Phil Jemmett

Phil Jemmett has been involved with WMG Talks since starting in the WMG Outreach team in June 2019. Throughout the process he has delivered a talk at a Family Day public event and also coached 10 speakers to hone their presentations and tell a story with them. This piece focuses on what we can all learn from WMG Talks to help improve our presentations.

What are my tips that I have learned from the various speakers?

1. Your story is worth telling

If I could achieve anything in my job in WMG Outreach it would be to give every member of WMG staff the confidence to go out and share their story – research, professional, technical or teaching – with local young people and the public. Young people can learn so much from you as role models and your material will almost always echo something in the school curriculum, reinforcing and contextualising their knowledge in the real world.

2. You have too much material

What usually happens is that, as people start to plan a talk, they think of the highlights – what can you show people that is cool or exciting? For each and every one of you this list will be too long for a single 10-minute slot! Focus down onto one or maybe two highlights and give them the attention that they deserve.

Don’t put yourself into the position where you have to rush.

3. Focus on storytelling – narrative arc

We all love a good story. There’s a clear beginning, middle and end. We know what we want to happen at the end. We like the characters, hate the villain, love the hero. Why not use all those subconscious cues to help you engage your audience when you present?

What’s your field of research? What’s the villainous global challenge you’re trying to solve? How bad will the situation get if we do nothing (this is the really dark patch about half way through the movie where everything has gone wrong)? And then the key part: how does your work – how do you, the hero – come in and solve the problem, save the day?

This structure can work so well for academic talks. It might seem dramatic or cheesy to you, so if it doesn’t match your presentation style just use it secretly, subtly! If you want to lean into the big, bold presenter, go for it! Your audience will respond with their enthusiastic attention.

4. Clean up your slides – no text

I’m sure we’ve all seen a presentation that’s more like a novel. Bullet point after bullet point… Eventually those bullet points stack up and cause the condition known as ‘Death by Powerpoint’. None of us want that – to be in the audience or as the presenter looking at a hundred blank stares! If you have a lot of information to convey, think about splitting it into different slides. Does the audience need all this information at once? Or could you present it point by point and then bring it all together in a brief summary at the end? Or even better – can half the material be sent out as an email or ‘find out more’ post later?

5. Use images

What’s better than a good story? A picture book, obviously! We all love to look at pictures. Visually appealing, simple, clear, relevant. It’s definitely better than looking at a whole wall of text and trying to read it at the same time as listening to the speaker. Don’t split your audience’s attention between you and your slides.

There are plenty of free stock image websites out there you can use images from – or take your own. Just make sure they are clear, high enough resolution, relevant to your talk, and royalty free.

6. Strong finish

The final sentence you deliver will likely be the one that everyone remembers. It’s also what you use to build engagement after the talk. What did you want to achieve? Questions? Collaborations? Make new contacts? Inspire people to take action? Your final sentence should encourage the audience to do one of those things.

My talks often aim to inspire people to become engineers in the future – so perhaps I could finish by encouraging them to look at the WMG Outreach resources and find out more. Or maybe I should say something along the lines of: “We all want to live in the green, sustainable future – but are you going to help us build it?”

Think of your aims, and how your final sentence can help you achieve them.

How can getting involved support you?

Phil’s coaching style is to build a story around technically complex ideas. Taking your content and putting it into the context that the audience relates to will build engagement – no matter who you are speaking to! Whether you’re pitching a new project to funders or presenting work at a conference, using the storytelling approach and engagement-building techniques Phil shares through WMG Talks coaching will help you achieve maximum impact from your talk.

Would you like to get involved in the future?

You can contact Phil through wmgoutreach@warwick.ac.uk with a brief background on the projects you work on. As part of the outreach team Phil is always keeping an eye on topical events and upcoming festivals and major events for us to contribute to with a WMG Talks session. From there, through regular rehearsals, the WMG Talks team will help you craft your story, design your material and practise until your talk shows off just how impressive your work really is.