Nancy Duarte: A Comparison: The Secret Structure Of Great Talks

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“Nancy Duarte” explains in her presentation “The secret structure of great talks” the common structure of great talks that makes their message resonate with listeners. She starts her presentation by saying that everyone has the power to change the world with an idea. She says that an idea can be powerful and change anything through the way it is communicated and shared with others. It can be adopted or rejected by others. But if it is not shared it will become powerless and die. She talks about her experience with vintage European posters that she loves, and she compares herself to a woman shown in a poster who is all fired up risking her life to promote suavitos baking spices. Nancy says that she loves presentations which she thinks are an …show more content…

She started with Aristotle who had a three-act structure, a beginning, a middle, and an end. Then she studied hero archetypes and she found the flaw in presentations that is the presenter is the star of the show while, in fact, the audience is the hero of the idea. Also, she studied Joseph Campbell’s hero’s journey, she found that the role of a presenter is to be a mentor who helps the audience move from their old beliefs to his/her new idea. And by studying Gustav Freytag’s pyramid who had a five-act structure, which has an exposition, a rising action, a climax, a falling action, and a denouement. After doing her study she drew a shape, the shape of a great presentation. Nancy Duarte examined this shape by overlaying it over two great communicator’s talks: Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech and Steve Jobs’ 2007 iPhone launch speech, and it worked. So, she uses this shape as an analysis tool to transcribe speeches. And according to this shape, any presentation begins with real situation “what is” and it is compared with the presenter’s idea “what could be” and the middle goes back and forth to draw the audience towards the idea especially who are resisting …show more content…

First, she introduced herself as an excited person who is eager to succeed. This makes the impression that she is a hardworking, knowledgeable woman and gains her audience’s trust. She also explained the stages of a powerful talk thoroughly from beginning to end in an interesting way which stimulates the audience to express their ideas and present themselves correctly. She started her presentation by addressing her audience with a motivating sentence: “You have the power to change the world,” So they can anticipate a great presentation that can change their lives. She showed them how an idea can be powerful if it is communicated well or powerless if it is not. She figured out the importance of incorporating story into presentations. And she supported her discovery with a study she did in philosophy, cinema, and literature fields. She drew a shape that shows the structure of a powerful presentation, and she proved its validity by overlying this shape over two speeches of two great communicators, and it worked. At last, she shared her terrible experience during her childhood, and how she managed to move on and choose the right path for her life and change the world around her. She finished her presentation with an inspirational call to action with hope: “I want to encourage you to do that.” In general, she excelled in presentation and she was

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