Seven Reasons I Hated Your Speech | Bulldog Reporter

I thought this was a pretty good article to share because it makes some points about the need for both adequate preparation and adequate though to both delivery and content. It might be a little harsh on the "I Hated" but that is probably what an audience member is thinking. I often say those same things to my Coker College students but usually in a much nicer tone.


Seven Reasons I Hated Your Speech | Bulldog Reporter

So, why do they pay Speakers to Speak?

Ask just about any student who has had Puffer for Public Speaking what the number one rule is and you should hear -- Know the Audience.

Knowing the audience is really at the heart of a short discussion that http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifShttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifcott Berkun conducts in his book CONFESSIONS OF A PUBLIC SPEAKER (O'REILLY - 2009. The author discusses public speaking and particularly professional speaking from a story perspective that I found highly effective. He weaves a great many lessons into the personal and other examples he has developed. It is a rich read, especially for someone who has been doing a bit of public speaking. And, if you are one of those people, you will wonder about someday being paid to speak. The chapter title is "$30,000 and hour." But - read the book before you get too excited.

I like this idea that Berkun shared from page 33: "Even for private fu8nctions -- say, Google or Ferrari throws an annual event for their employees -- how much would it be worth to have a speaker who can make their staff a little smarter, better or more motivated when returning to work? Maybe it it's not worth $30,000 or even $5,000, but there is some economic value to what good speakers on the right topics do for people. it depends on how valuable the people in the room are to whoever is footing the bill. Even if it's just for entertainment, or for reminding the audience members of important things they've forgotten, a good speaker is worth something."

A speaker who understands that a major part of the job of speaking is knowing the audience and how to reach that audience is going to be worth money but even more importantly is going to be a speaker who is going to make a difference for those taking the time and making the effort to listen.

I was going to stop there but for what Scott Berkun might call a "gold coin" opportunity let me share with you what he says some speakers will making for an hour talk back in 2009: (page 32 & 33) Bill Clinton $150,000+; Katie Couric $100,000+; Malcolm Gladwell $80,000; Rachel Ray - $50,000. He had more examples but you might want to get his book to see the rest.

Be careful of undermining your presentation

Ragan Communication is a communication training and communication resource firm that offers a great deal of information on all matter of communication challenges. In their feed this morning there was a post about four crucial mistakes for corporate speech presentations by Angela Definis of Definis Communications. I think you will want to go to the link for the full discussion but her four major areas were:
1 -- Not appearing prepared to speak
2 -- Not keeping listeners' needs in mind (my favorite)
3 -- Not keeping with conventional etiquette
4 -- Not using a "speaker" tone (my least favorite)

Despite how I might feel about any of those blunders, she has extensive experience in coaching presentations and her summary is well written. It would be worth the read.

In all my Coker College communication courses I am afraid I preach Know Your Audience, which is why Number 2 is my favorite. Knowing your audience does not mean saying only what they want to hear -- it means knowing how to put your message into a frame they will understand. Often speakers use their personal perspective and ignore the audience perspective. When that happens it makes the entire presentation not worth the effort, expense and energy.

One difference between acting and presenting

Recently I was reminded about one MAJOR difference between acting and presenting. When you are acting, you are portraying a character who is not you. When you are presenting it is YOU in front of the audience.

During a recent speech by a local politician on our Coker College campus, some of the theater folks were wondering what he was doing out shaking hands with the audience in a a jovial meet & greet posture. They were not sure that was a good strategy. They were certain it was not something they would do prior to going on stage in a role.
Important Distiction
That is an important distinction between a person making a public speech and a person taking on a role. The speech maker is standing before the audience and in that stance is saying, "This is me." When I am talking with people about ways to minimize some of the anxiety, fear or discomfort they feel about giving a speech I often suggest getting to know some of the audience members. When I am fortunate enough to be giving a presentation to a group I try hard to be at the location early enough so that I can say hello, meet some of the people and carry on some short, pleasant conversation. For one thing it helps me get to know who is in the audience and for another thing, it helps the audience get to know a 'me' as me and not as the "speaker."

Actors have the job of creating a character for their audience. Speakers have the job of conveying themselves to the audience. Meeting prior to the presentation is often a good strategy for paving the way for presentation success.

The Naked Presenter about you being about the audience

It is a good bet that if you talk to any student who has taken any of my Coker College communication classes from introductory speech to crisis communication you will find them ready to expand on one important principle -- knowing your audience is the most important principle of communication.

