Lost in Translation and Presentation
The fine art of not overwhelming your audience (or yourself)
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Sometime back, I was heading back to my place in Hyderabad after meeting a few associates. It was past midnight and I was tired, so I opted for a cab instead of my usual Auto.
Now, my ideal cab ride is simple. I share the OTP to start the ride, and the next time I speak to the driver is at the end, when it’s time to pay. In between, I’d rather just soak in the silence. No need for unnecessary conversation, either way. I can listen to a podcast, put on some music, or even catch a quick nap.
But that night, things went differently. The driver struck up a conversation, asked me a few questions to get to know me, and I also didn’t mind answering, and we started casually chatting. One conversation led to another, and he ended up vouching for the Telugu language and told me I can benefit from learning it.
Fair enough. I told him, with some pride, the only two sentences I knew: “Tondarigga randi” (Come quickly) and “Repu randi” (Come tomorrow). These were what I used to communicate with my daily help. The driver then decided it was his mission to teach me. For 3-4 minutes, he showed me how to say “from this place to that place” (x nundi y varaku – I had to Google it again later). I memorised it, felt mildly pleased. Now, I thought, I at least know three sentences and two more words: nundi and varaku.
But then, it was chaos. He just kept going. Verbs, adjectives, nouns – he tried to squeeze as much as he could into the remaining 40 minutes. The end result? I forgot even the first thing I learnt. I couldn’t recall how to say “from this place to that place,” which I had only just picked up.
Honestly, this felt like the classic presentation failure. At least, that’s how I connected the dots.
I have sat through my share of presentations – most of them boring or poorly delivered, even when the topic was interesting or the presenter had actually done some impressive work. In my view, the reason most boring presentations fail comes down to one basic flaw: the starting point.
The presenter’s starting point and the audience’s starting point are often miles apart, and most presenters don’t realise that. That was exactly the case with the cab driver and me. He knew everything about Telugu, and I knew just two broken sentences.
When presenting, most people focus on: “What have I done? What do I know?” Instead, the question should be, “What does my audience know?”
This gap in starting point isn’t a big deal when you’re defending a thesis or speaking to a deeply technical audience. But for almost everything else, it’s crucial.
Take, for instance, a consulting firm’s presentation at my current organisation recently. They were pitching AI capabilities. The audience was a mixed bag. It had people from senior directors to junior analysts. The slides dove straight into embeddings and LLMs, complete with mathematical notations, but without so much as a basic intro on “What is an embedding?” After 3-4 slides, I knew there would be no traction. And exactly that was it. Hardly 1-2 questions at the end, and nothing worth mentioning happened.
When I present, I focus on three things:
What’s the difference between my starting point and that of my audience?
How do I make this more relatable? (Anecdotes from daily life help)
If the audience walks away with just one thing in the next 10 minutes, what should that be? What’s the one big takeaway?
As a listener too, point three is the most valuable one. It’s rare to learn something life-changing in a short presentation (I certainly didn’t become a Telugu expert in one cab ride). But at the very least, I want to walk away with something. An interesting problem, a new concept, or even just two words – nundi and varaku.
I am curious, what’s the most confusing presentation or class you’ve ever sat through? Did you remember anything from it?
Ordinary thoughts, shared with hope. Pass it along if it resonated.