I've always been intrigued by public speakers, good and bad. I always learn something. Recently, I was at a college and happened to drop in on a presentation. The speaker was a social worker who was at the college to give a talk on Alcohol Awareness. The room had about 100 mostly teenage kids seated at round tables of about eight each. The room had about 15 tables. There was a distance of perhaps 100 feet from the front of the room to the back, where I was.
The speaker lectured the kids on the dangers of alcohol. For the most part, I could not hear what she was saying because the kids were having their own conversations at their tables. Since the tables were round, half the kids had no field of vision of the speaker unless they turned their seats around, and kids being kids, they didn't bother. If the speaker had thought about it beforehand, she might have re-arranged the room so that the tables were in the back of the room and the chairs were in the front, in a square, with her in the middle. That way the audience would have been forced to look at her.
The content of her remarks was fundamentally negative. Don't binge drink. Don't drink or you might be forced into unwilling sex. Don't drink or you will get a DUI ticket. Don't drink or you will damage your liver. Don't take over-the-counter or prescription meds with alcohol. (We heard a fairly lengthy segment about the speaker's own medical history and interactions with alcohol.) She made no attempt to engage the audience. She just lectured.
The takeaways, relevant to any entrepreneur or business person:
- You have to connect with the audience. Have a powerful story to tell, right at the beginning to get their attention.
- You can't tolerate inattention. If some people turn off and start talking, you've lost it. No point in continuing unless and until all eyes and ears are focused on you.
- Room layout is important. If you're taking the time to prepare a presentation, may as well think about the dynamic of the physical space.
- Lectures aren't compelling. Especially to kids. Discussion and debate is compelling.
- The speaker has to relate to the audience. Ninety percent of the kids were black and Latino and under age 20. The speaker was a white women about 50 years old. Why not have a black or Latino speaker in his/her 20s?
Have any advice of your own on what makes for good and bad presentations? Let me know.
Thanks for the post. A couple of other related takeaways are;
Understand your audience – if you don’t take the time before your presentation to understand the audience if will be difficult to connect.
You don’t have to accept all invitiations – if you can’t relate to the audience you are better off politely declining the invitiation.
Hi Mitchell, I enjoyed reading your article, it’s insightful and very well explained. I share your thoughts, as a matter of fact, recently I also had my own comprehensive shot at tackling public speaking anxiety, please have a look!
http://www.spreadinghappiness.org/2010/01/analysis-of-public-speaking-anxiety-and-proposals/
Thank you, Nick
I totally agree. You must know your audience and what they want. If can’t intrigue them, you’re definitely not going to be effective in getting your message across to them.