It's been a while since I attended a highly technical talk by serious experts. The audience, however, was not as expert, so the two speakers knew they were addressing a less specialized group. Complex topics require special handling.Piling a lot of data onto one slide is a big no-no, but that didn’t stop our intrepid, geeky speakers. One of them, a retired professor, you’d think would be better at this given he taught it at a university. Perhaps I’m too optimistic about academics and technical specialists having actual teaching abilities compared to their true passion—research.

Most of the slides were terrible.There was one slide, in particular, that showed a key timeline and included important projections into the future. It looked amazing.Yet, I still wonder what it said. The font was so tiny, and there were so many colours. Audience members like me had no ability to decipher the actual content. This slide was crucial, given the future implications of the technology they were discussing.

So folks, the simple lesson here is to carefully consider how you present information on-screen. If it’s too complex, provide handouts so attendees can at least grasp what is going on. If you are going to show difficult content on-screen, make the fonts large, and keep the slides simple and easy to understand. Also, please scale back on the wild color palettes.

As I sat there, I thought that horizontal timeline could have been magnified on the next slide to highlight key turning points in the continuum. It could have been like a blow-up of a part of the timeline, with the rest of the sequence becoming background wallpaper. The key components would be magnified on-screen for easy digestion, or they could have just broken up the timeline into larger sections on separate slides. None of this is complex.These were seriously well-educated, intelligent people giving this presentation. So, there's no doubt this is not beyond them. But if you don’t get it, you don’t get it.

The subject is absolutely topical and exciting, yet the talk was very dry. Like many technical people, they got lost in the tech aspects.This might be fine for a presentation to scientists or specialists, but we, the audience, were not as familiar with the finer points. In this case, a different approach should have been taken.

The visuals need to be more simplified. Key points should be kept clear and accessible. Analogies are a wonderful tool for taking complex, difficult subjects and making them clearer. For example, strategic plans are like gelato. Initially, this seems puzzling—what’s the connection between ice cream and business planning? But just like with gelato, we have many flavors and options. We don’t know which is best until we taste them. Similarly, a strategic plan might seem comprehensive, but we won’t know if it works until we execute it.

The speakers also missed the opportunity to use storytelling.

We were stuck at a theoretical and technical level, with no stories to elevate the key points.This area of science is full of stories—about the scientists, breakthroughs, triumphs, and setbacks. But we didn’t hear any of that. There was no “flesh on the bones” of the science.Think about how complex technical subjects are presented in movies or TV dramas. Progress is always depicted through a rich tapestry of stories.That talk was just yesterday, but right now, I can’t recall the name of even one key person who contributed to the rise of the technology, nor do I have any stories to tie the information together. This is key: stories are like glue.They help us connect complex topics over time by creating a narrative about who was involved, what they did, where and when it happened, and the outcomes.

Drama grabs our interest and holds our attention.Without stories, it was hard for the speakers to connect with their non-technical audience. Even harder to make the key messages memorable. Hammering the audience with facts and details doesn’t ensure the message gets through. I can’t recall any of the statistics they shared. Had they wrapped those numbers in a story, I might remember. So, technical presenters, be sure to craft stories we can all recall later.

Make sure that what’s presented visually is simplified so we can easily absorb the key points. Analogies are a great tool for explaining complex subjects and should be in every technical speaker’s toolbox. Having an amazing brain and decades of research experience won’t help if you can’t engage your audience and convey your message effectively.

Watching the avalanche of speakers to the Democratic National Convention has been interesting. Some really hit the mark and others not so much. What makes the difference? From what I could see they were all using teleprompters, so effectively they are reading what they wrote to us. Some I felt were just reading back to us what they wordsmithed and others connected with us. How did they do that?

Comfort with the medium is a big differentiator. There is also the issue of which teleprompter you look at, because they had them left, center and right. Too much rapid head turning is distracting. Burrowing into just one screen seems to be denying the love to the other areas of the audience.

Teleprompters are set at certain speeds and the advanced models will coordinate with your personal timing. You stop and it will wait until you start again. I couldn’t tell which type they were using, but I would have to expect the most advanced tech was being used for such an important event. Nevertheless, it was obvious that the cadence for some people was slightly off and that may be because they don’t get a chance to give many speeches using teleprompters.

If you think about the case of businesspeople, I would guess that 99.9% of those located in Japan, have never had an occasion to use one. So here is a hint, don’t make your speech your test bed for trying out a teleprompter. Get hold of one early and practice with it until you feel comfortable.

Holding the moment is another skill. Imagine facing an audience of 25,000 people and having your face projected on the most monstrously huge JumboTron screen for the folks in the cheap seats at the back. You also have all of those at home tuning it on television to watch, an audience of around 29 million people, plus all the social media views. That would make anyone nervous, but the pros are not feeling rushed or speeding up because their pulse rate is going through the roof. They know how to hold the moment and build anticipation for what they are about to say. As business folk, we have to have the same ability to hold the moment. Probably we won’t have a massive audience putting incredible pressure on us, so we should be able to manage it, if we do our planning well.

