Episode transcript:

M.K.:
So Alper, what’s on your mind this week?

A.R.:
I might. Well, remember how I questioned about what you meant by this line in our topic list? Talk to the dog. And you clarified that. Sure, sure. Well, there is a second one I want. I want you to clarify. What do you mean by. Vocabulary is a zip file.

M.K.:
Vocabulary is a Zip file. I probably use this phrase a lot more than I should. It probably confuses a lot of people. Here’s what I mean.

A.R.:
Okay.

M.K.:
But before I. Before I get into how vocabulary is, zip file is one, there are two basic things that you need to know about. Three, you need to be thinking about. One is, you know how like, a zip file on a computer works? You know, somebody has a bunch of data and then they zip it up. Okay. So when I say vocabularies and zip file, think of it that way.

M.K.:
So what’s a zip file? Zip file is something that is has a ton of data in it. And then when you unzip this.

A.R.:
And other files.

M.K.:
Yeah. So before it’s on zip, you look at it. If you’re on the outside before it’s unzipped, you look at it and you can’t see what’s inside. It just looks like a zip file. But once you open it up, you see a bunch of stuff in there. So think of that. And then the other thing that’s important to keep in mind with this phrase is, you know how images tend to stay in people’s heads longer than words.

A.R.:
Yes. Oh, yes.

M.K.:
So, okay, So let’s say like, for example, you have, I don’t know, an image of a little five year old girl in a blue dress. And that will stay in your mind a lot longer than the words five year old girl in a blue dress. So keep those two things in mind. So. So what I say when, when or what?

M.K.:
I mean when I say that vocabulary is a zip file just mean that you don’t always have a lot of time for your presentation. You know, we’ve talked before a couple of weeks ago. I gave an example of a guy who had to give a two and a half minute presentation, and you gave an example of yes, I remember were giving four minute presentations.

M.K.:
So you don’t have you don’t always have a lot of time to show people images. Sometimes you have to use words and hope for the best. Sometimes, yeah. Sometimes you don’t have time for four images. Sometimes you don’t have time to fire a PowerPoint. Sometimes you just have to hope that the words can do the job. And so what I mean by vocabulary is, is a zip file, is it?

M.K.:
Some words enter a person’s mind and they just kind of sit there. They’re dead. They don’t really do anything. For example, an example. This would be thirsty, you know, if you use the word thirst, if you say, I’m really I’m thirsty. When you take that word thirsty and you put it in somebody’s head, let’s say an audience member’s head, it doesn’t really do anything.

M.K.:
There’s no there’s very little imagery associated with the word thirsty, like maybe there’s a glass of water. You don’t have a lot of images in your head. But take another word that you could use. Okay. If you want to use really thirsty, another word that you could use, let’s say you used the word parched. Instead, you use the word parched.

M.K.:
Let’s say that you’re you’re you’re speaking to a group of people or on your and you say or you put on your slide or something the word parched. And this word enters the person’s brain interested audience members brain. And it’s kind of like a zip file. It opens up and it has more in there than you put in there or more in there than it had before it and it you know, because now you’ve got these images rotating or flying around this person’s brain and they’re thinking of like, if you use the word parched, they’re thinking of, you know, somebody crawling through the desert.

M.K.:
They’re thinking of the desperate feeling that you get when you haven’t had a drink of water for three or four days. You’re thinking of a you know, of a vulture flying overhead, ready to swoop down and eat the bones when that person dies, you know. So there are certain words.

A.R.:
That’s very vivid. Yeah. Yeah.

M.K.:
So there are certain words that have that have this vivid visual effect that other words, dead words don’t. And when you have to give a really short presentation, I mean, when you have to give any presentation at all, but especially when you have to give a really short presentation where you don’t have time to fire up PowerPoint, it’s really important to use words like this that are going to put images into people’s heads because when they walk out of the room after your two and a half minute presentation, you need their head to be filled with images and you don’t have time to show them those images on the screen.

M.K.:
So that’s what I mean by vocabularies and zip files. At some words, they’re dead words. And when you put in, put them in there and the person unzips them, they look exactly like they did before you put them in their head, like thirsty. But there are there are other words which kind of mean the same thing. But when you put them in their head, when you put them in the audience members heads and they zip them, they mean a lot more.

M.K.:
And one of the most common pushbacks that I get on that, you know, I do a lot of work with with international teams. And so there’s mixed levels of language. And you’ll have, you know, like a team in Argentina talking to a team in Israel, talking to a team in Chicago, talking to a team in China somewhere. And you’ll have you know, some people are just barely learning English and some people are completely fluent in English and they don’t speak in their whole lives.

