Public Speaking Advice and Commentary

Announcing the winners of the 'Worst Conference' contest

Thanks to all who participated in the “Worst Conference Experience Ever” contest.  We have a winner – a standout – and that could only be the entry from Mike, regarding the speaker who read from the tax code for “several hours with minimal commentary.”  I’m sure everyone will join in and offer their sympathy to the poor CFO who attended that presentation. 

Mike, you win an hour’s free (telephone) coaching for help in preparing any speech or presentation you have coming up.  Let me know via nick@publicwords.com how you’d like to schedule. 

Second place goes to Chris, who attended a Chamber of Commerce meeting (already, he’s got my sympathies) to hear from a judge who set an alarm clock up to keep himself to 20 minutes – only to hit the snooze button repeatedly, going on and on until the room was virtually deserted.  I wonder if the judge’s pronouncements from the bench are as long-winded!

Chris, you win a copy of my latest book, Trust Me:  Four Steps to Authenticity and Charisma.  Please send your snail mail address to nick@publicwords.com to receive your prize.

Third place goes to Piet, whose heart-rending description of the conference where the speaker was a no-show, but delivered the speech via texting to his assistant in real time does deserve mention for the most surreal and stupid solution to a vexing problem. 

Piet, send me your snail mail address and you also get a copy of the latest book.

Again, thanks to everyone who participated, and congratulations to the winners.

Authenticity - 2: 8 ways to connect with audiences

This is the second of a series of blogs on achieving authenticity in public communications.  Authenticity is the sine qua non of our age. We all want it, and when it’s lacking in a public figure, we turn off to that person.  I talk more about authenticity in my book, Trust Me:  Four Steps to Authenticity and Charisma, but these blogs will cover a condensed discussion of the topic. 

The second step in achieving authenticity is to be connected.  Connected communication deals with the audience’s concerns.  Following are eight ways to connect with an audience through your content. 

Connected communication is phrased in the audience’s own language. This is a simple point, but one that many forget.  Insider language, jargon, identification with those you’re communicating with: all of these can strengthen the connection if they are used to highlight the bond between you.  Of course, if the jargon gets in the way of communication or sounds forced or fake, it won’t work. But used as a gesture of solidarity, it can have great impact.

Connected communication is direct and simple. Communication that cuts through the usual clutter, euphemisms, and verbiage can be powerfully effective. When you start with a truth that hasn’t been uttered out loud before, you get people’s attention. We’re so used to being sold in today’s marketing-saturated world that simple language about real concerns can cut through the noise.

Connected communication uses you and we more than I.  People like to hear about themselves, and, with rare exceptions, they like having the focus on them. Your language is a tip-off as to how well you’re accomplishing that. If you’re using the word I a great deal, you’re not communicating; you’re soliloquizing.

Connected communication is reciprocal. For the most part, people feel obligated to listen if you’ve listened to them.  Some self-absorbed people never reciprocate, but most of us do because the golden rule is deeply baked into our psyches.  So a good way to begin a communication is to find out what the other person (or group) has on its mind.

Connected communication is consistent. We don’t like to experience ourselves as inconsistent, so if I can snare your attention once, I’m likely to be able to get it again unless I’ve abused the privilege.  People prefer the familiar to the strange in most things. It’s why clichés are clichés, after all. Why go to all the work of developing a new source or finding a new expert if the old one will do?  So find ways to reinforce the consistency of your message. 

Connected communication is social. If everyone’s doing it, we’re more likely to join in unless we have an oppositional streak. Communications success breeds communications success.  This explains fads and the popularity of otherwise inexplicable things (like Barry Manilow).  Here, it helps to have someone introduce you stressing your social success.

We connect better with people who are like us.   Again, this is a simple rule that is often forgotten. In a world awash with information, especially if we feel threatened or disoriented by that overload of new data, we tend to go tribal and safe and cluster with people most like ourselves. Similarly, we are likely to recognize first the things that are most familiar to us: ourselves and the habits and activities we always engage in.  So find ways to tell your audience you are like them. 

