When an IT professional stands up in front of an audience to deliver a presentation, you can refer to him or her as the sender of communication and the audience as the receivers of communication. In IT terminology, the sender would be the source router and the audience would be the destination routers.
Given that there are no wires connecting the presenter to the audience, the presenter is transmitting his or her communication packets and space packets over a wireless local area network.
This chapter is intended to clarify the distinction between communication packets and space packets and how to improve the quality and effectiveness of your delivery as a presenter.
Almost all the packets the IT professional delivers are communication packets and contain only one element—data. In my experience, the vast majority of IT professionals could teasingly be referred to as unconscious, low-intentioned, and ineffective “data dumpers.”
A low-intentioned data dumper is someone who just drops the data in the space with little or no intention that the audience will actually understand it. The data dumper is not present. He or she has not formed a conscious connection with the audience, is not grounded, and has no interest in packaging the data in a manner that leaves a lasting impression with the audience.
In an ideal situation, the communication flow would contain two kinds of packets: communication and space packets.
Communication packets include several components: data, voice (which may contain emotional tone), video, and sometimes mass.*
Although space packets, which can also be referred to in the IP voice world as interframe gaps, contain only space, they are extremely important because they represent the portal through which a broadband, present-time connection is made with the audience.
IT presenters who are striving to present at the highest level of effectiveness should attempt to integrate both communication and space packets into their presentations. However, most IT professionals are so focused on the data that they include few or no space packets in their delivery. As a result, they remain disconnected from both present time and their audience. The benefits of integrating space packets and communication packets into a delivery can be enormous.
Let’s explore the distinction between communication packets and space packets in more detail. The ideal mix of components in a communication packet is 7 percent data, 38 percent voice, and 55 percent video. Voice and video together compose 93 percent of the communication packet.
What is video? Video is the ability to use your body to embody your thoughts.
When you embody the thought with physical expression, the audience not only hears the data but sees the data. It is as if the audience is at the movies watching a professional actor delivering his or her lines. Mimes—who only use their bodies, never their voices, to communicate—are great examples of the outstanding use of video.
You rarely see video components in IT professionals’ delivery. They are so focused on the data that they are unable to create the space even to think about including video in the packet. And yet, video should represent 55 percent of the communication packet because it is a key tool in increasing your effectiveness; in this case, a picture really is worth a thousand words.
Your effectiveness can be measured by how memorable you are in front of an audience.
Here’s an interesting definition of memory: linear, sequential moments of now stored in your internal database. You could say that each moment of now from the beginning to the end of your life is recorded in this linear set of frames. The frame contains several parts: the video picture of the experience, the sound track, the emotions, and even the smells associated with the experience.
When you ask people to remember something, they often first remember the video image. Once they have a picture of that image in their mind’s eye, it increases their probability of also remembering the sound track or data.
Smell is so powerful it can trigger a memory that takes you back to a moment that may have occurred twenty years ago. You see in your mind a picture of the place; you remember the thoughts and emotions, even though it was two decades in the past.
One would assume the goal of most IT professionals’ presentations is to be effective. This means you actually want your audience to remember what you are talking about. Research suggests that most audiences remember 10 percent of the data twenty-four hours after attending the presentation. This is not effective and suggests that the presenter was not delivering the message in a memorable fashion.
One way to become more memorable is to integrate video gestures into all your communication packets. Using your hands and arms provides most video images. However, you can also use your whole body to create the video impression for the audience. The more vivid and powerful the image is, the more lasting the impression it makes on the audience.
Unfortunately, powerful and vivid video images are rare in IT professionals’ presentations.
Why?
In order to create a powerful vivid video image, presenters must be trained in the delivery skill, committed to the data, and equally committed to helping the audience understand the data.
My observation has been that the average IT professional is brilliant in mastering the acquisition of data but still needs to improve his or her ability to communicate the data clearly so the audience understands it. Presenters need to shift from a self-absorbed attitude—“I’m just doing my job”—to an attitude focused on contribution and service to the audience.
