18 minutes ... that's all you get.

AuthorGallo, Carmine
PositionTHOUGHT LEADERSHIP - Talk Like TED - Book review

From Talk Like TED by Carmine Gallo. Copyright [c]2014 by the author. Published by St. Martin's Press (www.stmartins.com).

UNIVERSITY OF WATERLOO economics professor Larry Smith gives three-hour lectures. In November 2011 he gave a 15-minute talk for a TEDx audience. He had no idea it would be viewed nearly 1.5 million times. "For me, it was a personal challenge to condense my content into 18 minutes," Smith told me. "I think my students asked me to do it because they thought it would kill me!"

"Why do you think the 18-minute rule works so well?" I asked Smith. "Thinking is hard work. In 18 minutes you can make a powerful argument and attract people's attention."

Yes, thinking is hard work, and that's why the 18-minute rule is critical to the transfer of ideas. A TED presentation must not exceed 18 minutes in length. It's a fundamental rule that applies to all TED speakers. It doesn't matter if you're Larry Smith, Bill Gates, or Tony Robbins--18 minutes is all you get.

Eighteen minutes is the ideal length of time for a presentation. Why it works: Researchers have discovered that "cognitive backlog," too much information, prevents the successful transmission of ideas. TED curator Chris Anderson explained it best:

"It (18 minutes) is long enough to he serious and short enough to hold people's attention. It turns .out that this length...

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