Finally, and paradoxically, we also connect better with ideas, communications, and people whom we perceive to be unusual, scarce, or rare.  We are perverse creatures and can one day ignore and the next day embrace an idea, a communication, or a person who is unusual to us. Indeed, an opposing and equally powerful human urge, in contrast to the tribal instinct, is to take the stranger in and make him or her familiar.  So take your audience on a journey into the unknown.

Announcing the Worst Conference Experience Ever Contest

Recently, I called for an improvement in the way conferences are run and pointed out that the current downturn is an opportunity to make some long-overdue changes in conference behavior.  Conferences should involve their audiences more, and in more significant ways.  Conferences should tell coherent stories, not fill endless time slots. And conferences should use MCs as audience representatives.  Among other changes. 

To further promote these ends, I’m announcing a contest for the best story about the worst conference experience you’ve ever had.  First prize is an hour’s free telephone coaching either for a speech or a conference design.  Second and third prizes are copies of my new book, Trust Me:  Four Steps to Authenticity and Charisma. 

The contest begins with this posting and will run through the end of next week.  Entries must be 200 words or less, and my decision is final.

So bring it on.  Was it a memorably bad speaker?  A particularly stupid theme or breakout session?  A location?  An audience?  What made the experience awful?  Dish it out, and we’ll compare notes as they come in.  It’s time to raise the game by punishing the evil-doers.

A Conference (and Meeting) Manifesto - How They Can Be Better

The meetings and conference business has taken hits from the economy and Joe Biden telling everyone he wants his family to stay off airplanes.  But, much like the overall economy, the business is slowly turning around, or at least slowing its decline.  So this is a good time to take a moment to consider the conference business in general.  What could it do better when it comes roaring back in 2010?  Following are my three radical suggestions for improving meetings and conferences. 

1.  Conferences and meetings should tell unique stories.   Think about how conferences and meetings are typically planned.  A committee picks a theme.  Then someone finds a keynote speaker to open, and maybe one to close.  Then the committee divides the rest of the time up into 60-minute slots and fills them with ‘breakouts’, panels, workshop leaders, and so on.  The result?  From the conference-goer’s point of view, it’s like a regular workday, only worse.  You’ve got back-to-back meetings to attend, a day or days you don’t get to schedule, and uncomfortable seating.  The only choice you get to exercise is not to take part in some or all of the sessions.  Then you feel guilty for sneaking off to the gym, or your hotel room, or the bar. 

It’s a dreary prospect, because it could be so much better.  A conference should tell a story, one that unfolds and builds from the initial moments to the close.  Like any good story, there should be moments of high excitement, followed by moments of relative calm.  That’s different from panic and boredom in ceaseless alternation - a typical experience of a meeting now.  A good meeting should make linear sense from start to finish, in a way that allows attendees to retain what they see and hear rather than just feeling overwhelmed by the information. 

2.  Conferences should be for, by, and about the attendees.  A meeting or conference should feel participative, and you, the meeting attendee, should have some significant part in it beyond being a warm body.  Attendees should react, critique, judge, schedule, and vote for what they like and don’t like.  And that’s just for starters. There are many ways to give attendees a larger role in meetings and conferences, from making them part of panel discussions to creating discussion groups to having them manage Q and A. 

Every meeting should have an MC, or MCs, and they should do more than just point out the bathrooms and introduce the next speaker.  They should integrate, challenge, pull together, combine, disrupt, and generally function as the representative of the attendees, making sense of it all and demanding more from the speakers and other leaders.

3.  Conferences should be about more than just eating and sitting.   We live more and more of our lives in the splendid isolation of the Internet, with all the faux connectors like Facebook, Twitter, email, and the rest.  Getting together is an increasingly rare and important privilege.  Meetings and conferences should be constructed to take advantage of the gathered group.  Every meeting or conference should use the power of the group to give something back to the community in which the meeting is held.  Help a local charity, fix a local problem, champion a local hero, start a new movement.  There are many ways one could imagine making use of the combined energies of the people assembled.  It’s a crime to waste that gathered power. 

