If you’ve been training for a while, you probably have your go-to activities. I know I have a handful of go-to activities that become my default activities when I begin building out a new training program. Let’s talk about why the Lightning Talk wasn’t my go-to but may be now.
Recently, when I was facilitating a Train-the-Trainer program, I asked my participants to thumb through Endurance Learning’s Training Activity Cookbook and identify an activity in there that might be different than what they usually do.
Each of the 86 activities in the Training Activity Cookbook is there because I have been training for decades and trust these activities.
I was surprised that several groups of participants identified the 17×17 Lightning Talk activity as something they might use.
My surprise mostly came from the fact that I’d honestly forgotten that I even included that activity in our Cookbook! While I have used it over the years, It definitely wasn’t one of my go-to activities.
It got me starting to wonder: Why wasn’t it one of my go-to activities?
What Is a 17×17 Lightning Talk?
A 17×17 Lightning Talk has a very simple structure.
- You have exactly 17 slides to present
- Each slide is timed for 17 seconds (see the 17×17 at work?)
- There is no pausing or saying “wait” like an anxious child who can’t find the next chord on the piano.
There are different forms of lightning talks that you can explore, including PechaKucha and Ignite. 17×17 is just one of many. — Wikipedia – Lightning Talk
A 17×17 Lightning Talk might be the activity you’d get if lecture and storytelling had a child. For your learners, it’s a passive way to receive information (similar to lecture), but it can also captivate the imagination and command attention, similar to the way so many people will tune in to watch a television special about Nik Wallenda crossing the Grand Canyon on a high wire, without a net or a safety cord.
What’s the Risk?
A 17×17 Lightning Talk can be a risky way for a facilitator to deliver content.
As you see above, the rules for this activity are simple; 17 slides, 17 seconds each, no pausing. You must tell your story or make your point using exactly 17 slides, but that’s not necessarily the risky part. Fitting everything into 17 slides might take some ruthless prioritization, but it can be done.
The risky part is that as a facilitator, you need to give up control over how long you can spend talking about key points on each slide. In a 17×17 Lightning Talk, your slides are set to auto-advance every 17 seconds.
If you go on too long about any given point, your slides advance without you. If you can’t think of anything good to say about a particular point, then you may find yourself staring at the screen awkwardly, waiting for what may feel like an eternity before the next slide appears on screen.
But if you organize your thoughts, edit and refine, and then practice a few times, you may find that you’re able to dazzle your audience with a story or an organized flow of your content that is both entertaining and effective in getting your most important points across.
Example of a Lightning Talk
I host a free webinar series designed to help L&D professionals build their skills. In a recent webinar, I got adventurous and tried the 17×17 Lightning Talk.
If you’re curious to see what a 17×17 Lightning Talk looks like in action, I suggest you watch me deliver this on the webinar about engaging training activities. As you watch the video, I’ll give you a few things to look for that will offer you some “behind the scenes” hints and strategies if you plan to incorporate this kind of activity into your own training sessions.
- This doesn’t have to be a strictly passive, content-delivery strategy. You’ll see on the first slide that I ask for some audience participation. You can indeed interact with your learners, but know exactly what you want from them… and don’t dilly-dally (or you’ll run out of time and your slide will advance).
- Speaking of timing, it can be hard to know exactly how long 17 seconds is, especially when you’re in the moment and delivering your talk. If you look toward the bottom of each slide, you’ll see a narrow line that I set to fade away over the course of 17 seconds. This gave me a visual cue for how much more time I had before the slide advanced.
You can watch the entire webinar and get the handouts by signing up for Boring Training Activities? Not on My Watch!
When Might You Use a 17×17 Lightning Talk?
I think the best use case for this particular activity is when you have limited time to present and you want to offer a high-level overview of a concept, model, or key point. It’s also a very handy device to use when you have a story to tell, and you want to keep that story tight, prevent it from meandering, and you want to be able to move on.
Perhaps the most special thing about this activity is that when you announce to your participants what you’re about to do (“I’m about to deliver what’s called a 17×17 Lightning Talk, and that means that the next 17 slides you see are out of my hands, they’re set to auto-advance every 17 seconds when I finish my key points or not. Think I can do it? Are you ready for this? Here goes…”), they’ll watch with a combination of fascination, amusement, awe, and most importantly, engagement. They’ll wonder if you’ll be able to do it. And they’ll be impressed when you get past your 17th slide and matter-of-factly ask if they have any questions.
What do you think? Have I convinced you to try it out?
If you actually take on the challenge and use this strategy in front of a live audience, I’d love to hear from you. Drop me a line at brian@endurancelearning.com, or better yet, take a photo (or video) and post it on LinkedIn, and tag me!