Generating high-quality video images requires presenters to control the time and space in which they work. They need to be very grounded and anchored in present time in order to maintain a broadband connection to the audience. The anchored broadband connection will allow them to create more space packets. And, in that conscious environment, they can manifest their intention more fully, as well as develop and sustain the video image they want to transmit to the audience.
By giving yourself time, you create the space to think about what to do with your body to convey your thought to the audience in the form of a video image. The more you practice using your body to transmit video images, the more natural it becomes. Eventually, creating video images will be second nature and you will not have to think about it consciously anymore.
It is my experience that almost every sentence an IT professional delivers has the possibility of containing video components. Let’s say you were thinking of the word large. To create a video image for large, you would open and extend your arms. If you thought the word small, you would bring your arms and hands close together. If you thought the words over there, you would extend your arm toward another section of the room. If you said the packets move from one point of the network to another point on the network, you could move your whole body from one point in the room to another.
(For more information on creating video images, visit www.carrolltrain.com, where you can see me demonstrate a wide variety of video images using hands, arms, and body.)
Now, let’s look at the verbal or voice component of the packet, which makes up 38 percent of the delivery.
Many IT professionals speak in a single tone of voice: a monotone. A monotone delivery lacks life and vitality. It is not inspiring and may bore the listener.
Your voice is like a musical instrument. It can play a wide variety of notes. You can change the speed of your voice, that is, the baud rate; you can change the volume and the cadence, as well as the inflection or emphasis of your speaking. All these changes can make listening to you more interesting. You can also change the pitch of your voice, making it higher or lower. However, in my experience, changing pitch isn’t appropriate in professional IT presentations.
Coaching Tip
Your voice is closely connected to your body movements. If you use your body to create video images, your voice will automatically follow and flow with the rhythms of your physical expression.
Just as each sentence you deliver has its video possibility, it also has the possibility of making vocal changes, which will improve your delivery.
If your body is not being used consciously, your voice will lack full expression and be monotonous. However, when you consciously include your body in the communication, your voice will register vocal changes, which compels the audience to pay attention.
This idea is analogous to the performance of an Indian snake charmer. As the fakir plays the flute, the cobra rises from the basket and appears to be swaying back and forth, mesmerized by the music. As you add vocal variety to the delivery of your data, you charm the audience into paying attention. A flat monotonous delivery is dull and lacks the charismatic power of attraction.
(Visit my Web site to hear and watch me deliver data using my voice and body.)
Many IT professionals typically don’t include vocal skills in their communication packets for several reasons:
• The first reason is simply a lack of training. They have never received the coaching needed to acquire these skills.
• Second, they are not forming a present-time, conscious, broadband connection with the audience.
• Third, they are focused on the content rather than the space from which the content emerges. In order to execute effective voice changes and create high-impact video images, you need to increase your level of consciousness in the space. As your conscious awareness, comfort, and confidence increase, you become increasingly able to create space packets between your communication packets, which gives you the time to think about how best to project your next communication into the space of the room.
This ability to create space packets consciously moves the presenter into present time and establishes a broadband connection to the audience.
Most people have little consciousness awareness, which gives them only a connection comparable to a 56k dial-up connection to the audience. A 56k dial-up connection severely limits your ability to create clear video images and make vocal changes.
• Fourth, they do not intend the audience to duplicate or understand the data. If they did, they would find ways to express the data to maximize comprehension and retention.
• Fifth, they are not committed to the data. They do not invest the data with energy and passion, so they do not commit their voice and body to it. As a result, the audience asks, “Why should I be committed and buy this solution if the person delivering the data is not committed?”
Obviously, those who are committed to the data are more apt to engage their voice and body in conveying it. However, IT presenters rarely come out from behind their firewalls and expose themselves both vocally and physically to the audience. In contrast, by delivering your communication from in front of your firewall, you will have a greater presence and the power to manifest your message.
The firewall distinction is addressed in detail in chapter two.