To be sure, some meetings and conferences do some of these things now, but not enough, and few, if any, get them all done.  Meetings take their toll on the environment, the workplace, and the families of the attendees.  It’s time to raise the conference stakes and make them serve us better. 

Questions for speakers to ask meeting planners

Following is a list of questions that speakers should ask meeting planners in getting ready to speak at an event.  You won't need to ask all of them all the time; the list is meant to give you a broad set of ideas. 

A.  The Venue

When is the speech taking place?
Where?
How many in the audience?
What time of day? How long should the speech be?
Will the audience be eating or have eaten?
What is the hall like?
Is there lighting?
What is the sound like?
The layout?
Are there backdrops, sets, stages, props, podia?
Are there barriers between speaker and audience?
How long is the audience’s day?
How many other speakers?
What is the nature and content of those speeches?
What kind of chair is the audience in?
How long have they sat there?
What is the event theme?
Slogan? 
What is the arrangement for slides and other visuals?
How quiet is the hall? 
Is there background noise?
When can we get in the hall for rehearsal?

B.  The Audience

Describe the audience
What is the age range?
Socio-economics?
Do they know each other?
Do they work for the same or difference orgs?
Describe the organization(s)?
What should my talk be about?
What is the point of the event for the audience?
How is the audience feeling?
What is the business climate?
What does the audience fear most?
What are their hopes and dreams?
What makes them laugh or cry?
What makes them worry?
What do they need to succeed?
What are their cultural references?
What is they worst speaker they’ve ever seen?
What would you like them to do differently as a result of the talk?
Who are their heroes and villains?
What are their recent successes and failures?
Why are they there?
Have you made any arrangements to get feedback? 
A DVD?

C.  The Speech

Why did you pick me?
Who or what determines the success or failure of this event?
How will that be measured?
How does the idea of my speech work for your event?
Give me some audience members that are great (or bad) examples of the points of my speech?
Can I interview them?
What is the problem the audience has for which my expertise is the solution?
Is the audience expecting interactivity?
Is the audience used to Power Point?
Can I ask for volunteers?
How many of them will have read my book?
Can we arrange for a signing/sales event?
What journey do you want the audience to go on?
Why should the audience pay attention to my speech?
How will you know if they have taken something important away from the speech?

What should Seth Godin have done? How do you respond to a last-minute change?

Yesterday, I commented on Seth Godin’s TED.com speech, overall finding it impressive, and making a few suggestions for improvement.  Seth commented on one of those, and his comment has raised an interesting question:  what do you do when you discover that the event organizer has thrown you a last-minute curve?

In Seth’s case, it was a piano in the middle of the stage, eating up the space he normally has for working the audience.  What could Seth have done to cope?

First of all, let’s say that the event organizer had no business messing with a speaker’s mind at the last minute.  The speaker is in adrenaline mode, and it is very hard to change directions under those conditions and with that kind of time pressure.  A pro like Seth has a last-minute series of preparations to go through, and it is unfair and unprofessional to interrupt those with sudden, 11th-hour changes.

But it happens.  So what do you do?  You’ve got to confront it, come up with a plan, deal with it immediately, and get it off your mind.  Otherwise, the result is that it detracts from your performance because it takes up that part of your brain that would normally be delivering a brilliant speech. 

That’s what adrenaline is for:  facing and dealing with problems.  So focus on the issue, come up with a solution – probably imperfect – and then move on.  Don’t second-guess yourself.

The most common curve thrown by meeting planners is the following:  “We’re running a little late, and we need you to shave 20 minutes off your presentation.” 

What do you do? 

This happens so often that you need to have 1-hour, 40-minute, and 20-minute versions of your talk ready to go at all times.  In other words, deal with this one by being prepared in advance so that you won’t be surprised. 

