When you are giving an oral presentation there are several ways to go about engaging an audience. The best place to start is to know your audience. For example, you should use a different approach if you are presenting to a group of elementary school children than you would if you were presenting to a group of professionals. If you were giving a presentation to elementary school students you would likely want to keep the presentation brief and show a lot of visuals and even demonstrations. If you were giving a presentation to a group of professionals you would probably prepare for a longer and more in-depth presentation. You would probably use more technical language and rely less on visuals. However, no matter who you are presenting to, there are a few tips to giving presentations that can apply to all situations.
The first tip is to engage your audience with eye contact. This is a tip that we have all heard time and time again, but it is a skill that most presenters have not mastered. Strong eye contact can be especially difficult if the presenter is using note cards. Many presenters will rely too heavily on their prepared note cards and only briefly glance up at the audience between sentences. If you want to most effectively engage your audience with eye contact you need to hold eye contact with your audience. The best way to do this is to make eye contact with one member of the audience, hold that eye contact for a second or two, and then move on to make eye contact with other members of the audience. It is not always effective to scan the back wall behind the audience, as it can be very obvious to the audience that you are not making true eye contact.
Another technique that engages me as a member of the audience is displaying confidence. Many people become nervous at the thought of public speaking, and become even more nervous as they step up on the stage or behind the podium. Nervousness is usually obvious to members of the audience. Shaky legs and hands are obvious to the audience. Nervous movements such as these can be very distracting to the audience. The best way to avoid nervousness is to be completely prepared. If you have done the appropriate research and rehearsed your presentation several times you should be confident. The audience can detect confidence.
A third technique that engages me as a member of the audience is displaying enthusiasm. For different people, displaying enthusiasm means different things. For some people enthusiasm means moving around the stage. For others enthusiasm means smiling and alternating the pitch of their voice. For some, enthusiasm means making hand gestures. The speaker should engage in whichever one of these techniques feels natural and comfortable to them. The speaker should keep in mind one word of warning when displaying enthusiasm. Whatever display of enthusiasm the speaker chooses to engage in, it should not be distracting or otherwise take away from the presentation.
One example of a presentation that grasps my attention, holds my focus, gets me interested and inspired to act is a Steve Jobs presentation. The link at the bottom of this post is a link to a You Tube video titled “Present like Steve Jobs.” This video is great for anyone who would like additional tips on giving effective and engaging presentations. Some of the tips that are given in the video include providing a clear and consistent theme, providing an outline, make numbers and statistics meaningful, make it visual, and rehearse. I would like to hear what others think of this video and the tips given.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-ntLGOyHw4
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteBetween this blog post and the video I think you nailed it on the head. These are very good tips and any presenter that skips even one of these threatens to ruin their speech. This is especially true with regards to enthusiasm, eye contact and confidence. Also, these correlate directly to the video. The video talks about inspiring and making the speech meaningful, but without enthusiasm there is no way it can be inspirational.
ReplyDeleteAt some point or another most people are asked to present on a topic that they are less than enthusiastic about. These speeches tend to be the boring, monotonous and long. As an audience member, if the person trying to sell/present an object is less than enthusiastic, there is no reason for me to pay attention either. However, enthusiasm can be taken a little too far. As boring as this sounds, one of my favorite past times is to watch infomercials on TV. It helps that I do not have cable, because the digital service is constantly filled with advertisements for something. Nonetheless, these people need to present a public argument, but most people do not want to hear what they have to say. The actors have about 10 seconds to convince the viewer not to change the channel. For me it is the opposite. The facial expressions and the commentaries are hilarious causing me to stay hooked for up to an hour. Most recently the craze has been over The Snuggie. The actors for the Snuggie try to make it seem that it is impossible to live without, while at the same time making themselves look like idiotic cult members. If you haven’t seen the Snuggie commercial I strongly recommend it! Nonetheless, I never actually purchase the merchandise, but there is always some entertainment value. For many people, these commercials are boring and it could be because of the actor’s over-enthusiasm. There needs to be a balance between an eccentric enthusiasm and boredom. This is where Steve Jobs really exceeds. He is passionate about his projects, but not over the top. He uses many different adjectives to persuade the audience that his product is the best.
Another place where he excels is through his use of visuals. It is more appealing to an audience to actually have something to look at rather than a meaningless power point with tons of words that reiterate exactly what the presenter is saying. It is really annoying to me when PowerPoint presentations are overly wordy. Some professors have a problem with this, as they tend to put all the information on the big screen. I usually stop focusing on what they are saying, and relying solely on the PowerPoint. On the other hand, if a professor uses props or examples in front of the classroom, I not only listen to them, but I am actively seeing the process they are talking about! My Geology class is a perfect example of this. There are two professors for the class and one of them just puts everything up on the board. I really do not remember much from her lectures; however the other professor always has rock examples or props to help convey her message. This really helps, because when I get to discussion I can remember exactly what we were talking about in lecture!
My discussion creates a whole different story. My TA for that class is very young, nervous and never confident. It is hard to really trust and listen to a person if they are scared to actually talk in front of a group of students. Going away from the realm of academia, presenters or salesmen need to be confident as well. Confidence and enthusiasm go hand in hand. Usually if someone is not confident they will also lack enthusiasm.
However, the sad part of the story is I lack the ability to really apply all of these characteristics for a good speech. Even if I practice and rehearse for hours, I tense up and am unable to display confidence or enthusiasm. This is a recent problem, as I used to have no fears at all. Hopefully, this issue will be resolved, because I do not want to be a hypocrite. I always have to keep in mind the things that engage me, because I want to be able to present with enthusiasm and confidence.
The tips you covered are the basic goals that any good speaker should try to achieve when speaking. Without having all three, the audience will not give the speaker their full attention. There are a few other little tips for engaging an audience that I can think of that may seem obvious but a lot of people do forget.
ReplyDeleteOne way to keep the audience focused on the message is to minimize distractions. An example of a distraction can be what the speaker has on that could result in the audience looking at the speaker and not listening to what he is saying. One of my instructors this semester stopped wearing his bright colored shoes because too many students were looking at his feet. The speaker should dress appropriately for the situation and keep his overall appearance neutral.
Another thing that keeps me engaged is how well the speaker is conveying information. This includes staying on topic before moving on to another, speaking clearly and evenly without long pauses or speaking too fast, and using tools that reinforce what is being said. This is basically what is expected in the classroom and lecture hall of an instructor, but it applies to any type of public speaking. If the speaker interrupts himself to tell lots of stories or changes topics rapidly the audience will have difficultly understanding and may be left confused rather than informed. Also, pacing is very important because if information is delivered too fast or too slow the audience won’t be able to process what is being said. My high school geometry teacher could not speak slowly for some reason and we had to ask her to repeat things. I think she was speaking so fast to save time but in the end it wasn’t working. Relying heavily on note cards like you mentioned, breaks eye contact and also get sin the way of pacing.
The Youtube video mentions how Steve Jobs uses visuals to reinforce what he is saying. Many speakers try to do that but often wind up distracting or confusing their audience, especially with PowerPoint. Many speakers will try and put lots of information on their slides thinking that the audience will learn more, but usually they wind up reading what’s on the slides and not listening at all. I’ve been in lectures where the instructor uses PowerPoint with a lot of text on each slide and I spend most of the time copying what’s on the slides instead of listening. I think Steve Jobs’ technique of presenting very simple sides is the best way to convey a lot of information visually.
Discussing what it takes to be a good speaker shows that it is not easy. It takes a lot of practice to refine each skill and over time one can get better. What you covered in your post are real good starting points that will improve the amateur’s style when he hasn’t mastered the other skills yet.