In May, I prepared and delivered a speech about Memorial Day. Challenged with scattered ideas and thoughts about the content, I decided to use a mindmap. That did the trick. You may want to mindmap your next presentation.
What is a mindmap?
A mindmap is an effective way to garner how much you know about a topic. Once that is done, it is easier to group items into categories. Then, once you’ve got your categories, you can pick and choose what works best work for your talk. For my memorial speech talk, I used MindMeister. This particular mindmap site is fun! However, you might get distracted with all the options for formatting and customizing your mindmap.
Here is what my mindmap looked like after throwing in all my thoughts about Memorial day. I color-coded for possible categories.
Establishing my core idea
The core idea makes a difference between a so-so speech and an attention-getter. The core idea is the spine of a speech, from which everything else extends. A core idea states your speech message in ONE SENTENCE. Since I wanted to remind others of the real meaning behind Memorial Day, my core idea was pretty easy to conjure. “Memorial Day is More than a Day Off.”
Rule of three
I always try to abide by the Rule of Three when preparing speeches. The Rule of Three is one of the oldest of all the presentation techniques – known since the time of Aristotle. The Romans understood the Rule of Three and referred to it with the Latin maxim “Omne trium perfectum,” which means “everything that comes in threes is perfect.” In sort, The human brain seems to absorb and remember information more effectively when presented in threes.
I had more than three categories, so I choose the three most relevant to my core message.
With the three categories in mind, I titled each category, then listed 3-4 specifics about that category. For example, Films created by Steve Speilberg and Tom Hanks have significantly impacted how I feel about war. So my category title was MOVIES, and underneath, I listed three of their movies or TV series with a brief personal thought about the shows.
Timing of my speech
My time was just 7 minutes. So to make sure I didn’t go overtime, I calculated 130 words per minute X 7. That is 910 words. I typed out a rough draft of the talk to get an idea of how many words it was. Initially, way too many. So I went through the painful step of eliminating material to stay within time and deliver the talk with good pacing.
Practice
Now here I don’t get any points! I recommend practicing a talk out loud at least three times before delivering it. Seven times for outstanding delivery. I practiced mine just once. Result? I went overtime anyway, and the talk wasn’t smooth. I was disappointed in myself because a lot of work went into preparing the talk, but I wasted that effort by not practicing.
The upshot is I used the content of the speech for a blog post on my website. So not all was lost.
Mindmap your next presentation
When faced with a speech or presentation and don’t know where to begin, mindmap your next presentation. If you find you have tons of material that will in no way fit your time allotment, consider preparing a part two or three of your talk! And, always, the content is suitable for blog posts and even for authoring a book.
