In the quest for artificial intelligence, the holy grail is the Turing test, in which a computer is able to “converse” in such a way that an average person can’t tell whether it is human or machine.
Just yesterday, the University of Reading claimed that its supercomputer called Eugene Goostman had passed the test, although a lot of people are not convinced.
I’m not qualified to comment on whether or not the computer did pass, ask but I have observed many presentations where the presenter would be hard pressed to pass the Turing test, and I am sure you have too.
When a presentation is so generic that it can apply to any audience and anyone could deliver it, it’s tough to prove that a human wrote it.
When the presentation is so sanitized by the marketing and legal departments that any spark of humanity is extinguished, a computer may have written it.
When the presenter insists on reading the slides to the audience, it’s clear that a machine is in control.
When the speaker makes no personal connection with individual audience members, it could be a humanoid up there speaking.
When the speaker is unable to interact with the audience and adjust in midstream as necessary, it’s tough to prove there’s a real person behind the podium.
Do your presentations show your personality? Do they engage your listeners’ hearts as well as their minds? Could they pass the Turing test?
Winston Churchill was a poor student as a boy, so he was placed in the lowest form, what today we would call remedial or special education. Here’s what he said about the experience in his autobiography: My Early Life, 1874-1904:
“[B]y being so long in the lowest form I gained an immense advantage over the cleverer boys. They all went on to learn Latin and Greek and splendid things like that. But I was taught English. We were considered such dunces that we could learn only English. Mr. Somervell — a most delightful man, to whom my debt is great — was charged with the duty of teaching the stupidest boys the most disregarded thing — namely, to write mere English. He knew how to do it. He taught it as no one else has ever taught it. Not only did we learn English parsing thoroughly, but we also practised continually English analysis. . . Thus I got into my bones the essential structure of the ordinary British sentence — which is a noble thing. And when in after years my schoolfellows who had won prizes and distinction for writing such beautiful Latin poetry and pithy Greek epigrams had to come down again to common English, to earn their living or make their way, I did not feel myself at any disadvantage. Naturally I am biased in favour of boys learning English. I would make them all learn English: and then I would let the clever ones learn Latin as an honour, and Greek as a treat. But the only thing I would whip them for would be not knowing English. I would whip them hard for that.”
That story shows how being “deprived” can make you better at the fundamentals, and it applies equally in our high-tech world.
Technology is a wonderful thing which can bring tremendous improvements to how we do things – but at the price of losing fundamental skills. Reading a map and figuring out how to get to a strange address is a lost skill thanks to GPS, for example. It works great, until your phone dies halfway there. And watching younger people try to figure out a tip without a calculator is always a source of amusement.
Another example is the effect of presentation software on presentations. I feel lucky that I learned the essentials of public speaking and presenting in the early 80s. Before 1987, humanity had not been graced with PowerPoint, so we had to learn how to structure an argument, keep an audience’s attention on ourselves, and paint verbal pictures. We actually had to learn our material, because no one wanted to suffer the dishonor of reading from index cards. We looked people in the eye more, and we learned how to add, subtract or modify content depending on how we sensed the audience was reacting.
If you were born too late to escape the pull of PowerPoint, there’s still hope, which I’ve discovered through PowerPoint deprivation experiments I’ve run during my last four presentation training sessions.
The trick is to keep your laptop closed until the last possible moment. It’s similar to advice you’ve heard before, to begin analog and finish digital: figure out your key message and craft a rough draft of your presentation on paper (sticky notes and index cards are especially helpful for trying out different arrangements), and then rehearse it at least once before you even begin to think about your slides.
Creating your message without the distraction of choosing fonts and images, making your case without having a memory crutch, and hearing your own words out loud is extremely valuable preparation. It is a great test of your overall message and delivery. Then when you have the solid structure in place, you can add the cherry on top in the form of jazzy pictures.