The other kind of last-minute issue that happens all the time is the technology problem.  The room is too bright, making your slides invisible.  The sound system doesn’t have enough volume to make your video audible.  The computer you have is not compatible in some way with the system.  And so on.  The possibilities are endless. 

The response?  Bring back ups.  Lots of back ups.  Everything technological that your presentation depends on should have back ups.  And one more thing:  have a version of your speech ready to go that involves NO TECHNOLOGY.  Think of it as the candlelight version.  One day, you’ll thank me. 

So what should Seth have done when he found that instead of a stage to work in he basically had a closet with no walls? 

He should have used the piano.  In some way.  Always recognize the gorilla in the room.  He might have started by sitting on the piano bench.  Or on the piano.  Perhaps he could have begun by singing (and playing) happy birthday for the event organizer, if in addition to his other talents Seth is musically gifted. 

The exact solution depends on the moment.  But when an event organizer throws you a curve like that, you’ve got to deal with it and move on.  If it’s a real problem, like a sudden decimating of the size of the stage, then it’s best to bring it up, briefly and positively, and move on.  The audience will be on your side if you handle the issue expeditiously and with charm and dispatch. 

How to survive a panel

Panels are a low form of public speaking.  It's a lazy, cheap way for a conference planner to fill an hour or 90 minutes.  But you get what you pay for in this as in other things.  Rarely does a panel provide memorable content. 

The success or failure of a panel in the end all depends on the moderator.  A good moderator can tie the ideas together, challenge people, and keep the conversation going.  I've probably seen that happen twice in my 20 years of conference-going.  Usually a panel is a depressing spectacle of speakers overrunning their time, repeating themselves, or rambling inexcusably because they haven’t prepared since ‘it wasn’t a real speech'.  There’s very little interaction between the panelists, the moderator just sits back and watches the train wreck, and the audience’s time is wasted.  

How can you improve upon this pitiful record?  Let’s imagine you’ve been invited to be on a panel.  Audiences always say they wish the one good person on the panel had been allowed to speak for the entire time.  So your goal is to be that one good person.  What are the secrets?

First, make it a little easier for the moderator by preparing a good introduction that provides some 'hooks' for the moderator to know what to ask you.  "Jim is well-known for his controversial opinions on the proper temperature of yak milk for optimal storage life."

Second, prepare a 10-minute speech that leaves out detail but hits one controversial point, and has the overall structure of a good, persuasive speech, just in 'lite' form.  Prepare questions and answers by deciding what you would like to be asked and then prep the answers so that no matter what the question, you get to put yourself forward in an interesting way and in a good light.  "I'm glad you asked me that question about little green men.  What I find, in my experience, is that it's not so much the specific case that matters as the general rule.  So, for example, when I'm thinking about the issue of how IT can help the business......" OK, an extreme case, but you get the idea.

Third, if you want to overachieve, study the other panelists and their ideas in advance, and make friendly, polite comments when answering your questions that refer back to them.  "As Bill rightly says, it's not the bytes, it's the bits.  What I find, in my experience is that...."  or "Let's not forget Jane's point about the future of Oracle.  Just the other day, I was talking with President Obama about where IT was headed, and I told him...."

The other panelists will be so pleased that you mentioned their names that they won't care (too much) if you don't spend a lot of time on their ideas.  Just reference them and move on.   Even better, link your ideas and theirs in meaningful ways.  Your audience will deeply appreciate the help. 

Finally, if you really want to overachieve, call the other panelists in advance and interview them.  Ask them what they're going to say.  You'll find out a lot about their personalities, which will help you prepare for the spotlight hogs and the cranky, idiosyncratic nay-sayers.  And you can do the moderator’s work to an extent by linking the ideas together and drawing some conclusions for the whole. 

Why is most public speaking so awful?

