It’s Springtime and that means thousands of graduation speeches all over the country. Most are instantly forgotten because they contain nothing but generic clichés “find a passion,” “value time with friends and family,” etc, delivered in a generic manner.
A few stand out. Vox.com put together a list of 20 of the greatest graduation speeches ever. http://www.vox.com/a/greatest-graduation-speeches?utm_medium=social
I urge you to take a look at a few. Even if you graduated a long time ago, chances are you will be invited to a family member’s graduation ceremony in the near future.
More important, it’s good to learn how someone can take a completely normal occasion, i.e. a bunch of students graduation from a school at the end of a year, and turn it into something interesting and memorable.
What is the lesson here? Any speech or presentation can be interesting or boring. You may think your quarterly department review or presentation in front of the board has to be “by the book” and “by the numbers” and yet, it doesn’t.
Your ordinary presentation about a set of events that has just happened could be described in interesting, memorable ways. Or not. It is entirely up to you.
TJ Walker is a presentation training expert. You can reach him at www.mediatrainingworldwide.com 212.764.4955.