Cue Cards: To Use or Not To Use?
Many months back, I wrote an email to my subscribers discouraging them from using cue cards for well justified reasons. However, a blogger friend of mine Nancy Tierney challenged each of them at her recent article: Would Steve Jobs Ever Use Note Cards? and that made my day. You see, there is always two sides to a coin. By reading both the argument for and against cue cards, we have effectively throw the ball back in your court to decide.
……………………………
RE: This Is What You Should Not Do
DO NOT read from your 4 by 5 note cards at your
presentation.
It is not worth remembering what you want to say
at the expense of breaking the connection with your
audience…
So avoid cue cards at all cost!
Take Stan Sigman, CEO of Cingular for example. He
was invited by Steve Jobs in the recent MacWorld
event to speak on his experience with Apple, together
with Google CEO, Eric Shmidt and Yahoo co-founder,
Jerry Yang.
Unlike his counterparts, Stan’s speech took a nosedive
when he started reading from his 4 by 5 cue cards. I
know what you are thinking?
But what if I forget what to say?
Fair enough. Then you simply glance at your notes.
And NOT read from your notes which most people
do. That’s why I would recommend you to avoid
cue cards so that such temptations will not arise.
Here are more reasons why notes kill a presentation
from Garr Reynold’s entry in Presentation Zen.
• Notes destroy fifty percent of the interest in your talk.
• Notes prevent contact and intimacy with the audience.
• Notes create and air of artificiality.
• Notes make the speaker look less confident, less powerful.
If you really must use notes, make sure your audience don’t
see them. And make sure you are not over reliant on them.
Ultimately the best remedy to forgeting what to say is to still
practice, practice, practice.
Check out Garr Reynold’s comments on using notes @ Presentation Zen
……………………………
And then we have Nancy’s argument: Would Steve Jobs Ever Use Note Cards?
……………………………
I commented on Nancy’s entry shortly but she has not approved yet. Here’s what I commented:
Interesting post Nancy! What I thought was extremely helpful for our readers is to allow them to see both sides of the coin - Should we use cue cards? It’s all about the workability of your cards i.e will your cue cards distract or forward you?
If having cue cards prevent you from connecting and relating with your audience, then I say go without.
On a another note, it could also mean that the cue cards are not written well enough, which causes the speaker to READ from the cards instead of just GLANCING to get clues of what to say next.
So at the end of the day, the speaker has to ask himself/herself two questions:
(i) Will cue cards distract or forward me in my presentation?
(ii) Are my cue cards written effectively to assist me on stage?
……………………………
What a great way to start my day! *grins*
Cheers,
Eric Feng
Your Speech Coach
I agree with you. When I see a speaker reading his notes during the presentation, it automatically registers in my mind that he didn’t have enough preparation. If a speaker has mastered his presentation, it should only be a glance and not reading the who thing.
The thing is, though… Steve Jobs DOES use cue cards! Well, not exactly “cue cards,” but he has monitors set up in front of the audience that display the current and next slides of the corresponding Keynote presentation, as well as a booklet of notes.
He certainly does do an excellent job of following your advice of keeping the notes out of sight and practicing his presentation over and over and over, though.
I also think it’s inappropriate to read from cue cards. As what Ellen said, the audience will think that you didn’t do your homework. If we value our presentation, it’s only necessary to work hard for it by mastering the presentation.