3 Things I Learned From Delivering A Huge Tiny Talk

On Tuesday night I had the opportunity to speak at a fabulous event called DisruptHR. I've known about Disrupt for many, many years — probably nearly a decade — and I've always wanted to be a part of it, but I never got the chance... until now.

If you're not familiar, DisruptHR bills itself as "The Rebellious Future Of HR" and takes place in cities all over the world. The events bring together 14 speakers in one night. They can do this because the talks are just 5 minutes long. Also, the slides advance automatically: you get exactly 20 slides and they move every 15 seconds... whether you like it or not. (Yeah, that part is as intense as it sounds.)

In Denver at least, this event is kind of a big deal. It almost always sells out at around 500 attendees, with HR and business leaders packing a beautiful old brick building near downtown called Mile High Station.

My topic was "The Future Of Work Is Human Energy" so, naturally, I talked about (energy) vampires. 😉 I'll share the video with you as soon as they release it... usually takes a few weeks.

Until then, I wanted to share the top 3 things I learned from doing this HUGE tiny talk.

Even if you're not getting on a Disrupt stage anytime soon, I'm guessing you have to present ideas: to your team leader, to your colleagues, or maybe to your spouse or partner...! If you want those ideas to have maximum impact, remember these 3 things:

1) Short is more difficult than long.

Mark Twain reportedly said, "I wanted to write a short letter but didn't have time, so I wrote a long one instead." This adage applies to presentations as well.

The most important thing to remember on this point is if you have only a short time to communicate something, you will need more prep time, not less.

Communicating with power and clarity is incredibly difficult, especially if you don't have a lot of time to explain or elaborate. You'll have to make cogent points that "hit" quickly, and this will take time to craft.

Give yourself the space you'll need to test it and tweak it to make it better and better.

2) Focus on the 1 THING you want them to remember.

If you can get people to remember 1 powerful new thing from any presentation you do, I tend to think that's a win. And if you only have 5 minutes to share an idea, it's really difficult to do anything more than that, period. So, get super clear on the 1 thing you want to communicate, and go back to this core idea over and over and over.

My idea was: humans need more energy at work, but there are "vampires" that suck it out.

In my talk I said the phrase "human energy" basically every other slide, 9 times in 5 minutes. I said the word "vampire" 14 times. This worked because I framed these 2 ideas as naturally-opposing forces within the first 30 seconds, so they reinforced my core concept again and again.

3) If you're using visuals, get as close to 0 words as possible.

Over the course of 20 slides, I put a total of just 41 words on them. Only 8 of my slides had words for people to read. When I did use words, they looked like this:

People really can't read and listen to you at the same time. So ideally, when you use words on slides, you should use them to exactly reinforce the point you are speaking about at that exact moment. (NOTE: This is additionally challenging when you have to perfectly align verbal statements with slides that are auto-advancing, but hopefully you won't have to deliver with quite this precision!)

I love it when a speaker is able to line up their timing of "spoken word" with "visual word" — it just feels so "pro"... like watching amazing dance choreography or a something that was filmed and edited to perfection.

That's all for now, my friends. I hope these tips help you elevate your ideas to the next level of impact!