Coming back from a brief hiatus, I want to follow up on my observations of these Korean pop stars. The K-pop fever doesn’t seem to be subsiding. If anything, its growth seems to be unstoppable and if you get to watch their performances, you’ll understand why. In comparison, I saw yesterday’s Star Search on channel 8 and it was… abysmal.

I’ve linked 2 videos of a girl Korean group called Orange Caramel. You’ll notice they dress up in cutesy outfits and ooze cuteness in their song and dance.

*Disclaimer: You might die of diabetes watching them so proceed with caution.*

So what can we learn?

1. If you commit to a style, go all out or don’t bother.

These girls successfully achieve the “cute till you puke” effect. If you check out their performances with the other group they belong to, you’ll realise that they are pretty normal performers. To make their performance convincing, they wear cute outfits, sing in a cutesy voice and have a dance with facial expressions to match. Imagine them without the outfits, the voice or dance… they suddenly become more dull and less convincing.

In school, we face the problem of trying to stand out from the many groups of presenters. Sometimes the best idea is to try a new style, maybe a skit or role playing the scenario. Often these require group members to play a role that seems silly and they get self conscious and end up ruining the entire presentation. Do it and do it well or just don’t bother.

2. Additional effects can be distracting.

It’s no doubt that these girls capture your attention. The problem is that you get too distracted by the costumes, dancing and the performance in general. If you listen carefully, you’ll realise that these 3 girls have immense talent and they all posses a vocal range and performance finesse that most other performers don’t have.

Sometimes presentation groups go overboard and add too many frills to their presentation. Some sing, some dance, some even get a live keyboardist to add sound effects to add a little drama. For the most part, these help you to stand out but when you go overboard, you cloud the message of the presentation and the audience loses focus. The last thing you want is for them to go “they were kind of entertaining but what were they trying to say?” after the presentation.

3. Image is an overall thing.

What makes Orange Caramel so successful – as can be heard from the hordes of deep voices screaming throughout the performance, is that they fit the look, voice and dance. Can you imagine any other performer in the same clothes and dance? Hm. probably not.

Know yourself, know what you can pull off and what you can’t. As I tell my students, if you’re funny, then be funny! But if you’re not, don’t try too hard.

To end off, becoming an effective communicator is a journey that doesn’t ever end. Your job is not to memorise all the “tools” available but to pick up lessons from people around you. Pick up the good habits and trash the bad.

-Terence

So I’m not the type who keeps up with the latest in popular culture or music but when Shara joined us and started playing videos of teenage korean boys and girls prancing around the stage and singing (or in some cases, attempting to sing) for the many hours she spent in the office, I got curious.

I started paying more attention to these videos and the singers and realised that we can learn a lot about communication from them and apply these lessons to our own presentations. I spent the next few weeks scrutinising several korean pop groups and came up with a couple of learning points we can apply. It was really tough work looking at pretty young stars dancing and singing but it was worth it

In part 1, I’ve chosen Girls Generation a.k.a SNSD with their chart topping song Gee.

9 arguably equally attractive girls fighting for the spotlight. Most music groups have way fewer and they can’t even stay together without wanting to go solo. So what can we learn from them in the context of our very own group presentations?

1. You can shine even if you aren’t speaking.

Each member in the group gets between 5 to 22 seconds worth of solo parts in a 3.5min song. Yet if you ask around, most SNSD fans have a favorite member whom they are fiercely loyal to. In the video, as the camera is focusing on one girl, notice that others in the background are always smiling, winking or doing a variation of some action. For example, in 2:28, you can’t help but notice the 3 girls in the background even though the spotlight isn’t on them.

So you are making an impression even if it isn’t your turn to speak. This is your chance to develop rapport and express your personality even before you speak to your audience. Smile, nod and make eye contact with your audience. They will be more likely to listen to you when its your turn. Which brings us to the next point.

2. People see you even if you aren’t speaking.

Many people think that when it isn’t their turn to speak in a presentation, they suddenly become invisible to the audience. This just isn’t true. Very often you see people who, after finishing their part in a presentation, walk to the side and start to sigh, giggle or chat with the rest of the team. What’s worse is most presenters start their parts with a huge smile but the moment they are done, the smile flies away and all that’s left is either a blank stare or a long (sian) face. Audiences react very easily to perceived emotions. If you seem enthusiastic and have a lot of energy, they are more likely to listen to you than if you seem bored yourself while talking to them.

