ideas need to stand out to be noticed. There is so much noisy information out there that if your message is bland, it won't be heard or acted upon. To avoid obscurity, you need to clash with your environment. Incorporating contrast into your presentation will help it stand out. You create contrast by using the presentation form. For example, you can state the problem, then the solution. State an opposing perspective, then your perspective. State the past, then your picture of the future. Adding the cadence of contrast will pull your idea out of obscurity. Nancy Duarte perspective helping past Most great leaders are also great communicators. Great leaders have learned how to persuade so their objectives can be reached. The most powerful device to persuade is story. Stating facts and figures is not memorable. Emotionally connecting your audience to your idea through story will move them. Nancy Duarte powerful memorable moving Effective communication is fascinating to me yet bad communication is just as fascinating. There are lessons to be learned from both. I can't say I am a natural communicator, it's taken a lot of work to be able to develop content relevant to the audience and deliver it with credibility. My initial natural ability tended to be more around the visual display of information. For years I was more comfortable visualizing other people's great thinking. I preferred to be hidden behind the curtain than a thinker myself. Nancy Duarte communication taken thinking The only difference between the failure of a great idea and the success of a medocre idea was the way in which the idea was communicated. Nancy Duarte differences way ideas Personal stories are the emotional glue that connects your audience to your message. Nancy Duarte glue emotional stories Practice design, Not Decoration: Don't just make pretty talking points. Instead, display information in a way that makes complex information clear. Nancy Duarte design practice talking The greatest communicators have unknowingly used a story pattern. They not only use anecdotes effectively, but their communication followed a persuasive story pattern of tension and release. That tension and release is created by contrasting [what is] with what could be as a structural device. Nancy Duarte persuasive tension communication Words that are carefully framed and spoken are the most powerful means of communication there is. Nancy Duarte communication powerful mean To me, presentations are the most powerful device. You can't really name a movement that didn't start with the spoken word. Nancy Duarte movement powerful names When ideas are communicated effectively, people follow and change. Nancy Duarte people ideas All "bad" presentations struggle to keep the audience interested. The audience squirms wishing they could escape. The audience has given the presenter an hour of their life, so they want that hour to be useful. It's disrespectful of a presenter to not show up rehearsed and prepared with information and insights that will improve the lives of the audience in some way. Presenting will do only one of two things for you: it will either diminish your credibility or yield results. Most bad presentations hurt the presenter's credibility. Nancy Duarte hurt struggle wish Spending energy to understand the audience and carefully crafting a message that resonates with them means making a commitment of time and discipline to the process. Nancy Duarte discipline mean commitment If you feel tempted to use a picture of two hands shaking in front of a globe, put the pencil down, step away from the desk, and think about taking a vacation or investigating aromatherapy. Nancy Duarte vacation hands thinking Don't blend in; instead, clash with your environment. Stand out. Be different. That's what will draw attention to your ideas. Nothing has intrinsic attention-grabbing power by itself. The power lies in how much something stands out from its context. Nancy Duarte different lying ideas The only way to resonate at a level that persuades is to know who you are addressing. If it's true that the Audience is the hero, you need to spend time thinking about them. Really getting to know them to the point it feels like they are a friend. May times we picture our audience as a large clump of strangers. Instead, you need to picture them as individuals standing in line to have a personal conversation with you. It's easy to persuade a friend, you need to think about your audience until you know them as a friend. Nancy Duarte stranger hero thinking Sometimes all it takes is a kind word of encouragement to get your heroes back on the right path. Nancy Duarte encouragement hero path The audience does not need to tune themselves to you - you need to tune your message to fit them. Skilled presenting requires you to understand their hearts and minds and create a message to resonate with what's already there. Your audience will be significantly moved if you send a message that is tuned to their needs and desires. They might even quiver with enthusiasm and act in concert to create beautiful results. Nancy Duarte mind heart beautiful To keep people interested, your presentation needs to have contrast. As humans we process contrast. We are assessing "what's the same," "what's different," "what's like me," "what's not like me." Humans stay interested if they can process contrast. Varying types of contrast can be used. With content, you can contrast between what is and what could be or between your perspective and alternative perspectives. Nancy Duarte perspective different people Audience interest is directly proportionate to the presenter's preparation. You better spend time and energy on any presentations where the stakes are high. If you are trying to close a large sale or speak at a conference to an audience of potential clients, you better be ON your game. An audience can tell how much energy you spent on your presentation, which is a reflection of how much you valued their time. If they gave you an hour of their time, you need to make it worth it to them by treating their time as a valuable asset by making the content valuable to them. Nancy Duarte preparation reflection trying