Why is most public speaking so awful? Why do we subject our fellow human beings to this form of torture when there are so many better things we could all be doing, like cutting our toenails, baking snickerdoodles, or watching re-runs of The Prisoner? You’re in a ballroom with no windows in some random airport hotel. The lighting is dim. The whir of the heating system fills your ears with white noise. The colors around you are shades of grey and beige with puce trimmings. You’re only awake because you’ve had 1300 cups of coffee from the urn in the hallway. Let the speaking games begin. It’s a diabolical sensory deprivation experiment. Why is most public speaking so awful? Beyond soulless venues and Death by Power Point, speakers make the same four mistakes over and over again, continuing the sorry state of the art.....

For the rest of this free e-book:  http://www.changethis.com/58.06.PublicWords

Humor in public speaking -- 1: How to use traditional humor

Humor is hazardous to the health of public speakers.  Most speakers want to be funny, but you’ve got to do humor well, or it falls flat and that’s worse than no humor at all.  This week, in honor of May and May Day, I’m going to talk about how to manage humor in public speaking. 

Traditional jokes – with punch lines – are the hardest to do.  My first rule of the week is, don’t try traditional humor.  But if you’re determined – or you think you’re funny – then here are a couple of tips for making the experience good for both you and the audience. 

Let’s start with an example of a funny speech:  http://tinyurl.com/c67xez.  Emily Levine is a self-proclaimed trickster and a very funny person.  She’s Harvard-trained and still manages to be hilarious.  Does that make her a Type-A comedian?  Anyway, Emily’s humor is all about finding the contradictions in modern life that we’ve stopped noticing.  Stuff like the following sign in a beauty salon:

Ears pierced while you wait. 

Just imagine the alternative.  I’ll leave my ears hear until 5.  I’ve got a couple of errands to run.  But I’ll be back to pick them up.  What?  I couldn’t hear you. 

Trickster humor is all about finding those sorts of contradictions and pointing them out.  Also about crossing boundaries that are normally left intact.  If there were an Olympics in martyrdom, my grandmother would have lost on purpose…..

Check out Emily and learn from her.  She’s a comedian in the classic sense – she tells jokes.  That’s very hard to do.  As you watch the talk, note how she ‘sells’ her jokes with her body.  When she talks about not hanging up on telemarketers, because Emily Post says it’s rude, she devises another strategy.  After the telemarketer has delivered about half his pitch, she says, “I interrupted with, ‘You sound really sexy’.  He hung up on me!”  She says the ‘really sexy’ line with a husky voice, and sells the punch line with a pelvic stance.  The tone of voice and the posture are essential to the humor. 

So, if you’re determined to attempt traditional comedy in your speeches, then practice selling the jokes with your body language and voice.  You’re got to be 100 percent committed to the joke – body and all.  And then you’ve got to have a back up plan for recovery.  Study tapes of Johnny Carson – he was the master of what to do when the first joke goes flat.  Often his comebacks and reactions were funnier than the original line. 

Beyond that, look for the contradictions.  That’s where the humor is, and the punch lines.  Traditional humor is all about setting up expectations and then violating them, crossing the boundaries of expectation.  And finding connections where no one else sees them.  Good luck. 

Five steps to creating a successful public speaking career

Dan Schawbel, a great blogger on personal branding (http://personalbrandingblog.com/), has just published a book on creating your own brand:  http://tinyurl.com/4un6g2.  It’s clear, concise, and useful for public speakers seeking to establish and grow a successful career.  It’s aimed at 20-somethings trying to ace the job market, but the advice in it constitutes a great primer for speakers of any age starting out and seeking to get a career going.  So, with thanks to Dan, here are my 5 steps to a successful public speaking career.

1.  Focus on your audience.  Speakers starting out usually are ready to speak to anyone, anytime, about anything.  But focus is the better way to go.  In an information-saturated age, people can’t get a fix on who you are if you try to be everything to everyone.  Instead, pick an audience and a topic.  Focus on them and you will be able to build your brand more quickly.

Questions Dan asks early on are a great place to start thinking about your niche as a speaker:

What would you like to accomplish?
Who is your target audience?
What brand elements will they respond well to?  Poorly to?
What brands (read: speakers) are successful and why?
How can you best showcase your talents through your brand?

