Red Dot Lessons from the TED Stage

The Red Dot is famous icon representing the stage where presenters come to speak at a TEDx conference.  It also represents an opportunity for the presenter to share their message to a wide audience, and bring more awareness to a vision or a cause.

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​Top 2 Mistakes
The first mistake that presenters commonly make is staying frozen in the exact same spot throughout the presentation.  As a member of the audience, you can close your eyes, and have the same experience as the rest of the audience who have their eyes open.   The cameramen can also fall asleep and successfully capture the entire presentation.

The second mistakes that presenters make is wandering aimlessly on the Red Dot.  There does not seem to be any purpose to the movements, and the audience can be distracted from the messages the presenter is intending to share.  Sometimes, this occurs because the presenter takes the stage with nervous energy, and their body just wants to move around to dissipate that nervousness.  The most common reason, unfortunately, is that presenters do not build intentional movement into their presentations.

Opportunity Lost
Presenters miss out on a huge opportunity to leverage the entire Red Dot to help them better communicate specific messages in their presentation.    Some of you may think that the Red Dot is too small, that there really isn’t enough room to make effective use of movement.  At TEDx conferences, the Red Dot comes in many sizes.  It may take you 3 steps to travel across a small Red Dot, while other conferences have larger Red Dots , requiring 10 steps to walk from one end to the other.

I was on the production team of a large event, where Nick Vujicic came on stage to share his inspirational message.  The size of the stage was enormous, giving each of our speakers lots of space to use while presenting to over 2000 people.  For Nick, however, his “stage” was the top of an 8 foot conference table.  Nick does not have legs, and has two small and deformed feet.  His stage movement is done by “waddling” from one end of the table to the other.  Nick’s incredible presentation skills was augmented by his usage of the entire table, and his movement helped him connect with each and every member of the audience.

No matter the size of your stage, you have the capability of using the entire stage to help you tell a story, teach the audience, and visually engage your audience.

In this four part series, we will be reviewing how movement allows you to:

• Illustrate Past, Present, and Future
• Give your Stories separate locations
• Demonstrate a Range (of opinions)
• Play different characters
• Illustrate Emotion and Momentum

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Continue to Part 1

Anthony Lee, founder of the Heroic Voice Academy, trained Baya Voce for her TEDx presentation, The Simple Cure for Loneliness.  This TEDx talk illustrates what is possible when presenters learn how to integrate stage movement, helping audiences learn, care, and take action, 

Please visit us at HeroicVoice.com, to learn more about composing and delivering powerful presentations.

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