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To communicate effectively one needs to make sure that his/her messages are direct, immediate, clear, straight, and supportive (McKay, Davis, & Fanning, 2009).  Ms. Duante did that in her presentation and many more.  Her presentation structure has a beginning, a middle, and an end.  She started her presentation very strong with a catchy phrase. “You have the power to change the world” (As quoted by Duarte from the video, TED, 2010).  This opening statement catches the audience’s attention and make the audience more intrigue to hear the rest of her presentation.  This is a technique use by many public speakers in an effort to get everyone to pay attention during the presentation.  I have also used that technique in both school and work presentation, and it always works like a charm.

A clear message is a complete and accurate reflection of your thoughts, feelings, needs, and observation (McKay, Davis, & Fanning, 2009).  Ms. Duante delivered that, a clear message with a lot to learn from.  As quoted by Duante from the video (TED, 2010), “A clear idea, from a human’s mind…can actually rewrite the future, but an idea is powerless if it stays inside you. If you never pull that idea from inside your head for others to contend with, it will die with you”.  This statement is more of persuasive and aggressive approach, encouraging the audience to get creative, and share their ideas with people. As an idea is a terrible thing to waste if it stays inside your head only.

She also takes a story telling approach in her presentation and uses examples to convey her message across.  From the "I have a dream" speech to Steve Jobs’ iPhone launch, she reveals many great talks have a common structure that helps their message resonate with listeners. The common structure is the way of communicating that idea. It is essential that the idea is communicated well so it can resonate with listeners.  She also uses graphs as a technique to convey her message clearly. A graph can be the upstager, specifically for quantitatively minded audience (Whalen, 2007).  She stands on the left side of the graph and uses the G-shaped scan to explain the graph to her audience.

She ended her presentation with a big quote “The future isn’t a place that we’re going to go, it’s a place that you create” as quoted by Duante from the video from the video (TED, 2010).  That is a powerful statement as it encourages to take charge of my future because I have control of it. I’ve certainly learned a lot from her presentation. I will absolutely use all I’ve learned from her presentation starting from the structure and technique she uses to capture her audience’s attention. She uses humor and common experiences to establish a common ground with her audience. That allows the audience to see her as a person of level headed similar to them and that also helps drive her idea across. 

 References

McKay. M., Davis. M., & Fanning.F. (2009). Messages the Communication Skills Book. (Third. Edition). New Harbinger Publication, Inc.

TED. (2010). Duante Nancy: The secret structure of great talks [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.ted.com/talks/nancy_duarte_the_secret_structure_of_great_talks

 Whalen, D. J. (2007). The Professional Communications Toolkit. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.