Picture A More Engaging Keynote
After nearly 10 years of graphic recording for some of the world’s most inspiring keynote speakers, ImageThink team has picked up a few things on what makes a keynote a success. From tech, to pharma, to education, to finance, there are ingredients of an engaging keynote presentation that can apply to any industry. Here are some presentation tips we’ve learned from scribing world class speakers like Guy Kawasaki, Jack Dorsey, Bill Gates, Jimmy Kimmel, Brene Brown, and Colin Powell.
Find the Narrative, Tell the Story
People love a good story. From storytelling around the campfire to the silver screen, we love to make sense of the world and connect with others by connecting the dots to make points of data something… more. The more you can couch your presentation in a narrative flow, the more your audience will follow along with you.
No one embodies this better than the sports strategist and data whiz behind Moneyball, Paul dePodesta. We graphic recorded his keynote for Collibra’s Data Citizens conference, he showed attendees how discrete points of data paint a larger picture for the teams he supports.
Look for storytelling elements like a protagonist, a challenge to overcome, a success or next step. Ask yourself how the data points link together to show something larger than the sum of their parts. Find the beginning, middle, and end of your story. You’ll keep your audience on the edge of their seat like they’ve just sat down for the summer’s biggest blockbuster.
Use Sketchnotes To Remember Content And Timing
The first step to an engaging keynote presentation is solid understanding of your topic. You don’t need to be the foremost expert in the field, but you should have a good grasp of your talking points and how they relate to the larger context of the event.
Just as importantly, it’s crucial to know the timing of your session. Practice with a timer until your beats are internalized. Nothing will cause you to lose an audience more than running overtime, especially when sessions are running back to back.
If you’re worried about losing the thread of your presentation, use sketchnotes as a visual cue to keep yourself moving along. Even a simple drawing can act as an excellent reminder at a glance.
Ready to get started?
Connect With Your Audience
Whether you’re presenting to a table of 30 or a ballroom of 300, do your best to make it a one-on-one relationship with your audience. Some of the most successful speakers we’ve scribed for speak as if they are talking to a good friend, not an audience of total strangers. That means spending time identifying who your audience is, and what makes them tick.
Having trouble identifying your audience? Consider setting aside time to brainstorm about your audience’s perspective, needs, and experiences. At ImageThink, we use graphic facilitation templates that help our clients uncover aspects of their audience’s experience that might otherwise have gone unexplored.
Hire A Graphic Recorder!
Whether you want to keep audiences engaged, reinforce critical information, or create a hashtag-worthy visual summary of your keynote, graphic recording can help. At ImageThink, we are experts at synthesizing your talk into visually stunning infographics—all in real time. Get in touch with us today to learn more!
