The Secret Sauce of Public Speaking

One of the really fun things about my iGoogle homepage is that I have plugged in some consistently interesting feeds that tell me things that I didn’t know I wanted to know. The most recent of these new discoveries is a cool article about public speaking by a renaissance gent named Steve Kaufmann – diplomat, forest product baron and founder of the Linguist Institute.

The shiny object in the article is the use of latin terms which often make things seem much more academic and credible than words like “widget” and “app”. But the nuts and bolts are a solid formula for crafting a powerful and compelling speech for public consumption.

• Exordium – the opening of the presentation. This is the time to establish credibility and charm the pants off your audience. If they like you, they will follow your words. Kauffman says, “combine humility with a clear indication that you know what you are talking about.” Word.
• Narratio - you know this oldie but goody from your high school term papers – tell your audience in brief what you’re going to tell them about in full later on. This is Narratio – an outline of the issue at hand and why they should give a rat’s arse.
• Partitio is the explanation of where you stand on the issue, including the arguments that you are about to make. This is often followed up by Confirmatio which is what we refer to here at DBG as “because I said so”, bolstered by numerous proof points and sports scores that somehow make it possible to hit a point home.
• Refutatio - this is where you go ahead and scoop the cynics, naysayers and competitors by acknowledging the other arguments that relate to the point you are trying to make.
• Peroratio - this is where you have the opportunity to make a lasting impression on your audience, leaving them with a compelling reason to jump on your personal bandwagon and/or leave positive feedback on your presentation so you can do it again somewhere else.

Thanks to Pick the Brain for this stuff. Be sure to check out the rest of the info there.