So far, we have looked at the video and voice parts of the communication packet. Now, let’s explore another piece—the data. The data is the heart and soul of the presentation, although it represents only 7 percent of the total communication packet.
The data resides in three locations: first, in the internal database of the presenter; second, in the external database such as the PowerPoint slides; and third, for participation purposes, in the database of the audience.
The principal goal for the presenter is to transfer as much data as is appropriate to the audience effectively with the intention of helping them understand the information.
The major problem with some IT presentations is that they dump a huge quantity of data into the space with little or no intention that the audience will understand the concepts. An IT managing director I met in the Middle East referred to this as nuking the audience. Another referred to it as dropping data bombs on them.
Sadly, it seems to be the norm that the presenter doesn’t think it’s his or her job to help the audience understand the data. The presenter’s only responsibility is to fly in, show up, throw the data out there, and leave. This sort of presenter believes it’s the audience’s job to make sense of the data that was dumped on them.
This is not effective. The definition of communication is transmitting information from a sender to a receiver with the intention that the receiver understands the data. When you actually connect with the intention that your audience will understand the data, you’ll make a major transformational shift in your skills as a professional presenter. You will move from being a data dumper to being a professional who is regarded as one of the best in the industry, a genuine star. You will feel the power that comes from a successful presentation and the audience will enjoy a genuine, informative show.
Now, let’s address the process of communicating a packet across the wireless space from the sender to the receiver with special emphasis on using space packets between the communication packets.
In the ideal situation, you start your presentation/conversation by diving into your database of knowledge and pulling up a thought. You encapsulate the thought with a word, then add a video image, vocal tones, and maybe some physical objects. You consciously project the encapsulated thought across the space to the receiver. Once that burst of communication is complete, you pause and allow the audience to digest, process, think about, and absorb the data. During this pause, you relax your body, take a breath, and think about your next communication packet.
Alice Bailey, the author of more than a dozen books on spiritual development, describes the speech process beautifully: “The purpose of speech is to clothe thought and thus make our thoughts available to others. When we speak we evoke a thought and make it present, and we bring that which is concealed within us into audible expression.”
As I emphasized, the ability to create space packets between the communication packets is a critical skill for the IT professional presenter. Just as there are communication packets, there are also space packets. Space packets are the silence or pauses between the communication packets. When you talk to the audience, you are delivering not only data but space as well. And yet, when you watch IT presenters, you’ll see that few have little if any intention of consciously creating space packets. The vast majority focus their consciousness on content rather than on the space from which the content flows.
In order to create space packets, you need to be in present time with the audience. You cannot have one foot in the future (that is, be inside your head thinking about what you are going to say next) while keeping the other foot in the past (thinking about what you just said). You need to have both feet in present time. In the moment of delivery, the past and future temporarily disappear. In this moment of now, or frame, you can create a communication that will make a difference, be of service, and contribute to the audience’s knowledge and understanding.
(Your understanding of the concept of time and maintaining a broadband connection to the audience is critical to your success as a presenter and will be fully discussed in chapter six, which focuses on consciousness.)
One critical mistake almost every presenter makes is to follow the first communication packets with another burst of packets without giving the audience a chance to digest what they have already heard. This failure to deliver space packets creates congestion, overloads the receivers’ buffers, and reduces throughput, thereby diminishing the effectiveness of the communication. The extraordinary communicators, like actors, have conscious control of their baud rate and can consciously create space packets between their communication packets.
Why is it so difficult for presenters to create these space packets? Mostly because they have never made the distinction between content consciousness and space consciousness. Their attention is on the content itself, rather than on creating space between the content. Eckhart Tolle states that there are two types of consciousness: content consciousness and space consciousness. They both work together to produce an effective presentation. However, IT presenters are almost always focused on content rather than space.
Presenters who are fixated on the data are not present in the room. They are barely connected to the audience. They have a 56k connection rather than a present-time, broadband connection to the audience. They have no presence. To put it another way, they suffer from data addiction and would rather make love to the data than be present to the audience. If they are not connected or consciously present in the room, where are they? They are in a place I call Data Land.
