3T Method to Use Visual Aids Effectively

Have you seen a speaker talking to a flip chart or a PowerPoint slide? Are you the speaker?

Sometimes, in the heat of our presentation, we tend to get carried away with the points and ideas on the visual aid and ignore the most important aspect of our presentation, which is our audience. After all, they are the reason we do the presentation.

To avoid talking to our visual aids such as flip charts or PowerPoint slides (any slides for that matter), we can use what I call the 3T Method. 3T which are; Touch, Turn and Talk are the steps that we can use when presenting with visual aids to be more effective.

When we want to refer to a point on our visual aid say, a flip chart, we Touch it (either with our palm, preferably open palm - it is more respectful; or we point it with a laser pointer) and quickly glance (not read) the points.

After glancing at the points on the visual aids (by now we know what to elaborate), we Turn and face our audience. This is the crucial part of the 3T Method as when we face our audience, we are connecting with them logically and emotionally. We are building a bridge each time we face them.

The last part of the 3T Method is Talk where we explain the points to our audience. We can do this using stories, acronym, metaphors and others. The key idea is this - each time we talk, we need to face our audience. As long as we remember this very important idea then we are doing our job as a speaker.

Try the 3T Method in your next presentation today and feel the positive results.      

Ladder of Abstraction For Better Clarity

Do you want your future speeches to be clearer and easily understood by your audience? Then you may want to consider using the Ladder of Abstraction Technique. Using this technique will help your audience more focused, engaged and motivated to follow your speech as they find it easier to understand.

Imagine your speech is like a ladder that you can move up or down on. As you explain vague concepts such as 'poverty', you are moving up the ladder. Some in your audience have no problems in following your speech. However, as you might have known, you will also have other types of audiences on the floor, the ones that may find it a bit difficult to grasp the concepts.

To address their needs you need to move down the ladder. Using the example above, when talking about vague concept such as poverty, you can give specific examples of poverty etc. Thus, each time you have vague concepts in your speech (up the ladder) you will illustrate them with specific examples (down the ladder). By doing this, you are sure to address all the needs of your audience and increase your effectiveness as a speaker or presenter. Try it in your next speech.