176 Resonate
Presentations fail because of too much information, not
too little. Don’t parade in front of the audience spew-
ing every factoid you know on your topic. Only share
the right information for that exact moment with that
specific audience.
Abraham Lincoln constructed the Gettysburg Address
with 278 words and delivered it in just over two min-
utes. Though one of the shortest speeches in history, it
is also considered to be one of the greatest.
The speech’s purpose was to dedicate the Gettysburg
cemetery and eulogize the fallen. Though eulogists at
that time traditionally took hours, Lincoln was so quick
that the photographers were still setting up their equip-
ment as he finished; hence we have no photos of him
delivering the speech.
Most people aren’t even aware that Lincoln wasn’t the
featured speaker that day. Edward Everett shared the
platform and delivered a eulogy in the traditional style,
spending two hours praising the virtues of the soldiers.
The day after the speech, Lincoln received a note from
Everett that complimented him for the “eloquent sim-
plicity and appropriateness” of his remarks. Everett said,
“I should be glad, if I could flatter myself that I came as
near to the central idea of the occasion, in two hours,
as you did in two minutes.”
5
Value Brevity
Lincoln had two hours and took two minutes. This forced
him to make the central ideas clear. Even though it’s
brief, Lincoln’s address still covers the key components
of the presentation form. He discusses what is by stating
historical national values, the current war situation, and
the purpose of the gathering. He startles the audience
by claiming that they cannot dedicate or consecrate the
ground, although that’s what they thought they were
there to do. Instead, he proposes a call to action: That
the crowd resolve that the dead shall not have died in
vain. He then describes the new bliss of a free nation.
One thing that will help you remain brief is to put your own
constraint on the amount of time you present. Imposing a
shorter time frame requires you to be succinct. If they give
you an hour, target a talk at forty minutes. Restriction of
time forces clear structure and a filtering-down process
that leaves only imperative messages.
“If I am to speak for ten minutes, I need a week for
preparation; if fifteen minutes, three days; if half an
hour, two days; if an hour, I am ready now.”
Woodrow Wilson
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1
WHAT IS
Four score and seven years ago our
fathers brought forth on this continent,
a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and
dedicated to the proposition that all men
are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing
whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and
so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a
great battlefield of that war. We have come to
dedicate a portion of that field, as a final
resting place for those who here gave their
lives that that nation might live. It is
altogether fitting and proper that
we should do this.
2
WHAT COULD BE
But, in a larger sense, we can not
dedicate—we can not consecrate—we
can not hallow—this ground. The brave
men, living and dead, who struggled here,
have consecrated it, far above our poor
power to add or detract. The world will little
note, nor long remember what we say here,
but it can never forget what they did here.
It is for us the living, rather, to be dedi-
cated here to the unfinished work
which they who fought here have
thus far so nobly advanced.
3
NEW BLISS
It is rather for us to be here dedicat-
ed to the great task remaining before
us—that from these honored dead we take
increased devotion to that cause for which
they gave the last full measure of devotion—
that we here highly resolve that these
.dead shall not have died in vain —that this
nation, under God, shall have a new birth
of freedom—and that government of the
people, by the people, for the people,
shall not perish from the earth.
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