Giving technical presentations to non-technical audiences; Part 6: building a strong body and summary.

Keep the body lean, varied, and focused on persuasive examples--and cut details in the Body instead of skipping the Summary.

Last time, we began to discuss a structure that works well for a non-technical (and indeed any) audience. You saw how to develop a strong introduction using the RAMP (Rapport, Attention Getter, Message, Plan) formula. Now let's look more closely at the Body and the Summary.

A BODY THAT ENGAGES AND PERSUADES

The bulk of your persuasive work is done in the Body, where you present your evidence and arguments in detail. Unfortunately, the Body is also where audiences commonly get confused, bored, and overwhelmed by numerical detail. To help you sow persuasion rather than confusion, remember three sentences:

1. Less is better than more. Limit your key points to three, or at most five. And instead of telling a lot of detail about each, start with a message summary--the most important thing the audience should know about that point. Then, back up with only as much information as is needed to drive that message home in a persuasive way.

2. Variety is better than monotony. Don't give your listeners a chance to nod off--keep them on edge with change. Most presentations are unbearably monotonous: they consist of many general statements followed by equally general subpoints, all presented with the aid of end-less bullet charts. Make your talk different: switch between tell and show, general statement and specific example or anecdote, and lecture and interaction.

3. Strong examples are more persuasive and memorable than piles of numbers. Take advantage of it. Have the numbers ready as backup for the question period--but don't make them the flesh of your talk! A clear, simple chart will show the trend of the data and give notice that your evidence is solid--but then make the data come alive with an example that is meaningful to your non-technical audience.

Perhaps the hardest thing for technical presenters to learn is intelligent simplification. There is always the temptation to lift the audience up to your level of specialty knowledge. Resist the urge. Instead, internalize the magic words "To put it very simply ..." Once you say those words to yourself, you'll be amazed how easy it is to reduce complex concepts to simple ones. Combine this with the idea of explaining things through examples rather than tedious details, and the audience will have an easy time following you.

For instance, instead of discussing hardware and software details of PC-based video conferencing, you might say: Basically, the system consists of a digital camera, a special card you plug into a laptop computer, and software that works with the camera and the computer to capture images and sound for inexpensive videoconferencing over the Internet. If you and a person in Europe or Asia had this setup in your office, you could hold a two-hour video conference for the cost of a local call. During that conference, you could share documents, write comments to each other as well as talk, and transmit digital movies of procedures, production facilities, etc.

A SUMMARY THAT INCITES TO ACTION

By the time you reach the end of the Body, the audience may have lost the main message among all the detailed arguments. This is why you need a Summary. State your message as strongly as possible, and add an upbeat invitation to action if it is at all appropriate.

It's a grave mistake to skip the Summary in favor of yet another detailed point in the Body. On the other hand, don't turn the Summary into a five-minute lecture that has the audience squirming in their seats. When you say "In summary," the clock is ticking for a one-minute countdown!

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ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Cheryl and Peter Reimold have been teaching communication skills to engineers, scientists, and businesspeople for 20 years. Their latest book, The Short Road to Great Presentations (Wiley, 2003), is available in bookstores and from Amazon.com. Their consulting firm, PERC Communications (telephone: [phone], e-mail [e-mail]), offers businesses consulting and writing services, as well as customized in-house courses on writing, presentation skills, and on-the-job communication skills. Visit their web site at www.allaboutcommunication.com.