TED Talks: 8 Secrets of Success in just 3 minutes

I came across this excellent 3 minute TED talk when I attended TEDxHi-TechCity in January 2010. It was played there in one of the short breaks. In this short presentation Richard St. John shares his insights collected over a long time. The presentation is crisp, full of humor, has sensible visuals and great content. A must watch for all.

The two things I really liked about this presentation are:

1. Visual Slide Design

The slide design is really nice. When you are presenting in just 3 minutes you cannot have much text for audience to read on the slide. Hence Richard has the main point in bold (red font) with an image which quickly helps us visualise the spirit of the point. For love he has a red heart, for money a bag full of cash with a $ sign on it.

Then there is a small quote below in BIG fonts. He reads this quote from the slide (which is a bad thing normally). This however was needed because it would have been tough for Richard to memorize so many quotes.


2. Humor

When he talks about Push and shows a vehicle with Mom written over it, that really make people laugh. Another instance when he expands the abbreviation CRAP as Criticism, Rejection, Assholes & Pressure. These are not improvisations on the spurt of the moment. Richard's humor is planned. Humor in your presentation has to be planned and executed well.

The only thing that was a bit weird was that Richard did not use a wireless presenter to deliver the presentation even more smoothly. It forces him to look at his laptop and change slides every now and then.