2.  Become the expert in your area of focus.  It’s a big old world, and information is endless.  You can’t know it all.  Pick an area of focus and use that as a filter through which to look at the world.  Then check out every bit of news, opinion, and research in that area.  You’ll soon become knowledgeable and adept at sorting through all the latest developments in that field.  If you use the social media correctly, including your blog, people will soon come to you for expertise on that subject.  That will fuel the other aspects of your career.

3.  Establish the 3 points of your personal brand triangle.  Virtually all the speakers we work with have 3 areas of their business they focus on:  speaking, writing, and consulting.  Your income streams from each will vary, but be clear about what you want.  Are you primarily a speaker?  Then prepare for a life on the road and establish systems to support you in that.  Are you primarily a consultant who speaks occasionally?  Then figure out what companies and individuals will pay you for your advice.  Are you primarily an author?  That’s the toughest way to go, because of the nature of the book business.  Be prepared to write a lot, for many different outlets.  Create contacts in the journalism world and maintain those contacts assiduously. 

4.  Use social media to create and maintain your brand.  There’s good news here.  Just a few years ago, you were dependent on media to get the word out about you.  That meant cultivating contacts and begging them to talk about you.  But today you can start a blog, develop a Twitter following, and set up a Facebook page, and so on.  Each of these outlets supports and feeds the others if you do them right, and the result is that you can control the extent to which the world knows you.  Dan’s book is good on the subject of getting a blog going, as well as the other social media outlets.  Also study David Meerman Scott's blog and books; he's the grand master of social media and how PR works these days:  http://www.davidmeermanscott.com/.  His book, The New Rules of Marketing and PR is the classic in the field, and a huge bestseller:  http://tinyurl.com/dk9y9l

5.  Present yourself as a consummate professional.   The speaking business is highly lucrative, and highly competitive.  It’s intolerant of amateurs.  Speakers’ bureaus, meeting planners, association professionals – they are all risk averse.  They are your customers!  Treat them right.  They’re putting on a big conference, and they don’t want screw-ups.  That means that every interaction you have with them should be designed to put yourself forward as someone who will deliver an outstanding product with no muss, no fuss.  Your web site, your blog, all your marketing materials from your one-sheet to your DVD to your press kit all have to say ‘professional’ – and then the experience of you has to reinforce that.  If you deliver, you’ll get another chance.  If you screw up, they’ll never look at you again.  Word travels fast in this business. 

The 5 worst (and widespread) rules about public speaking

We work with clients all the time who have absorbed rules from somewhere about public speaking.  Usually those rules are bad and get in the way of successful presenting.  Following are the 5 worst we regularly see.

1.  “Tell ‘em what you’re going to say, say it, and tell ‘em what you said.”  This old chestnut is still widely believed.  It comes from WWII, when the Army worked out a way to ensure that all soldiers got the same marching orders and remembered them.  The soldiers that survived the war came back, went into business, and started spreading the word.  The problem is that the Army’s presentations didn’t have to be interesting or engaging.  These were soldiers!  They were taking orders!  You do have to be interesting and engage your audiences.  So unless you want the people in front of you to be diving for their Blackberries, don’t repeat like they did in the Army.

2.  “A good presentation has to have slides.  Has to!”  So widespread is the use of Power Point and its clones that there is a widespread belief that you have to use slides to give a presentation and it is always better if you do.  In fact, while there are certain kinds of presentations that do benefit from slides, many do not.  Keynote speeches should NEVER use slides, unless you’ve climbed Mount Everest and you’ve got some amazing summit shots.  Can you imagine President Obama using slides during his inaugural address?  Real leaders don't use Power Point.  Slides all too often become a barrier between speaker and audience, not to mention a crutch for the speaker.  If your slides are actually speaker notes that you read, mostly, that’s a sign that you are horribly misusing slides.  Think of slides as illustrations for the audience of points that you’re making that can really only be appreciated through pictures (or graphs or pie charts).  Everything else is speaker notes, and should not be shown to the audience.  Just to anticipate one set of comments, yes, if you're a trainer, and you're speaking for a day, or three, then slides can help. 

