This talk came recommended to me by one of the brilliant technologists I am coaching. It is truly the power of excellent public speaking that you can watch, enjoy and learn, whether you work in a similar field as the speaker (like my client), or whether you don’t. (Me!)  So I encourage you to watch.

1. A clear, quick drop into the subject and what the speaker will be covering. Ie ‘Some of the ways that AI is being used today in space exploration.’ Plus intrigue, ‘And I’ll tie this in with my favourite topic – How can we discover life beyond this earth, and within and beyond the solar system?’
2. The speaker is helpfully overt about how and why he is covering things throughout the talk, which directs our expectations as an audience. For example, ‘I’m going to start by giving a disclaimer here…’ and he lets us know that it will be a ‘whirlwind tour’. He then manages this fast pace well, by just using visuals and videos at first, no text – so that we have chance to get up to speed, before he then adds more complexity to the slides. 
3. Excellent use of signposting techniques, so that we remain engaged, and actively understand the flow of the information, rather than getting lost in a stream of it. This includes:

• Pointing up relevance: ‘The unusual thing about this is…’ / ‘This is very important when…’ / ‘So this is an example of how…’/ ‘The problem is…’ / ‘So why do we care about X?’
• Questions: ‘How do we do this?’ ‘What kinds of AI do we use?’
• Chronology pointers: ‘More recently…’ / ‘You might remember this because…’ (links to key event in the news at that time)
• Recapping/ pointing back: ‘So I’ve said before, X’
• Continuations: ‘This problem exists in an even worse situation in X’
• Signalling position in talk: ‘And now I’m going to touch at the very end on…’

I introduce signposting as an important tool for speakers to engage with here:

Happy watching.