It’s still a small sample size, but the sessions I’ve run so far show that the approach makes a significant difference in quality. The key difference in this approach is that your presentations are PowerPoint-enhanced, rather than PowerPoint-based. It makes you thoroughly learn your material, which builds both credibility and confidence, and it puts you back in your rightful place – controlling the presentation, not being controlled by it.
As a presentation trainer I lack one advantage that the English schoolmasters had: I can’t whip my students. But if I could, the only thing I would whip them for would be the inability to deliver a cogent and compelling presentation without slides. I would whip them very hard for that.
Practical Eloquence strives to keep you abreast of the latest cutting edge science on persuasion, so here goes: Two recent articles about eye contact reveal the amazing power that it has for persuasion, on the one hand, as well as a surprising study that reveals its limitations.
An article in the New York Times called “Psst. Look Over Here”, revealed several fascinating facts about the powerful feelings of connection that eye contact can generate. Did you know that the brains of legally blind people light up when someone looks them in the eye? Did you know that in one study subjects were more likely to choose Trix cereal if the rabbit was looking at them that if it was looking away? Another study at Northwestern University found that doctors with more eye contact had better patient outcomes, probably because their patients were more likely to follow their advice and to seek treatment for subsequent problems.
Information like this reinforces the persuasive power of maintaining eye contact during presentations and conversations. But before you get too carried away, you might want to take a look (no pun intended) at recent research by Frances Chen and others that found more eye contact to be associated with less persuasion, when the listener is skeptical to begin with. One of the researchers says, “Whether you’re a politician or a parent, it might be helpful to keep in mind that trying to maintain eye contact may backfire if you’re trying to convince someone who has a different set of beliefs than you.” The theory is that skeptical listeners might view eye contact as challenging or an attempt at intimidation.
So, are there times when less eye contact is better? It might seem like a reasonable possibility, but before rushing to conclusion
I don’t have access to the full study, but I did note from the abstract that the study involved subjects watching the eyes of a speaker on video, not a live speaker. Is that a serious limitation? It’s up to you to decide, but I’m not yet prepared to advocate keeping your eyes averted even in difficult conversations.
There’s a proliferation of terms to describe the various approaches to B2B sales: solution selling, consultative, challenger, etc. It can get confusing to try to keep them all straight, or even to differentiate between them. So, in order to help my own simple mind to sort out the different approaches, I’ve thought of an analogy…
Suppose your client wants to build a building. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a house, an office building, a hotel or a factory, there will be four main roles involved.
At the top is the architect. As the architect, you get to spend time directly with the owners, getting to know their likes and dislikes, learning – and shaping – their vision for the building, what they want to accomplish, etc. Because of your deep expertise and your creativity, the owners will be eager to hear your ideas. You’ll get invited to discuss these ideas over dinner at their private clubs. Your pay scale is very ambiguous, but it’s very lucrative.
If you’re the contractor, you get the plans handed to you and you figure out the best way to build the design. You have a tremendous scope of authority to fulfill someone else’s vision. You solve tough problems and you may have some input if there is a question about the feasibility of some of the more ambitious aspects of the final design, but not much more than that. You might get to talk to the owners early in the process, but any meals you attend are at the local restaurant with the people who report to them. Your pay scale is driven by what other contractors bid, but you do pretty well.
If you’re the tradesman, you come in the construction entrance and do what you’re told based on the plans. You take pride and care in your work, partly because that’s the kind of person you are but also because you know that you can be replaced fairly easily. You might see the owners when they occasionally drive by to check on progress. You eat your meals from the “roach coach”. You make a decent wage, but it’s based on what the lowest qualified worker in the area gets.
If you’re the laborer, you do exactly what you’re told to earn your minimum wage. You know that if you don’t show up, your employer can drive down to the labor pool and pick up a replacement. You eat your meals from a brown bag.
Take a hard look at your sales process. Which role do you play?
In the quest for artificial intelligence, the holy grail is the Turing test, in which a computer is able to “converse” in such a way that an average person can’t tell whether it is human or machine.