3.  “A speech is a formal occasion.  It’s not the same as a conversation.  Different rules apply.”  This is a tricky one, because it used to be true.  When FDR and Churchill strode the earth, a speech was a more formal occasion.  Both of those orators began to change the genre by using colloquial language and direct address to the people.  Television then accelerated the process.  We now expect our leaders, celebrities, and stars to speak to us conversationally, because we’ve seen them do it for years.  As a result, unless speakers do the same, they look and sound ridiculously stiff and pompous.  A speech is a conversation with the audience.  Get used to it.  Enjoy it!

4.  “When I speak, I have to stay behind the podium.”  The reasons offered up for this bad advice are various.  Sometimes it’s the technology – you’re speaking at a big conference and you’re on those big screens in a live feed, and the tech folks tell you that you have to stay behind the podium so they can keep you on screen.  Don’t believe it.  Unless the camera guy is asleep, he can follow you as you move around the stage, and even into the audience.  He might prefer to snooze away at his camera, but he’s being paid to stay awake, so make use of all his talents, including his ability to hold a giant cup of coffee and follow you at the same time.  Other reasons include fear, nervousness, and sheer terror.  Oh, and also that your notes, or the button to advance the slides, are on the podium.  I’ve got four words for you:  Be brave.  Use wireless. 

5.  “We have to save the last 15 minutes of the speech slot for Q ‘n A.”  This is just a habit, and not a particularly good one.  For one thing, if you close with Q ‘n A, it means that the last thing your audience hears from you is the answer to the last question that is asked.  This may or may not be a good place to end.  Often the last question is one from a crank who has been working up the courage to ask you if you wear boxers or briefs.  So instead, save 5 minutes of your remarks for the end, and take your Q ‘n A just before that.  Or, if you know your speech well, and are good at fielding questions, take them throughout.  That’s the more spontaneous and engaging way to do it, but it takes practice to stay on message and not get distracted too much by the questions.  For some people, it’s better to take Q ‘n A for most of the presentation, because the speaker is more comfortable that way, after a brief set of opening comments (and a closing at the end.)  This is the format of most presidential news conferences, for example. 

How to close out a conference with style

Let’s imagine that you’ve been given the assignment of closing out a conference.  You’re the final speaker and you want to leave the audience happy, motivated, and ready to come back for more.  Assuming you’re not just going to give your usual speech and wish the audience bon voyage, you want to figure out some way to sum up the conference without just going over the main points of each of the preceding speakers.  That’s way too boring, so I'll suggest 5 ways to close out a conference with style, in order of ascending complexity.

1.  Give a brief, focused summary that talks about "Here are the 3 most important ideas I've learned.  Here's what I'm going to do differently when I get back to the office.  Here are the 3 ideas we should look for more information on going forward."

2.  Focus on the future:  give a short talk on the implications for the future of some of the key ideas you heard.  Use these to fit in some of your favorite ideas or issues that weren't addressed fully during the conference.

3.  Poll the audience for their ideas about aspects of #1  & 2.  In other words, quote people you've interviewed along the way for the 3 most important ideas, what they're going to do differently, further research, implications, etc.

4.  Take along a video camera, and interview audience members during the 3 days. Get their very quick reactions to selected talks, ideas for the future, etc.  Then show the video as the closer. (I've used this last idea at several conferences to huge enthusiasm, because people love to see themselves on camera, and the idea builds cohesion and excitement during the 3 days.  It works best if you have a camera AND a sound person; the quality is much better.  But it can be done with a simple hand-held video camera.)

5.  (Just for fun.)  Play a quick game of conference trivia.  Offer prizes (cash, easy things to carry, champagne, gift certificates) to all who can answer the questions (of what went on during the 3 days).  This means that you have to pay close attention during the entire conference, for good trivia. 

Have fun!

