Sloganise

A SpeakerPrep exercise to give your audience a peg to hang your idea on.

You'll need a talk, or an abstract for a talk.

Your talk will have an overall message or conclusion. Write it down now if it helps you to keep it in mind.

Give yourself 10 minutes to come up with a phrase you can say at the start and end of the talk, and that people who have been to your talk might say to each other. Use the approaches below if you need hints, and try it out as you're playing. Work alone or with someone else, or in a group.

Do be silly and over-the-top as you're playing with ideas – it will help free your mind, and you don't need to share every step on your journey.

At the end: Share your slogans.

Some approaches

Maybe you'll try out different parts of your message. Maybe you'll try a few phrases and polishing down. Maybe you'll try for a one-word essence and build up. Maybe you'll see where the randomness of alliteration and rhyming take you, or maybe you'll seek the nuance that pulls the phrase together.

• Alliterate – if words don't turn up, use a thesaurus.
• Rhyme – use a rhyming dictionary
• Delete filler – does it still work? If not, why not?
• Make a headline – clickbait, tabloid, or chapter
• Who is doing (or saying) this? Can you remove the reference, make it explicit, or change it?
• Reduce your message to one word – then try again for three words, or five words.
• Give action
• Fiddle with vocabulary and endings
• Try lots of alternatives, combine as needed

Try it out

• Think about punctuating your talk with it.
• Think about putting it on a t-shirt or hat or sticker. How would it feel to have it on every slide?
• Think about what you want the audience to feel as you close the talk.
• Think about what you want them to do differently once they've given you their attention.
• Think about the way that your title, your conclusion, your list of headings and / or your key takeaways relate to your slogan.

When you've tried it out it yourself, try it out with other people in the workshop