PRESENTATION SKILLS and TED Talks
Based on your positive feedback, I know many of you have already listened to last week’s ? podcast on COMPELLING PRESENTATIONS with Andrew Musselman and you’re looking forward to next week’s episode on PRESENTING WITH CONFIDENCE. In case you haven’t listened to it yet, here’s the link again.

In last week’s ?episode, Andrew Musselman recommended several books and TED Talks:
Recommended TED Talks:
Given Andrew Musselman’s recommendations and given our physical isolation these days, I thought we’d focus this week on TED:
- a TED Primer
- Top Ten TED Talks of all time
- How we can Talk Like TED
TED PRIMER
How familiar are you with TED? Here’s your primer!
What is TED?
- TED is a non-profit media organization with the mission of spreading ideas around the globe.
- The TED tagline is “ideas worth spreading.”
Brief History of TED

image: Unsplash @miguel_photo
- 1984 – Founders Richard Saul Wurman and Harry Marks hosted the first TED conference
- 1990 – TED2 conference held in Monterey, California
- 2001 – Chris Anderson’s nonprofit Sapling Foundation acquired TED and he became the TED curator.
- 2006 – Conference attendance was by-invitation and cost $4,400 per person. That same year, the first six TED Talks were posted online for free and views exceeded one million.
- 2012 – TED celebrated its one billionth video view.
- 2018 – Conference fee was $10,000 per person.
- 2019 – TED’s ownership was transferred to the TED Foundation (a tax exempt non-profit) to make it easier for TED donors.
- 2020 – Conference postponed from April to July 2020 due to COVID-19
TED Platforms
TED Criticism
image: Unsplash @alexandermills
- TED criticisms include that it is elitist, rich, biased, it bans certain topics, and it is pseudoscience.
- TED denies all of these criticisms here.
TED Topics
- “T.E.D.” stands for Technology, Entertainment and Design. But the topics covered in TED now go well beyond these areas.
- You can search any term you’re interested in learning about on the TED.com website.
- What are the most popular, most viewed TED Talks?
TOP 10 TED Talks OF ALL TIME
Instead of wasting your time on social media, video games or Netflix, how about watching a TED Talk?
Here are the top 10 TED Talks of all time, along with their official Ted.com descriptions. Each of these 10 TED Talks has been viewed between 25-65 million times! Well worth your time⏱… they’re only 18 minutes each!
?THE PUZZLE OF MOTIVATION
Dan Pink
9️⃣LOOKS AREN’T EVERYTHING. BELIEVE ME. I’M A MODEL
Cameron Russell
8️⃣THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU REPLY TO SPAM EMAIL
James Veitch
7️⃣MY STROKE OF INSIGHT
Jill Bolte Taylor
6️⃣HOW TO SPEAK SO THAT PEOPLE WANT TO LISTEN
Julian Treasure
5️⃣10 THINGS YOU DON’T KNOW ABOUT ORGASM
Mary Roach
4️⃣THE POWER OF VULNERABILITY
Brené Brown
3️⃣HOW GREAT LEADERS INSPIRE ACTION
Simon Sinek
2️⃣YOUR BODY LANGUAGE MAY SHAPE WHO YOU ARE
Amy Cuddy
1️⃣DO SCHOOLS KILL CREATIVITY?
Sir Ken Robinson
Please ? email me to let me know!
HOW CAN YOU “TALK LIKE TED”?
Based on Andrew Musselman’s recommendation, I recently read and listened to the book, “TALK LIKE TED” by Carmine Gallo.
What a worthwhile read! Author Carmine Gallo conducted a meta-analysis of the top TED Talks and interviewed many of the speakers to deduce “the 9 public speaking secrets of the world’s top minds.”
Gallo provides examples and instructions for each of the 9 secrets. I won’t give the secrets away, but I will tell you that the best TED Talks are:
- EMOTIONAL – they touch my heart
- NOVEL – they teach me something new
- MEMORABLE – we’ll never forget them
I have a question for you.
A question that struck me as I was reading Talk Like Ted:
experiences, and expertise,
what would YOU talk about
if you were to take the TED stage?”
You can ponder that question as you read the Talk Like Ted book, watch the top 10 TedTalks, and listen to the COMPELLING PRESENTATIONS podcast. Lots to keep us busy, right? ?
I hope you’re surviving, and perhaps even THRIVING, in this physically distant world. Speaking of physical distance, last week I received an email from a Talk About Talk listener in Brisbane, Australia (!!!) asking me to use the term PHYSICAL distancing instead of social distancing.
As you may know, I am a big advocate of this. However, I haven’t been 100% consistent. For example, in our Talk About Talk Facebook group, our theme was “Thriving at a Social Distance.” So I just changed it to “TALKING at a Physical Distance”:
Better, right? I hope you’ll join us in the Facebook group, where we’re talking about:
- how to say SOCIAL,
- what to SAY to people who aren’t following the physical distancing rules, and
- our new COVID-19 VOCABULARY!
Until next week when we focus on PRESENTING WITH CONFIDENCE, I hope you stay safe and stay social (at a physical distance)!
Talk soon,
Dr. Andrea Wojnicki
Chief Talker & Communication Coach
P.S. – Is your email still stressing you out? If you haven’t already, don’t forget you have FREE access to the new Talk About Talk course: “5 Quick Email Hacks to take control of your Inbox.” And you can send it to a friend by sending them this email. Thank you!
3 Most Recent ?Podcast Episodes:
- #47 – COMPELLING PRESENTATIONS with Andrew Musselman
- #46 – BIOHACKING YOUR IMMUNITY with Oksana Andreiuk
- #45 – NETWORKING with Sharon Mah-Gin