Whenever I lecture students sometimes I hear a bit of
noise and what I do to squash that noise,
I just go there and stand there and they please themselves.
This is how it works. So move around throw.
They know when you're close.
You have a certain how should I say,
field which has its limits.
So if you approach people,
it starts working better.
I know how that works. Otherwise just behave naturally.
Lots of advice.
Very unnatural but otherwise just behave naturally.
Talk to this person and move to another one, to another,
another one, this is how it works. There's no magic.
Now as far as communicating gestures are concerned,
let me read you an excerpt from the iPhone presentation,
just a couple of sentences and I will try to
reproduce the gestures Steve Jobs was making.
Obviously, I do not know whether they were deliberate or
accidental but with hours of rehearsal,
I don't think there's anything accidental left in his delivery.
So just have a look.
This is a day I've been looking forward to for two and a half years.
Every once in awhile,
a revolutionary bullet comes along that changes everything.
And Apple has been,
well first of all,
one is very fortunate if you get to work on just one of these in your career.
Now Apple's been very fortunate.
It's been able to introduce a few of these into the world.
In 1984, we introduced the Macintosh.
It didn't just change Apple,
it changed the whole computer industry.
In 2001 we introduced the first iPod
and it didn't just change the way we all listen to music,
it changed the entire music industry.
Well, today we are introducing three revolutionary products of this class.
So, I don't know what you've noticed but he doesn't do anything out of the ordinary.
He is just behaving like a regular normal guy.
When he needs to say three, he goes three.
When he needs to say change the entire industry,
well I guess that's the mystery which needs to be changed.
So, I have been observing Steve for years. He's not doing anything.
And part of the sort of charm is that his slides tell more than he does.
He has this wonderful visual style and you don't
need an overly animated speaker for those kinds of slides.
He also brings a lot of props with him and they help.
So I don't know.
It doesn't seem like he's doing anything out of the ordinary.
However, if you need an improvement,
it's the same thing as with speaking and to
visualize what you are saying and to feel that.
And then the gesture just comes out of you automatically.
I don't know how it works, you just do it.
And it seems very natural.
It doesn't feel like you're doing it.
It's just something that happens to you,
which I think is phenomenal.
So you might as well try it. One more time.
Let me read you those couple of sentences from
Neil Gaiman's commencement address of 2012.
And this time I will try to do it with gestures.
It won't seem natural because this is not my text but I've
been observing my natural gestures for quite a while already.
So now it's Neil Gaiman's time.
I never really expected to find myself giving advice
to people graduating from an establishment of higher education.
I never graduated from any such establishment myself.
I never even started at one.
I escaped from school as soon as I could,
when the prospect of four more years of enforced learning
before I'd become the writer I wanted to be seemed stifling.
So I don't know what you've seen but
the thing is that you don't do anything out of the ordinary.
If you feel like you need to make four,
you just make four. This is how it works.
If you feel like you have some deficiency in the Justice Department,
I recommend you take some pantomime classes or maybe object work in improve comedy.
They do it a lot because everything is improvised so they have to do
a line or maybe a workshop in interpretative dance.
I don't know if you know what it is.
It is when you hear music with lyrics and then you
try to interpret everything you hear with your gestures.
There are a couple of wonderful artists working in this genre.
I'm obviously not one of them.
But let me try and show it to
you what it might look like.