雙語達人:演講5招抓住聽衆的注意力

Maybe it's the speed-of-light pace of technology, or the stress of having too much to do and not enough time to do it, or both, but when British bank Lloyds TSB set out to study what causes careless (and costly) household accidents, the researchers made an interesting discovery: The average adult attention span has plummeted from 12 minutes a decade ago to just 5 minutes now. That may be especially true at this time of year, when most of us would rather be at the beach.

到底是什麼導致了粗心（且成本高昂）的家務事故？是科技的快速進步，還是因爲有太多事情要做但卻沒有足夠的時間？抑或兩者皆有？爲了探明究竟，英國銀行勞埃德TSB集團（Lloyds TSB）進行了一項研究，結果有了一個有趣的發現：成年人的平均注意力持續時間從十年前的12分鐘已經縮短到現在僅有5分鐘。每年到了現在這個季節尤其如此，因爲我們大多數人寧願待在海灘上。

So there you are, planning a presentation that could have a big impact on your career, for better or worse, and it's half an hour long. "With an attention span of five minutes, the average audience is going to tune out 84% of your 30-minute speech," says Sean O'Brien -- unless, that is, you find ways to keep them interested.

假如你正在規劃一次至關重要的陳述，它可能會決定你的職業生涯未來是向着更好的方向還是更壞的方向發展，而陳述的時間是半個小時。西恩•奧布萊恩說：“因爲聽衆平均注意力持續時間只有5分鐘，所以在30分鐘的演講期間，聽衆有84%的時間是在走神。”——除非，你能找到保持聽衆注意力的方法。

An executive vice president at Atlanta-based online meeting and collaboration firm PGi, O'Brien offers these suggestions for doing just that. They're drawn from a new PGi e-book (free on the company's website) called The Little Black Book of Presentation Ideas.

奧布萊恩是亞特蘭大一家在線會議與合作公司PGi的執行副總裁。他將爲讀者提供一些吸引聽衆注意力的建議。這些建議來自PGi的一本新電子書（可在該公司網站上免費下載）——《講演妙招黑皮書》（The Little Black Book of Presentation Ideas）

1. Are you sure you need PowerPoint? "People fall back on PowerPoint because it's easy and familiar," O'Brien notes. "The trouble is, it doesn't stand out. The audience has seen the same format 1,000 times, so they turn into zombies." Alternatives like Prezi, Easel.y, or SlideRocket "are designed to be easy to use, and they can make more of a visual impact.

1. 你確定要用幻燈片嗎？奧布萊恩說：“人們往往會求助於PowerPoint，因爲它簡單且很常見。可問題在於，幻燈片不會讓你脫穎而出。同一種格式，觀衆們可能看過不下一千次，所以他們對幻燈片已經麻木了。”Prezi、Easel.y或者SlideRocket等替代工具不僅易於使用，而且可以提供更多的視覺效果。

"But maybe you don't need slides at all. Sometimes they're just a crutch," he adds. O'Brien likes to quote Steve Jobs, who said, "People who know what they're talking about don't need PowerPoint." He also cites research showing that 41% of U.S. employees would rather do their taxes or go to the dentist than sit through a slideshow -- and 62% have either fallen asleep or left the room to escape a boring batch of slides.

他補充說：“或許，你根本就不需要使用幻燈片。有時候，幻燈片只是作爲一種精神依靠。”奧布萊恩喜歡引用史蒂夫•喬布斯的話。喬布斯曾說過：“知道自己在說什麼的人根本不需要PowerPoint。”此外，他引用的調查數據顯示，41%的美國員工寧願去繳稅或看牙醫，也不願意等着幻燈片放完——62%的美國員工爲了逃避冗長無聊的幻燈片，曾經打過瞌睡，甚至乾脆離開會議室。

2. If you do use slides, less is more. Start with "a killer first slide or opening remark," O'Brien says, "with eye-catching visuals and concise language." Then, for a 30-minute presentation, plan on no more than five to 10 slides. "If you have a slide deck with 30 slides in it, your presentation is doomed," O'Brien says. "You also need to have each slide make just one main point of 15 words or fewer." Talk too much and you'll lose 'em, so get to the point.

