Being more convincing

Podcast notes for Morten Münster episode Saadan bliver du mere overbevisende.

Three forms of appeal

• Logos - rational arguments, scientific studies
  • People tend to overvalue logos. Bring 1-3 arguments but more than that is moot and distracts from the point. Instead focus on the other two!
• Pathos - emotion (but not really)
  • A simple way to add pathos to your presentations/conversations is to just use concrete examples. Rather than "Studies show tech debt leads to developer turnover" start with "Last afternoon I merged my pristine new feature to master and what happened? Of course tests failed across our solution. When I really wanted to run to business and let them know this feature was out I had to track down those tests and verify they had nothing to do with my code."
• Ethos - your trustworthiness based in three subcategories:
  • Your perceived experience in the subject. Søren Bostrøm, Margrethe Vestager are examples that score highly in this.
  • Your likeability. Lars Løkke scores highly in this.
  • Genuine interest in audience.

Boost ethos very easily by metacommunication. E.g. "Today I will describe 3 ways this will boost our productivity". "So I understand you have these 2 points ..."

When presenting

• Use calm and energy dynamically. Often start calm. Center stage. Face the audience. Pause for a bit longer than usual. Stay grounded. But later can use energy to generate enthusiasm.
• Prepare the first minute before slides!
• Practice saying stuff out loud! Spend at least some time here rather than all of it making slides.