Comparison of two TED talks

http://www.ted.com/talks/terry_moore_how_to_tie_your_shoes.html

http://www.ted.com/talks/matt_cutts_try_something_new_for_30_days.html
Between the two talks, Terry Moore “How to tie your shoes” and Matt Cutts “Try something new for 30 days” I find that the two speakers have very different presentation styles. In Terry Moore’s talk, “How to tie your shoes,” he went for more of the formal look with the blazer and the collared shirt. He looked like someone who was use to speaking in front of larger groups like those that you would find at a TED conference. Moore also liked to speak with his hands. Moore did a very good job at supporting the content of his topic by having a shoe on the stage with him. He then demonstrated the way that most Americans are taught to tie their shoes. After doing so, he then went on to explain why the way we were always taught was the weaker way. (By weaker way, I mean a weaker knot.) Moore then used the shoe again to demonstrate the stronger knot. Moore could have done that talk without the shoe but that may have been a little more difficult to explain. He closed his talk by tying in the overall theme of the TED convention, which was that a small advantage someplace in life could yield tremendous results someplace else.

            In Matt Cutts talk, “Try something new for 30 days,” Cutts went for more of a casual look than formal. He was in a brown long sleeve t-shirt and blue jeans. I noticed that he liked to walk around and use his hands to help speak in the talk and, he used pictures to kind of help to provide a background for the topic. Cutts mentioned a list of things that you could add on to thirty-day challenges or things that you could cut off of your thirty-day challenges. One of these thirty-day challenges that really jumped out at me was writing a novel. The reason why it jumped out at me was because I did the same thirty-day challenge last semester for Creative writing. Cutts also used pictures of himself in the talk. He started by using the comparison to computer nerd then on to the guy who bikes to work. He even climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro, which is the highest mountain in Africa. That is something that most people don’t even think about doing. He closed the talk by stating that small sustainable changes for thirty days are more likely to stay than larger changes.

            Overall, I felt that the better presenter was Matt Cutts. I liked that he moved around in the talk and used the slide show with the pictures. I find that presentation style of TED talks to be a little bit better than others unless the speaker just relies completely on the slideshow.  I just felt that the talk that Cutts gave was better. Maybe it was because Cutts was able to move around the stage more often than Moore was.