sam sall
Rainbows in Paris
June 14th 2008 13:10
Stories are the most powerful way to start a presentation. I've built a career out of helping speakers, managers, colleagues, find an interesting and relevant opening story.
One way to start? Your own life. Take a quick flick through your travel albums. What's an image that really stands-out -- preferably a place many people have been, or want to go. Immediately, you're building rapport and making them sit up and look more closely.
For example, here's a story I could tell about innovative thinking.
Here's a picture that I took in Paris last year. It's been my screensaver on my computer for a few months now. It prompts me to take a step-back from what I'm doing, to take a different perspective.
I was at the Eiffel tower. But this is the image I remember most! When you go to the Eiffel tower, it's hardly the romantic picture that you get from the movies. There are busloads of tourists, long queues -- and for us, it was pouring rain! Cold, hungry, sore feet -- my husband and I decided not to battle the crowds and climb the tower. We'd just take a walk along the river. As we walked just a few meters to the left, here was this amazing sight. A rainbow that finished right beside the Eiffel Tower.
Innovation is like that too. It's a way of seeing, it's taking a different perspective on something that we might have seen a thousand times before. We have this idea from school that being innovative is about being inventive -- Edison and the lightbulb. Bell and the telephone. In fact, innovation is a way of looking at things. Historians have long argued that neither Edison or Bell invented the technologies we associate them with. Their real innovation was commercialising that idea. Edison pioneered the first electric street lighting -- so that businesses could be open for longer, and people could move around at night. Electricity actually made a difference to the economy and people's lives. The light bulb itself wasn't new -- but Edison saw a pot of gold that everyone was rushing right past.
One way to start? Your own life. Take a quick flick through your travel albums. What's an image that really stands-out -- preferably a place many people have been, or want to go. Immediately, you're building rapport and making them sit up and look more closely.
For example, here's a story I could tell about innovative thinking.
A new perspective on the Eiffel tower
I was at the Eiffel tower. But this is the image I remember most! When you go to the Eiffel tower, it's hardly the romantic picture that you get from the movies. There are busloads of tourists, long queues -- and for us, it was pouring rain! Cold, hungry, sore feet -- my husband and I decided not to battle the crowds and climb the tower. We'd just take a walk along the river. As we walked just a few meters to the left, here was this amazing sight. A rainbow that finished right beside the Eiffel Tower.
Innovation is like that too. It's a way of seeing, it's taking a different perspective on something that we might have seen a thousand times before. We have this idea from school that being innovative is about being inventive -- Edison and the lightbulb. Bell and the telephone. In fact, innovation is a way of looking at things. Historians have long argued that neither Edison or Bell invented the technologies we associate them with. Their real innovation was commercialising that idea. Edison pioneered the first electric street lighting -- so that businesses could be open for longer, and people could move around at night. Electricity actually made a difference to the economy and people's lives. The light bulb itself wasn't new -- but Edison saw a pot of gold that everyone was rushing right past.
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