2. 如果確實需要幻燈片，越少越好。奧布萊恩說：“第一張幻燈片或開場白一定要能讓人興奮，要使用一些能吸引眼球的視覺效果和簡練的語言。”30分鐘的陳述不要使用超過五到十張幻燈片。奧布萊恩說：“如果你硬是要在三十分鐘裏放30張幻燈片，那你的陳述註定不會成功。此外，每一張幻燈片上只需要列出一條要點，字數不能超過15個單詞。”滔滔不絕地說太多，聽衆會失去興趣，所以一定要簡明扼要，突出主題。

3. Make smart use of unusual fonts and colors. Varying your visuals with different fonts, beyond the mainstream Microsoft Office and Keynote typefaces, can help you hold people's interest, and they're readily available from sites like Dafont, 1001 Free Fonts, Fontsbytes, and . "Don't forget to give your text room to breathe," O'Brien adds. "It should be big enough to be read from the back of the room."

3. 巧妙使用不常見的字體和顏色。使用Microsoft Office和Keynote主流字體之外的其他字體，增加幻燈片的視覺效果，可以吸引聽衆的注意力，Dafont、1001 Free Fonts、Fontsbytes和等網站都提供各種字體的下載。奧布萊恩補充道：“別忘了讓文字之間的間距更開闊。文字的大小應該確保站在房間後面的人也能看清楚。”

Color counts too. O'Brien notes that product marketers and interior designers rely on color to evoke different responses -- red denotes power and urgency, blue is calming, orange conveys energy and enthusiasm, and so on -- and you can do the same: "Give the colors in your presentation some thought. Often people get so focused on the factual content that they forget to consider the visual impact."

顏色也很重要。奧布萊恩發現，產品營銷人員和室內設計師會依靠顏色來激發不同的反應——紅色代表了權力和緊迫性，藍色代表冷靜，橘色代表能量與激情。你同樣可以利用顏色：“賦予陳述中所使用的顏色一定的內涵。人們通常過於關注事實內容，結果忘記考慮視覺效果。”

4. It's not all about the work. "The best presentations draw people in and make an emotional connection between the speaker and the audience," says O'Brien. "You'll be much more engaging and memorable if you tell a funny story or share a favorite quote, talk a bit about yourself and reveal a little of who you are outside the office."

4. 不要只談工作。“最出色的陳述能讓聽衆沉浸其中，在演講者與聽衆之間建立一種情感上的聯繫，”奧布萊恩說。“如果你講一個有趣的故事，或者分享一句最喜歡的名言，談一談一下自己，展示一下辦公室之外的自己是什麼樣子，會令你更具有吸引力，給聽衆留下更深的印象。”

You don't want to overdo this, of course, but handled right, it can be riveting. For proof, check out Sheryl Sandberg's famous 2010 TED talk (the one that led to her writing Lean In). Sandberg's frankness and self-deprecating humor carries it -- and without a PowerPoint slide in sight.

當然，一定要掌握分寸，只要處理得當，一定能吸引聽衆注意。謝麗爾•桑德伯格著名的2010年TED演講【（正是這次演講讓她決定寫《向前一步》（Lean In）這本書】就是最好的證據。桑德伯格的坦率和自嘲式的幽默給所有人留下了深刻印象——而她在演講過程中沒有使用任何幻燈片。

5. Break through the "fourth wall." Ever take a course in college where you never knew when the instructor was going to call on you, out of the blue, and expect some intelligent comment? It's a time-honored technique for keeping an audience on its toes, since no one wants to be caught napping (literally or metaphorically), and it works for speeches, too.

5. 突破“第四面牆”。你有沒有過這樣的經歷——在大學上課，不知道導師什麼時候會突然點到你的名字，希望你能給出一些聰明的評論？這種歷史悠久的技巧可以讓聽衆時刻保持緊張，因爲沒有人希望在毫無防備的情況下被抓突然提問，這種技巧同樣適用於演講。

"Involve your listeners by encouraging constructive interruptions, like questions," O'Brien suggests. "Or pick people in the audience at random, and ask them to weigh in."

奧布萊恩建議：“通過鼓勵聽衆建設性地打斷演講，比如提出問題等，讓聽衆參與其中。或隨機挑選聽衆，邀請他們參與討論。”

Some expert speakers, like former GE (GE) chief Jack Welch, have made use of Twitter to let audience members Tweet a constant stream of questions and comments, which Welch then addresses in real time. It's not a technique for the faint of heart, but it does keep people's attention from wandering. These days, that's no small feat.

有一些演講大師，比如前通用電氣（GE）首席執行官傑克•韋爾奇，會利用Twitter，讓聽衆們提出問題和評論，韋爾奇會實時進行解答。這種技巧不適合膽小的人，但確實能讓聽衆們集中注意力。這在當今可謂是不小的壯舉。