When you read Garr Reynolds book, THE NAKED PRESENTER,(New Riders - 2011) you will get a really good answer to the often asked question, Why? Why do I need to the know the audience is a question I get a lot. "Look, my questioner will say, I have an important message to give and I am not going to sacrifice my message just because the audience might not have a long enough attention span. Or just because the audience might not be in the frame of mind to listen to what I have to say. Or, just because the audience is not really smart enough to understand what I have to say. It is my message and it is important." And, I just had a semblance of that conversation at a coffee shop yesterday as someone was asking me about the Reynold's book.

The whole reason people make presentations is to get their message into the minds of others so that things can happen. A presentation, even an informative speech, is about making change happen. To make this change happen your message needs to get noticed and then needs to get processed. If you ignore the wide variety of things that will get your audience to ignore YOUR message you will find that no matter how much material is covered YOU have not been successful. Reynolds, using is broad background in presentations, has created a relatively short, dynamic, powerful tool of insight that presenters can use to improve their chances of making change happen.

At the end of the book, Reynolds points out the major premise, "the theme of this book is that naturalness in delivery -- bringing more of your own unique personality to your presentations -- will amplify your messages in a what that will them noticed, understood and remembered." (p 193) Notice those process words in this theme -- Noticed, Understood, Remembered. Those three processes are all up to the audience. It is the speaker who crafts the presentation to make those happen.

Garr Reynolds has been living in Japan for much of his life and this book comes from that background of personal experience. And, that background is what gives strength to what is a book on presentations. His take very much involves his personal experience, which gives us a new lens through which to view presentations. To reinforce that last thought I want to borrow a quote he uses from the modern dance guru -- Martha Graham (p 160): "There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique."


THE NAKED PRESENTER is a unique look at presenting and public speaking that is accessible, enjoyable and knowledgeable and it helped this reader expand presentation boundaries.

The Naked Presenter replete with experts

Garr Reynolds is author of THE NAKED PRESENTER and one of the little things he does as he brings public speaking challenges to life is include comments by many experts -- most of the comments from relatively recent publications or talks. I like Reynolds' work because it dovetails with a lot of my personal ideas on public speaking. In a very real sense my reading of Reynolds is an example of Selective Exposure and Selective Perception. By the way, those are interesting concepts that speakers should at least recognize even if you don't have a complete understanding. We talk about those concepts in several of the Coker College communication classes that I teach.

I am not yet through with the Reynolds book but I have been impressed with the experts and the sources he has been noting in his chapters. I thought it might be useful to discuss where some of this information is coming from.

First, I was surprised to be introduced to the name of Christopher Craft who has a business called PalmettoLearning LLC. Craft is a resource for effective teaching based in Columbia, SC. It is interesting to me that an author living in Japan provided my first exposure to Craft. in the Naked Presenter Craft is given the opportunity to share some information about avoiding cognitive overload. (p 37)

Another two-page feature presentation was staged by Les Posen, who was in the book to discuss dealing with the fear of public speaking from a neuroscience perspective.

This post would drag far too long if I put in all the sources mentioned by Reynolds but there are some additional books that are really gems. One is Brain Rules by Dr. John Medena - Pear Press 2009. Excellent on many levels.

A third book is not even out at Amazon though it is in the pre-order stages and this is Guy Kawasaki's newest book -- ENCHANTMENT - THE ART OF CHANGING HEARTS, MINDS AND ACTIONS.

David Rock, a psychologist, is a master thinker in the field of human performance and his book THE BRAIN AT WORK gets some regular notice in THE NAKED PRESENTER.

Author proposed a PUNCH to open speech

In another post I mentioned being able to talk to a couple of classes of seventh graders at Tanglewood Middle School in Greenville, SC about how to produce a dynamic speech introduction. I think they might have liked the advice that a well known presentation guru gives in his newest book, THE NAKED PRESENTER. Garr Reynolds suggests the PUNCH idea for an attention-grabbing speech introduction.

Books and blogs are one way of trying to stay abreast of new information and Reynolds, in addition to this book, maintains a blog called Presentation Zen. If you look at much about presentations in today's search engines, you are bound to find a lot of references to the Reynolds ideas.

What does the acronym P U N C H stand for? Reynolds says you can punch up your introduction if you find a relevant PERSONAL STORY that will get immediate reaction from your audience. He notes that the UNEXPECTED is another great way and his ideas about engaging the audience through challenging their preconceptions is interesting. NOVELTY is also something that can command that attention. Most of us will give a second thought to something we may not have heard previously. If you CHALLENGE an audience in an attempt to move them from their comfort zone it is very likely you will be crafting an attention getting opening. Finally, the H is for HUMOR. Reynolds is quick to caution the potential speaker (presenter) that you are not telling jokes, you are finding humor in situations that related directly and specifically to what you are discussing.

