Attention-Grabbing Openings: The Hook
Your Task
- Design a hook for your presentation that engages and/or involves your audience.
- Choose either an involvement hook, an illustrative hook or an “imagine” hook.
- Present Hook plus presentation for 4 min. Rotate.
Involvement Hooks
Here are five simple ways of involving people:
Anticipatory vs Reality: Let's look into some data. Before I show you, what do you think this [graph/number/statistic] look like?
“How many of you think that [statement]?”
“Given the choice, would you rather [scenario A] or [scenario B]? Who here would prefer [scenario A]?”
Write down a word that encapsulates what your goal is. Show it. Ask what people think this word means in this context.
“On a scale from one to five – hold up your fingers – how much do you agree that … ?”
“Can you guess how much money we spent on [activity] last year?”
Write a code. Show a [word/number/drawing/figure] that encapsulates today's topic. Ask what people think this code means.
Involvement is any form of dialogue with your audience. Quizzing builds suspense, engages and gets your audience invested in the answer.
Illustrative Hooks
Demonstrate why your message is needed using props to visualise some data. It could be:
Coffee Cups illustrating the costs going up
Boxes/paper/post it notes on top of each other, representing the level of motivation
Shoes in different conditions demonstrating how hard you work
Plants? Stones? Take a look around - what can you find? Be creative.
If you can visualise your data with props, we will never forget it.
“Imagine” Hooks
Benefits and results: “Imagine one year from now. We are the largest provider of … and customers are asking us to …”
Changes: “Imagine that instead of … we could do …”
Impact: “Imagine half of the world’s migraine patients …”
Personal Achievements: “Close your eyes and imagine that you’re receiving an award for …”
Providing feedback
When giving feedback as a group, split the focus points below between you, so you're each looking at different aspects of the performance. Remember to also focus on what was good.
- Did the Hook grab your attention?
- Was the Hook relevant to the message?
- Was it bold enought, or too boring?
- Did the presenter use smiling eyes?
