Why It Often Makes Sense to Say “Hello” to Your Audience Not saying hello and thank you was meant to underscore the “spontaneous” nature of these talks.Īnd while spontaneity hit the dustbin early in TED’s history, the practices that were meant to signify spontaneity are still with us. In fact, these practices arose to support the original TED goal of having people speak in an unscripted, unrehearsed way about their topics of interest or expertise. (I’ve had clients ask me if I’m sure it’s OK to say hello at the start of a speech, as if the public speaking police are going to jump out and drag them away.) While Rule #2 is less consistently followed than Rule #1 (you will almost never hear a TED speaker greet the audience before he or she starts talking), both of them have become “ideals” that people try to follow without knowing why. Just do a dramatic wrap-up, smile modestly, and walk away. Don’t say “thank you” at the end of your speech. Just jump with both feet into your content, preferably with a provocative or startling fact or story.Ģ.
In fact, don’t do any warm-up, or “housekeeping” when you get onstage. Don’t greet your audience when you come onstage. The TED Non-Use of Hello and Thank You is Now Widely Acceptedīecause so many people have watched and enjoyed TED presentations, the unwritten rules for how they should be delivered often get generalized to non-TED events, like business conferences.ġ. The actual mothership (TED) events are high-level, expensive affairs ($6000, last time I checked).īut fortunately for the rest of us, TED has spun off a global network of independently-organized TEDx events, where less wealthy people can hear fascinating, speakers on a wide, wide range of topics.Įven if you’ve never heard any of the thousands of talks archived at TED.com, or the vast number of TEDx presentations that are kicking around the globe, the existence of this body of speeches has changed how people approach (or think they should approach) public speaking. It’s an organization (the letters stand for technology, entertainment, design) that, for more than 30 years, has been presenting conferences where people go to hear, in the words of TED’s tagline, “Ideas Worth Spreading.” I’ll get to how this happened in just a minute. Even, if you’ve never heard of TED talks, they’ve changed the way you think about public speaking.
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