Have you ever thought about what you’re doing when you update your Facebook page, change your LinkedIn profile, or tweet? You’re telling a story. With simple phrases and pictures, you’re presenting to the world your opinion on world events, or your favorite restaurant.

With the explosion of social media and mobile devices, the impact of these presentations has the potential to be felt far beyond the board rooms and conference halls for which they were originally designed. However, your audience has access to–and is bombarded by–thousands of sources of information, which means your message needs to work harder to stand out from the rest.

Presentations have existed for thousands of years, starting at least as early as humans began gathering around campfires. And though presentations have drifted from this intimate, expressive environment, their roots are firmly planted in story. Modern presentations tend to value information over inspiration, and often eliminate the story to make room for bullet points and statistics.

Utilizing humans’ natural penchant for storytelling is an easy way to increase the effectiveness of  your message. Presentations were made to be passed on from meeting to meeting, stories were made to be passed down from generation to generation.

Recently, I heard a quote that beautifully illustrates the relationship between presentations and the digital movement:

“Technology is the campfire around which we tell our stories.”

–Laurie Anderson

Come join Nancy Duarte at ad:tech SF on April 21st, as she speaks about transforming ideas into action through storytelling and amplification via social media.

Storytelling through social media is just one of the topics us Duartians are exploring for 2010, and we want to hear your thoughts! Join the conversation by posting to our blog, or Twitter Nancy at #nancyduarte.

Language expert Wilfred Funk was one of the first to study highly successful men and women to determine what they have in common. What he discovered was that they all have the ability to communicate clearly and effectively. Since then, many studies have shown the same thing. In fact, members of the “speaking” professions – lawyers, politicians, professional speakers, salespeople, and entertainers – are among the highest paid. There appears to be a high correlation between word power and earning power. The ability to speak, to persuade, and to keep an audience’s attention is well rewarded.

What about you? Have you been sabotaging your own success because you feel that speaking in front of a group is something you would rather die than do? If so, it is time to do yourself a favour and learn the skills that can change your life.

Read more in Pivotal Magazine

It was my very first meal of a tour with Joshua Bell, a violinist you may have heard of. Now, a pianist has a function, which is to play too loud while waving his/her head around expressively. And pasta has a function too: it’s supposed to serve as a canvas or frame for delicious sauce. But this flaccid frame simply refused to cooperate.

At TED (short for technology-education-design), the talks are just 3, 6, 9, 12 or 18 minutes in length--that's it.  And while the TED.com website includes all sorts of features for these amazing speeches, from transcriptions and translations to video and subtitles, this week it added another great tool for speakers: The ability to search TED talks by their length. 

If you plan to be a frequent speaker, developing the skill of speaking within set time frames should be on your training list.  You may want to start by checking out the 3-minute speeches to see just how much can be fit into three minutes to good effect...then tackle one of your topics that way.  Move on to the 6- or 9-minute talks to see what the speakers added in those frames, then adjust your talk accordingly.  By the time you reach the 18-minute talks, I guarantee you'll find them ample.  (If only more speakers capped themselves at 18 minutes or below, the world would have more appreciative audiences.)

Don't have a topic of your own yet? Go ahead and practice with these speeches, and use them to practice pacing, cadence, tone and timing.  TED makes it easy with all its many tools, including this very welcome one.

Thanks to Denise Graveline for recommending this innovative way to practice speech timing.