Data Land is in a space outside of present time. It is a world in which unconsciousness rules and the power to communicate is weak and ineffective. It is a world in which you are unaware of your physical body.
Fortunately, when you begin to shift your consciousness from the data to the space between packets, you return to being present in the room and can establish a broadband connection to the audience.
You will immediately notice a major improvement in your delivery because you are no longer focused on the object/data/content but rather on the space itself. This is the exact opposite of the way the vast majority of IT professionals make presentations.
When done properly, you are not delivering data; you are delivering space. When you begin to deliver space, the quality and effectiveness of your speaking increases because, in addition to maintaining a broadband connection to the audience, you will be relaxed throughout the entire conversation.
Another reason it’s difficult to create space packets is because we have been conditioned to feel very strange and uncomfortable if we pause when standing in front of the audience. Part of the discomfort comes from an assumption you make about how the audience will react. If you don’t speak, you suspect that they will think you have lost your train of thought or you are unprofessional and not a very good speaker. However, the opposite is true. When you can stand in stillness, it sends a non-verbal message to the audience that you are not afraid of silence and you are not afraid of the audience. You, not the audience, are in charge of the conversation.
Developing the skill of creating space packets begins with simply being able to stop speaking and pause. Think of it as stepping on the brake to stop the car. Anyone can step on the accelerator, but very few presenters can step on the brake and pause. To put it more bluntly, the issue is not your ability to speak but rather your inability to shut up.
The benefits of pausing and creating space packets between the communication packets are enormous:
• You will make a deeper impression on the audience and therefore be more memorable.
• You will be more entertaining and put on a better show. Ben Kingsley, who won a Best Actor Oscar for his performance as Gandhi, when asked what made him such a successful actor, replied, “I am able to stand in the stillness and pause.”
• You will look more professional and polished. By being able to create space packets, you will differentiate yourself and your company from your competitors. There is a saying in sales: Differentiate or Die. What one thing makes you different from the rest of the herd? You create space in your presentations.
• You will convey the impression of caring that the audience understands the communication by giving them time to understand an idea before going on to the next communication. They will feel enriched because you are allowing them to “eat the data food.”
• The only time you can consciously relax your body is when you are not speaking. If you are not relaxed, it will send out a tense vibration to the audience and they will become uncomfortable. However, when you are relaxed, it sends out a vibration that will relax the audience. Being able to create a space packet in front of the audience is like stepping into a Jacuzzi. It is very relaxing.
I remember a physics class I took in high school in which the teacher used a fish tank full of water in one of the experiments. Two balls were suspended in the tank. One was connected to a motor, which made the ball go up and down. The second was suspended by a rubber band. When the ball connected to the motor started to move, it sent a wave through the water. The other ball was soon vibrating at the same frequency as the motorized ball; when the motorized ball was turned off, the ball on the rubber band also stopped. During a presentation, you are the ball with the motor. If you are relaxed, you send out a relaxed vibration; if you’re tense or nervous, you send out a nervous vibration. It is only when you pause that you can relax your body.
• Energy flows smoother through a relaxed physical body. Imagine a garden hose that is crimped. The flow of water is reduced. When the garden hose is uncrimped, the flow of water increases.
• The only time you can consciously determine if you have a solid, grounded connection to the floor and release any muscle tensions is during a pause. Having your body grounded in the space has the same benefits as grounding the flow of electricity. It gives you stability and a smooth transfer of your energy to the audience. I call this a body check. When you first start body checking, you become aware that your consciousness has not been connected to your body. As a presenter, you have been unconscious of your body. But your body is the physical machine that is delivering the communication packets and space packets. The more aware you are of the machine, the more body control you will have, and the more effective the delivery of the information will be.
