01 May 2015

What is a REBA TED-style talk?

We at the Reward & Employee Benefits Association (REBA) are big fans of TED Talks.

If you haven't watched one before, we recommend you do.

Try: Dan Pink's 'The puzzle of motivation' or Ken Robinson's 'Do schools kill creativity' for starters.

We would like talks at REBA events to be like TED talks:

engaging to listen to
snappy and energetic
with just a few key messages that the audience will remember.

If our speakers use slides they put fewer than 5 words on each one, or (even better) they simply use an image (audiences remember images better than words).

We give our speakers lapel mics and steer them away from hiding behind the lecturn.

Our allocated speaker times vary from 10-12 minutes to up to 18 minutes, depending on our event. Either way, short is good. It keeps the listener's attention.

So those are our rules, but if you want to get better as a speaker then we'd also recommend the book: Talk like TED by Carmine Gallo.