Preparation, Step-by-Step

Write the script

Once you’re accepted, you need to start writing a script. Some of you might be thinking, “if I write a script, I won’t sound natural”, but you are not writing a script so that you can recite it verbatim. You’re writing to give yourself a structure to refine and bring to life.

There is a performative aspect to TED and TEDx. This has its pros and cons, but “theatre’’ is part of the universe of TED. Your talk is not a “presentation”; it’s more like oratory.

If you churn through a bunch of slides, drily commenting on each one, you’re in the wrong place. Go back to the office, conference hall, or lecture theater.

TEDx talks have a hard limit of 18 minutes. To know how long your talk will take, you need to have it clearly mapped out. A script will allow you to further refine and crystalise your idea over multiple drafts.

Write like you talk. This is because you will be speaking! You can make your script even more “talky” in the next phase: revision.

To make the talk more authentic, attention-grabbing and memorable, use a story to set the context. There’s a good example here:

Jill Bolte Taylor: My stroke of insight

First-person stories are particularly powerful. I used the story of my recent trip to Gaza — a place that few outsiders have visited — to draw the audience in and as a springboard for my idea. Just remember that a story is not an idea! I have seen some TEDx talks that are just stories, or where the idea gets buried under a series of personal anecdotes or, even worse, where the talk is just a platform for saying, “hey, look at me and this cool thing I did”. I don’t recommend that!

2. Revise the script

Edit the s*** out of it.

Read it aloud. Writing and speaking are not the same things. If any sentence sounds like something you wouldn’t actually say, edit it.

For example:

“No mean feat” becomes “not easy”

“Facilitate” becomes “support” or “help”

“Malicious actors” becomes “bad guys”

And so on.

If your script sounds too scripted, you will come across as overly rehearsed and lack credibility, which is not good.

During the edit, you might realise that instead of an “idea worth sharing,” you’re actually sharing a whole family of ideas. This is very tempting if you love your subject, but you must put one idea first. Everything else should support that idea. There’s a great video on ideas here:

Chris Anderson: TED’s secret to great public speaking

Cut out all unnecessary detail and, if necessary, chuck out the whole script and start again from scratch. I did, and the talk was much better as a result.

There’s more on suitable ideas for TEDx here.

3. Learn the script

Don’t learn it word for word, though.

The best talks strike a fine balance between “conversational” and “performative,” and they come from a place of authenticity.

So the key is not to recite your talk robotically but to make it come from a place deep within you — like it’s part of who you are.

The other reason not to do this is that rote memorisation is very hard and our memories generally perform really badly under brute force and under a spotlight.

So how do you remember your talk?

The trick is to leverage a system in the brain that works very well, which is the part that deals with spatial awareness and navigation. This is the foundation of the so-called “Memory Palace’’ technique. Here’s a brilliant illustration of how to do it:

Joshua Foer: Feats of memory anyone can do

I learned my talk by breaking each paragraph down into core concepts, which I then wrote in a list.

I then tied those concepts together in a silly story that took place in a location I know really well. I then walked through the location in my mind, and the story unfolded, triggering my memories of the different parts of my script.

Using this technique, it took just a few hours to memorise a 14.5-minute talk. Not bad! But even so, I kept practising to get even better. Once it’s memorised, keep practising and practising.

During the actual performance, it flowed: it didn’t require any “brute memory” at all.

4. Practice!

A quick run-through isn’t going to cut it. You need to perform your talk so many times that it becomes part of you.

Make sure you time your talk and that it’s well under the 18-minute mark every time you do it.

As you rehearse, you will be doing repeated walks through your memory palace. You will probably find that you miss a few details the first few times. Don’t worry: just take a few mental steps back, paint the scene in more vivid or ridiculous detail in your mind’s eye, and go again.

I would recommend practising in a similar environment to the one you will perform in at least once, if possible — and practice standing on the spot. I usually like to walk around a bit during my talks, but you can’t do this at TEDx, because it makes life very difficult for the camera crew if you pace back and forth like a caged tiger.

Some TEDx organisers will require you to do a dress rehearsal. Treat it like it’s the real thing.

I also practised my talk in the shower and on the walk to the venue. It all counts.

5. Slides

There are few hard-and-fast rules about slides for TEDx, apart from fairly obvious stuff about using high-quality images, copyright, and decent design. Some people use slides. Some don’t.

It is said that “a picture paints a thousand words,” but this is not always a good thing. Remember that you are trying to convey one strong idea, and a blizzard of images can send your audience off in a million directions. If the images are of poor quality or confusing, this will reflect very badly on you and your audience will switch off.

Slides can enhance a point, but they can also distract from the voice of the speaker. They can also be a “crutch”: the speaker limping from one slide to the next, and if anything goes wrong with the slides, the talk loses its rhythm and may fall to bits.

So I would recommend preparing your talk with no slides at all.

I used one slide for my talk: it contained a single photo that encapsulated my core idea.

Your slides are not your talk. Your talk is your talk. So prepare the talk first, and if absolutely necessary to illustrate your point, prepare slides. But use them sparingly.