TJ Walker answers a student question about how to find stories for technical presentations, arguing that any subject—including technical topics—can use simple, real conversational anecdotes to make points memorable. He gives a concrete texting-on-a-train example and advises presenters to recount real conversations with customers or colleagues and to include a story for every important point.
Chapters
How do you come up with stories for technical presentations? So one of my online students, Raj, writes in with the following question. He says, tj, how do you come up with stories for technical presentations? It's much easier for presentations on public speaking, money, motivation, etc. Raj, I'm going to respectfully disagree with you. I don't think it matters what the subject is. You can come up with a story. Now, a story doesn't have to involve guns and a near death experience and Sylvester Stallone selling his dog. A story is simply you recounting a real conversation with a real person about a real problem. How it was solved, how it was resolved. So first thing that comes to my mind, if you're giving a presentation, if you're the person who invented text messages and you had to present to an audience, you could say, so why would anyone want a text message? Well, imagine here I am on the way home from the train, I'm on the quiet car. I could get arrested if I'm on the phone, but I'm worried about my wife or my child being picked up from school. And I can text my child and then my child can text me back, say, hey, dad, are you on your way? I can text, I'll be there in 15 minutes. And then I get a text back from my daughter with a smiley face. I can relax, she can relax. I don't get arrested for talking on the quiet car. All he did was tell a little story. I recounted a little bit of a situation, a conversation by text, a setting, being on a train, a problem, how I felt, how it was resolved. It's a technology issue, texting. Let me ask you this, if you're involved with some technology, have you had a conversation with anyone about it? What's the problem it's solving? Have you actually talked to an a customer or a colleague who's used the product? That's all a story is, just recount a real conversation you had with one person about the technology and the problem itself. Where were you sitting? You can say, I'm in my cubicle on the 14th floor in the basement. Just tell the story of where you were, what you said, who you talked to, what they said, back to you, how it was resolved. It doesn't have to be the sexiest, most exciting, dramatic story in the world, but any story beats no story. Any story beats turning around, pointing to a slide and pointing to a bunch of numbers and bullet points. So I'm sorry, Raj, I'm not going to let you off the hook. You don't get to say, well, stories are for other types of presentations. Stories are for any type of presentation if you want your audience to remember your core ideas. So don't let yourself off the hook. You need a story for every single important point in your presentation.