Start your next presentation with a PUNCH and see if you don't get some warmer applause. I am looking forward to fitting in some of Reynolds' ideas into my Coker College speech classes following this semester sabbatical.

Professional Speakers have their own networks

Steve Siebold is a speaker, a marketer and a blogger. He blogs about ways of breaking into the professional public speaking business and while I have not been able to take advantage of his seminars, I think he may be a strong resource for those wanting to become highly paid speakers. The blog he distributed most recently has several short videos that give potential professionals or professionals some idea of the resources that he is making available. For those who are not aspiring to the professional level, these blog posts can be a source of inspiration for your own speaking ventures at whatever level you are speaking from the classroom to the meeting room.

From the perspective of a my role as a college professor of public speaking, I find Siebold's approaches interesting and I do share when I get the opportunity for teaching an advanced public speaking class at Coker College.

Presentation God is interesting read

Scott Schwertly is an expert in presentations and you get more than an inkling of how much he knows as you go through his newest book, HOW TO BE A PRESENTATION GOD by Wiley and Sons with a copyright of 2011. He crams a lot of information into the book but I found the underlying philosophy of presenting to be the most valuable content. There are several sentences that might summarize his philosophy but I am going to chooose this one: "Our worst enemy is our own low expectations. What if the opportunity at hand is far, far bigger than anything you could have imagined? What would you do? Don't just make a living, Change the world."

He points out in this book that on a daily basis more than 30 million face to face presentations are made. He calls this about the oldest form of mass communication and he seems to have a point. After all, we are still using the principles espoused by Aristotle ON RHETORIC as the foundation for our rhetorical skills training today.

Schwertly brings the reader up to date with presentation software ideas and with a detailed description of several key audiences, which in themselves make the book worth its price.

Students who have had me for public speaking at Coker College know my three major rules of being successful on the platform: Know your audience; Know you are prepared; Know your subject. Schwertly does a good job of explaining the whys and hows of these three principles, which may be why I enjoyed the book so much.

Grading Obama: The President Earns a B+ for His State of the Union Presentation—Here’s What He Did Right, Wrong and What It All Means to Communicators

The State of the Union is an important speech for the nation. The lead up to this year's State of the Union put a great deal of pressure on the tone and I think the President came off with the tone of continuing hope and optimism. Now, I am a person who believes that there is a significant role for government and the President did defend the role of government. At the same time he also provided some interesting thinking about careful spending. One media trainer had an early blog grading the President's speech and I have included that in this write up.



Grading Obama: The President Earns a B+ for His State of the Union Presentation—Here’s What He Did Right, Wrong and What It All Means to Communicators

Interesting article from Marketing Profs

There is an interesting article on the MARKETING PROFS web site that discusses public speaking and presentations. He has eight or nine tips. One of his tips is to minimize technology and the other tips generally talk about what you do with the technology you decide to use in the presentation. I really think he could have reemphasized the idea of leave the technology at home because people are wanting to hear your ideas and generally the technology is going to get in the way.

The best tip he has in the article is No Notes. "It is a little unauthentic...", he says. Really, you should know your content and be organized in MAIN POINT structure and be able to adapt your talk to the audience, the time available and the goal you have for making the presentation. That is all easy to write but not always as easy to implement.

So, I will end with one of my continuing public speaking tips. If it has been awhile since you have been in front of audiences, become a Toastmaster. That group makes a rapid difference in a motivated person's ability to become an effective public speaker. Or, if you are a student at a place like Coker College, make sure you get to the speaking classes and then take every opportunity offered to get in front of audiences.

Books are a great place for "Material"

One of the major challenges for many beginning speakers is figuring out what to talk about. Most of these beginning speakers have a great many things they are doing and hope to do but often do not think about those things as speech material. We do a lot of brainstorming in my Coker College classes to come up with speech ideas. While I hear from many of these student that they don't read I continue to encourage them to look to books for both subjects and for speech-content material.

We are in a season when lots of people are summarizing their reading of the past year and I think some of these lists could be useful for speakers looking for ideas. Tim Elmore, who is a leadership trainer and also a frequent speaker, just posted his 12 top books from 2010. This is a good example of a list that could help others begin to find "material" for their talks -- both in class and in their real lives. This idea is not only good for students but can also work for people who are members of Toastmasters and other speaking groups.

I just finished a book by Steven Johnson about where ideas come from and this book could be good for a year's worth of speech material. In addition, he has a major bibliography in his notes section that is excellent for people who might be thinking, writing and talking on such subjects as innovation and creativity, learning, leadership, etc.