E-Tips

Take A Risk, Be Different

If you would like to hear radio programming that is really different and very creative, tune in to "This American Life" on National Public Radio. It's a weekly, one hour show from WBEZ in Chicago produced and hosted by Ira Glass.

A recent show was about measuring and quantifying things we normally don't quantify, like love. One piece concerned a group that had surveyed what people like and don't like in popular music. They then produced a song that included what everyone liked and one that included what everyone hated. Guess what? The tune that included what everyone liked sounded like all the rest of the homogenized, synthesized popular music we hear all around us. Boring.

The second song incorporated everything people hated in music: tubas, bagpipes, opera singers, country and western themes, high voices (like a children's chorus), and unusual tempos. Well, wouldn't you know it? That song was innovative, funny and interesting. High points for me: hearing an opera singer doing some story about jail, booze and a pick up truck, and a children's chorus singing very slowly with bagpipe accompaniment.

What can you do to make your presentations unusual? The standard way may not offend anyone, but it also may not be memorable. How many people have we all seen in blue suits with red power ties speaking in a monotone who bored us to tears (or to sleep)?

A final quick story to illustrate what I mean. Several years ago I attended a week long program on communication at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California. Toward the end of the program, a gay man named Bob got up to share a personal story of dealing with AIDS. Many of his friends had died in recent years. He explained that everything he was wearing had been owned by a friend who had died, and his clothes reminded him of each tragedy. As he spoke, he took off his shirt. As it fell to the floor he told us about Dave. He took off his shoes and spoke about Bill. He slowly took off each piece of clothing telling a brief story about each person. Finally, he stood before the audience of 30 people in just his underwear. He then told us who his shorts belonged to and took them off. Here stood a 58 year old man totally nude before us with the remnants of his friends around the stage. Many in the audience were in tears.

While few of us would do what Bob did, that talk was the most memorable thing for me from that week (and I suspect for others in the audience as well). I hope the stories about the music and Bob's talk will stimulate your thinking. How can you do your next presentation out of the ordinary? Give up the red power tie(but keep the rest of your clothes on). People may remember your talk years later.