M.K.:
There are other people in the middle. And so one of the common pushbacks that I get on this is that well, you know, maybe not everybody in the audience knows what parched means. And that’s absolutely true. That’s a good piece of feedback. And so I just wanted to give people a suggestion for how they can deal with that situation.

A.R.:
And okay.

M.K.:
If you’ve got so so the problem is that you’ve got people who in this example, you know, thirsty and parched. If you’ve got a situation where everybody on the call is going to know the word thirsty, but you want to use the word parched and there are only a few people on the call who probably know what that means.

M.K.:
So one thing that you can do is you can use both thirsty and parched. And here’s an example of how you could do it. You could say there was this guy and he was thirsty. He was he was really thirsty. In fact, he wasn’t just thirsty. He was parched. And he was so parched that he he was so desperately thirsty, so parched that he would if he saw somebody with a glass of water, he would kill that person with his bare hands.

M.K.:
And so now it’s you see what I’ve done with that example? If I’ve used the word thirsty, Yes, I’ve used the word parched a couple of times. So if you know the word thirsty, there’s something in there for you. If you know the word parts, there’s something in there for you. And I’ve used a distracting image, you know, killing somebody with their bare hands.

M.K.:
It is a distracting image to distract people from the eye, from the fact that Matt has just used, you know, a simple vocabulary word and a more complex vocabulary word. And he probably did that because there are some people in Argentina and there’s some people in Chicago, and we want to distract people from that because we don’t want them thinking about that.

M.K.:
That’s why the distracting images is there. And so.

A.R.:
Yeah.

M.K.:
Yes.

A.R.:
I like that. I like that.

M.K.:
So so anyway, that’s a common issue that I see when working with international teams where some people are just learning the language and other people might be fluent or near fluent or have been speaking their entire lives.

A.R.:
That’s very interesting because I, for one, didn’t know the word passed. And I was going to ask you when I what I had when I had the word, but since you described it, I know and I understand what it means. And it will be interesting for me to see the next time we record the podcast. If you ask me what the word was and I think I’ll remember it, I think I will remember it.

A.R.:
Which means that you have done a great job of introducing not only new words, but at the same time remembering your point. So if this podcast was not about presentations but the dynamics of hydrogen with oxygen or something like that, namely water, it would be critical for the audience to remember the word parched. And if I remember it, the next time you and I meet, I think it will be a huge success, a successful trip.

A.R.:
I love it.

M.K.:
The next time we meet. If if you remember what the word parched means, then I’ll know that my theory is work and I’ll know if. Yes.

A.R.:
Yes, because I was. Yeah. I was completely oblivious to the existence of this water.

M.K.:
Yeah. And I’ll know that the theory has worked. Match theory has worked. And Matt is not just wasting his clients time when he teaches them this technique.

A.R.:
Yeah, but we already knew that. Come on.

M.K.:
You know, we would all like to think so. I should go. So that’s all for today. That’s. That’s. That’s all I have on my mind today.

A.R.:
All right, that’s great. One more thing clarified on my mind from this list of topics that we have. Okay, Let’s see what we’re going to have the next time.

M.K.:
Wait, are you looking at the list right now? No.

A.R.:
I mean, no, no, no. I meant we will see what life will throw at us to speak about in the next recording.

M.K.:
Oh, okay. Yeah. What’s what is on that list? I’m not looking at list right now.

A.R.:
Well, we have we have we have a lot of things to cover, actually. Wow. We did vocabularies as a file today and we did persuasion. I think that’s a horse that we have beaten. Yeah.

M.K.:
And the whole persuasion and know your audience. I think we’ve we’ve definitely been that horse many times. Many times. We want it to death.

A.R.:
There is one about boring but obligatory presentation topics what to do about them. This could be interesting.

M.K.:
That’s a good one. Boring.

A.R.:
Even the most presentations out there are utterly boring.

M.K.:
Yeah.

A.R.:
Yeah, that’s that. Yeah, we could talk about that.

M.K.:
That could make like 20 episodes right there. Yeah, that’s. Yeah.

A.R.:
So let’s start beating that horse.

M.K.:
Let’s start beating that horse.

A.R.:
Let’s give first version of break for a while. Yeah, sure. We’ll come back to that.

M.K.:
Yeah. We’ll come back to that. But let’s give it a break for a while. Let’s let that dead horse lie in the gutter for a while. Yeah.

A.R.:
Lieberman piece.

M.K.:
Yeah. Yeah. All right, so I’ll talk to you later then.

A.R.:
All right, mate. Good talking to you.

M.K.:
All right. Goodbye.