SNSD girls always look happy and like they are enjoying themselves. It definitely doesn’t hurt the audience either.

3. Be consistent, it shows off your personality.

If you watch other Gee live performances, you’ll realise that the most discernible differences between the performances would be the clothes they wear and their hairstyles. There isn’t much variation in the music, lyrics and dance. You just know it’s going to be a SNSD performance and each girl’s personality shines through the synchronised dance moves. Eventually you’ll realise that the song and dance moves don’t matter. You’ll watch them because you’re attracted to their on-stage personalities.

You want your audience to like you as a presenter regardless of the topic. You don’t always have a super interesting topic to talk about so sometimes it’s better to shift your audience’s attention to you as a presenter instead. If you are consistently good, you develop a presentation personality that people are attracted to and even with the most boring of topics, engage your audience.

4. If you can’t do it, rehearse and stage it.

Having good presentation skills is not like getting hero’s super power. You don’t get it after a special X gene in your DNA expresses itself and it definitely isn’t a side effect of radioactive exposure. Professionals get to where they are because they practice. Stand-up comedians aren’t funny because they go on stage and crack random jokes. Radio DJs aren’t fluent because they jump into the studio and start sprouting nonsense and motivational speakers definitely don’t stand in front of an audience and just “repeat their life stories”.

It isn’t easy to have 2 people synchronise a dance and even more so for 9 people. If you watch amateurs do covers of SNSD’s dances, you’ll realise what sets them apart from the real deal – practice. I’ll go out on a limb here and say that everything is rehearsed. Every move, wink and hand gesture is decided upon and practiced over and over again. This is why you’ll never see 2 girls do the same gesture at the same time because that’ll be weird. So if you have difficulty smiling without looking weird, look into the mirror and practice. If you don’t know where to put your hands when you speak, ask a friend to give you comments about the way you are currently doing it and find a position that doesn’t make you look like you want to chop off your own hands. Keep rehearsing every line and move until you realise that you become so natural that you don’t need to anymore.

Wooh. That’s a long one and my way to justify watching these girls over and over again I’ll do part 2 in a couple of days. In the mean time, here’s hoping you get your Epiphany.

-Terence

(Source: http://www.poststar.com/news/local/article_ccbd5a08-ee94-11de-a983-001cc4c03286.html)

In Queensbury, a public speaking class at Adirondack Community College had to do the seemingly unthinkable: deliver their final speech at a crowded shopping mall. Contrast to Singapore: imagine delivering your speech about, say, the history of Singapore right smack in the Shaw House Isetan atrium, where bewildered shoppers are generous with their confused stares and glares. Every single word you enunciate is competing for airtime with the lovely sample aunties offering bite-sized treats with a hearty “doozo irrashaimase!”. Suddenly, that classroom speech seems insultingly tame.

http://www.poststar.com/news/local/article_ccbd5a08-ee94-11de-a983-001cc4c03286.html
(Source:www.travelpod.com/photos/0/Japan/Aomori.html)

There are several things we can learn from this:

The most important one, is that your audience is often completely uninterested in your speech! Why would a housewife choose to listen to a history drone over browsing the latest import of button mushrooms? Likewise, your audience will most likely find a million other fun-filled activities to block out your voice: nail-picking, bingo, day-dreaming, sketching up lunch plans…the list goes on. The first step is to realize this important fact, only then can you move onto capturing their attention in the most efficient possible way.

(Source:http://s3.images.com/huge.62.311724.JPG)

The second is that, you are not alone! There are plenty of other distractions that could snatch the limelight away from you – the whirring of the ceiling fan, someone’s funny ringtone, the ticking of the clock to dismissal time – all these are background noise which prevent your message from being translated across completely. What to do? If you can’t beat them, don’t join them, avoid them! Make sure that you are not competing with these noises – post a kindly message to turn off mobile devices, remove the wall clock if you must.

Lastly, know that speeches are not limited to a seated audience! Malls, open grass fields, even that shower karaoke session..every place is an opportunity to be heard! So as the friendly Girl Guides selling those fudge cookies chant, Be Prepared!

-stella