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.