Pausing is a tough skill. You feel the pressure to speak, but the ability to deny that itch is important. By creating a gap between what you have just said, what you are saying now and then between that and what you will say next is powerful. I thought Michelle Obama did a masterful job of combining the anticipation component with her pauses. The speaker’s one liners are like a punchline for a comedian and timing makes all the difference. Too short doesn’t work and so does too long, so it is a real skill to find the right gap.

The key for businesspeople is to programme in pauses at certain points of emphasis in the talk. These pauses will highlight and illuminate the key point we want to make and have it rise above all the other points we are making.

Energy is a tricky beast. Too much and you are seen as verging on insanity or at least hysteria. I recall when I saw Kimberly Guilfoyle at the Republican National Convention, it seemed too much to me. Her speech felt histrionic and just too forced.

Too little and the connect with the audience is hard to establish. Biden and Clinton are both losing their voice strength and it stood out in terms of the energy they could bring to their points.

Where is the line is a good question? There is a tendency to go hard from start to finish, rather than having some modulation. That is easy to say but hard to do, with 25,000 people screaming out, while you are talking. You feel you have to project above the noise of the room.

In business, that is not a likely scenario, so we can have better control over where we insert strength and softness throughout our talk and we should be aiming for both.

In my observation, American politics continues to descend into a morass of nastiness topped up with a lot of name calling and rabid criticism of the other side. In my native country of Australia, politicians won’t publicly call their opponents “stupid” or “weird”, because they know the voting public won’t accept that type of behaviour. In our national Parliament during the policy debates, the language is carefully monitored by the Speaker and always kept within the bounds of propriety. As in most things, America is a different planet, especially when it comes to domestic politics and elections.

What about in business when we are giving public speeches in Japan? Should we call elected officials or bureaucrats “stupid” or “useless”, as we rail and lament against their shortsighted, unwieldy, ludicrous, ridiculous policies? Can we attack our sneaky, underhanded competitors in public and complain about the evils they are doing? In general, can we do some good old-fashioned whining and complaining about whatever is aggravating us at the minute? Basically, the answer is “no”.

We don’t have American style comparison advertising here in Japan because it is banned. Showing your product’s better virtues up against the opposition is felt to be endangering societal harmony and is against the law. The thought of a Japanese CEO publicly laying into a Minister or official, regarding some policy felt to be egregious or unfair, is unthinkable. In general, public venting is not a thing here.

The fear of the consequences to the firm by the Government taking revenge as a result of the public name calling is certainly a part of it. Future applications requiring official approval may suddenly get slowed right down or rejected outright. Maybe a surprise tax audit suddenly springs up out of nowhere. Complaining publicly about your company’s rival is thought to be very low-level, unrefined behaviour (品がない- hinganai) and would reflect very badly on your firm’s brand and reputation.

We can mention about industry wide negative events like the 2008 Lehman Shock, the 2011 triple whammy of earthquake, tsunami and triple nuclear reactor meltdown and the 2020 pandemic. Referencing the hard times resulting from these external events is acceptable, because we all probably suffered to some extent during these recent events, too. We can’t labour the point though and we can’t go into too much hidden detail about the impact on our businesses. If we share too much data, the thought will arise that we are unstable and maybe not long for this business world.

The Phoenix is a symbol here of rising for the ashes and Japan loves a good resurrection story. We can lay out in general terms that things got very bad and talk about how the team pulled together and we made it through. Going into detail about how we did it is a good idea. Everyone loves to learn lessons at the expense of others, rather than themselves. Balancing negativity with hope and revival is the key. Even if things are not totally hunky-dory just yet, talking about what you are doing to get out of the hole you are in is of interest to the audience.

In my experience, the glass tends to be half empty in Japan most of the time, so we have to make an effort to break out of that formula. Telling people things are bad garners a “so what” reaction, because that is how they see things as being normal and not news to anyone. From another angle, I don’t think too many Japanese enjoy schadenfreude though, at hearing about our troubles. Telling listeners how things were bad and that now they are slowly improving is felt to be more interesting. Our efforts to revive are seen as worthy and admirable, because we are ( 頑張ってる - ganbatteru) or working hard and that is a good thing in Japan.

Japan suffers earthquakes, tsunami, typhoons, flooding, landslides etc., on a regular basis, so every year there is some area wiped out. On television, we see scenes of people trying to rebuild their businesses and lives and their efforts are respected. “But for them, there go I”, being the prevailing thought.

We don’t have to be Pollyanna in our talks, expounding how wonderful and successful we are. That approach is not well regarded either, because it sounds elf-serving and boastful. Leavening the good with the bad is a better balance and better accepted when giving speeches in Japan.