Original publishing date: Jan 31, 2022

Written by Martine Veldhuizen

I have this daydream of giving a once in a lifetime speech on a research breakthrough, with Barack Obama in the crowd. After my final words, Obama stands up and starts a slow-clap. More people join, while the clap… clap… clap accelerates. Soon the whole crowd goes wild. Everybody cheers, whistles and people throw flowers on stage. Then Obama gives me ‘the nod’, as if he tells me: ‘When it comes to delivering a speech, I have met my equal.’ 

Ah, the power of imagination.  

Thanks to the masterclass ‘Speak like Obama’, organised by the Centre for Unusual Collaborations, this dream is not entirely delusional. Granted, I should probably adjust my expectations to less megalomaniac proportions – no flowers and certainly no Obama. However, after three inspiring afternoon sessions, I have improved my skills on delivering an academic speech.  

One of the most challenging assignments for the group of CUCo academics was to pitch our favorite book without saying anything about its content – not a single word on scenes, character and motives. Instead, we had to emphasize the life-altering effect it had on us, the ‘before’ and ‘after’.

Quite brutally, our teacher Gijs Weenink tested the impact of these pitches by asking the co-participants if one would read it within three weeks. I talked about the masterpiece Die Blendung of Elias Canetti and did not get a single vote. There was one participant who did very well on this particular assignment. It was a book on death. Everybody could relate to it.  

 Although I sometimes had a hard time implementing the learning points into academic practice, these five things triggered me experiment more and do better:

 

1. Do not (always) use Powerpoint. It can be too distracting: people tend to pay attention to slides and not to the speaker;
2. Use probs to make a lasting impression. While introducing his research, one of the participants had a 40-year-old parrot on his shoulder. It’s hard to forget him now; 
3. As a rule of thumb: the perfect speech of 20 minutes needs 20 hours of preparation;
4. Learn your speech by heart. Tip: read the book Moonwalking with Einstein (In Dutch: Het geheugenpaleis);
5. Speaking by heart always makes a greater impact than reading out loud. Dare to do so, even if it means you might forget half of your speech. 

All in all, ‘Speak like Obama’ was inspiring and thought-provoking. One thing is clear to me: if you want to increase the impact of your research, be aware of the power of words.