• The only time you can take a deep broadband dive into your database of knowledge and pull up the appropriate next thought is during a pause. When presenters are not pausing, they are not thinking on their feet. They are talking from surface memory or reading PowerPoint slides.
Communication that comes from the depths of your stillness has greater impact than communication that comes from the ripples on the surface. I refer to this as the ability to generate the conversation. The quality or taste of data that is generated from below the surface is far more enjoyable for the audience than data regurgitated from sketchy surface memory.
• The only time you can take a look at your game plan for the conversation and make sure you are still on track is when you pause. If you use written notes, you can quickly check where you are in the conversation.
• The only time you can take a conscious breath is when you pause. Breathing is one of the basic ways to keep your consciousness centered and your body relaxed. You’ll often notice that when you take a deep breath, the audience breathes with you.
• When you pause, you are not speaking, and if you are not speaking, then you are listening. You are listening not only to your body but to the space around you. As you become more aware of that space, you will increase your appropriateness and manifest your intention.
• During the pause, you are giving the audience a chance to absorb, digest, and appreciate the information (data food) you have served them. I call this creating a space for understanding.
• During the pause, you can see the space and the things in space. You can do an agenda check to see if you are covering everything.
• The ability to pause and create space allows you to think about how you want to create and package the next expression of yourself. What words, video, voice, mass, and two-dimensional tools do you want to use to get your thoughts across to the listener?
Not allowing the audience to digest the data is rude and socially inept. Because you’ve allowed the audience to process the data food, they will recognize you as a professional speaker who cares about their understanding of the data.
In the IT world, it is not the quality of the food but rather the quality of the service that counts. The question is “Are you delivering the data at a one-star level of service or at a five-star level of service?”
Creating space when pausing moves you toward providing a five-star level of service. Pausing before speaking creates the impression that what you say is thoughtful, which makes listeners pay more attention.
How long do you sustain the pause? Imagine your communication is like dropping a rock into a pond. The rock hits the surface of the water and sends out waves. You sustain the pause until all the waves have ceased and the quiet calm of the water has returned. The larger the rock—that is, the more significant the point—the longer the pause should be. As you move into being present with the audience, you will know how long to pause because you will be aware of the time it’s taking the audience to absorb and digest your point.
Word Symbol
All words are symbols that represent a thought. In other words, a symbol is a thing that represents something else. For example, when we say the word table, we mean a flat piece of wood with four legs that we can rest things on. When you speak, you are encapsulating thoughts with word symbols and sending those symbols across the wireless space.
The accuracy of the word symbols you use is essential.
Although most people believe they have a clear understanding of the words they use, if they looked up some of these words in a dictionary, they would discover that even if their understanding is in the ballpark, it is definitely not on home plate.
Clearing yourself on the key words and acronyms you are going to use in the presentation will give you a solid foundation to stand on and confidence when delivering your data. It will also give you the advantage in managing any resistance that comes from the audience because you can bet they have not cleared themselves on the words and acronyms.
Following several steps will allow you to satisfy yourself that you are using the words correctly. First, look each of the words up in the dictionary, then look up each of the words in the definition of each word. Check for any synonyms of the word and, finally, demonstrate the word using physical objects or what I call mass (see footnote on page 2).
Think of it like the ringing of a bell. When you strike the bell, it sends out a sound vibration. Once the sound vibration has ceased, you strike the bell again. Dropping data into the space is like striking the bell. Once the sound vibration has stopped, go ahead and drop another communication packet. The more important the point is, the louder the ring and, therefore, the longer the pause.
This completes this section on wireless communication. Your power as a speaker will increase enormously when you shift your awareness from the content to focusing on creating space packets between the communication packets. This ability is the mark of an extraordinary professional speaker.
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* Mass: Most presentations employ PowerPoint® slides, whiteboards, and flip charts, which are two-dimensional tools, to explain abstract concepts. One of the barriers to clarity is that people don’t have enough mass around the concept. Mass is the use of physical items in the space. As a presenter, you should always be looking for mass to help the audience understand abstract IP concepts.