Richard St John has an amicable presence while presenting in the above TED talk, and a sharp delivery. He also has a way with one-liners, evident by the great joke he makes about motherhood halfway through the speech. However, there are some mistakes he makes while presenting that we can learn from:

1. He is rushing. This is made clear by the speed at which he clicks his powerpoint button. It feels as if he is trying to get to the end of the presentation rather than focusing on the audience moment by moment. Don’t rush!
2. He doesn’t have a PowerPoint remote. This may seem like a small issue, but it isn’t. He has to constantly look away from the audience to push his space bar on his Mac to forward his slides and this disrupts his connection to the audience. Keep eye contact with the audience, especially at the beginning of the speech.
3. No data – A good TED talk generally is backed up with interesting data. There are no hard facts here to prove his point.
4. No dynamic central idea – TED talks benefit from a dynamic central idea. One of the best TED talks I ever saw was about the need for independent, unsupervised play among young children. That is a radical idea to this helicopter parent! It’s a good idea to sit for a while with your central idea and try to come up with something very creative. I’ve seen a lot of speeches about what makes someone a success. I would have preferred to see a different spin on this oft-repeated theme.

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