The Conference Information Overload Survival Guide

Sitting in the audience as a conference-goer, listening to a speech, or any kind of presentation, means working hard.  It’s difficult to retain information we’ve acquired through our ears.  Studies show that we only remember 10 – 30 percent of what we hear.  And judging those messages is a difficult task, too.  How do we decide on the fly what’s worthwhile and what’s junk?  We often are overly impressed with the sizzle of a fresh, well-presented idea, and don’t figure out until much later that the idea is actually a trivial one. 

So here are 4 questions to ask yourself as you listen, to test whether what you’re hearing is a good idea, or merely rhetoric.  Think of it as a conference survival guide.  

First, is it articulate? When you’re on the receiving end of rhetoric, listen closely for clarity. Articulateness is not only a virtue; it is also usually a sign of clarity of thought. The reverse is also true:  if the communication isn’t clear to you, it probably isn’t clear to the speaker.  If there’s a lot of jargon, that usually hides lazy thinking. 

Second, is there a real alternative? It’s always useful to ask yourself, when someone is putting forth an idea, whether there’s an alternative. If a politician says, for example, that he ‘supports our troops’, ask yourself, What’s the alternative? Could a politician say, “ I don’t support the troops ” ?  Obviously not.  If that’s the case, then there is no real idea behind the rhetoric. It’s only grandstanding. This is a good test to apply to your own communications as well.

Third, is the idea consequential? Check the importance of the idea. Does it amount to anything, or is it a tiny thought? Your time is valuable; don’t waste it listening to people rearranging the intellectual deck chairs on some virtual Titanic.

Fourth, does the idea shock but not surprise? A persuasive communication may shock us, but it shouldn’t surprise us. Indeed, good communication does need to shock, because otherwise it won’t get any attention in this information - saturated era.  Beyond that, we should be able to recognize the fundamental truth of it. Things that are both shocking and surprising are truly rare. When Luke learns that Darth Vader is his father, the audience is shocked but not surprised. Some part of us recognizes that it’s in some sense inevitable and logical.  Of course, Darth Vader is Luke’s father. That’s why the Force is so strong within him.  In your own communications, feel free to shock people, but try not to surprise them in this sense of the word.

Keep these four questions in mind as you listen to speech after speech at a conference this spring.  They will help you free your mind of clutter and stay focused on what’s important. 

How did the speech go?

I gave the speech this morning in a conference room holding about 60 people in that banquet-round-table style beloved of conference organizers.  The round tables make it hard to work the audience properly, but everyone loves a challenge, right?  So I stood in the middle of the long side and that way was able to see and be seen reasonably well by most people.  The arrangement made for a lot of weaving in and out of tables, but there you are. 

Lesson:  always ask up front about the room layout and negotiate a good one if you can. 

The event ran late, and my own start time was delayed 25 minutes.  I had to give a little time back on the fly, which is always annoying and challenging.  In the end, we compromised and they let me run a little long.  The overall event ended on time, something I believe to be essential.  No one ever wanted a meeting to run longer than scheduled, and no one ever complained when one ended early. 

Lesson:  be clear about your time requirements and their time constraints. 

How did it go?  I had fun, especially because I went to the audience from the very start, interacting with them, giving out prizes for participation, running a contest, and generally carrying on.  I like to make audiences 'work' and they like it too.  It beats passivity and boredom. 

Lesson:  the more audience interaction the better. 

In the end, I had the audience divided up, telling stories (the speech was about authentic storytelling) and competing for the best story.  It was a nice group, and they wanted to declare everyone a winner, so we did, with one participant a little more of a winner than everyone else. 

Lesson:  everyone's a winner if everyone participates. 

Overall, it went fine.  I could have done with more rehearsal.  I've been spoiled by giving the same speech, or similar speeches, many times.  I've forgotten how hard it is to give a speech for the first time. 

Lesson:  rehearse, rehearse, rehearse. 

I'm Giving a Speech Tomorrow

I'm in the unusual position of having to take my own advice -- I'm giving a new speech tomorrow.  I usually talk on individual communications, but this time the topic is communicating brands.  That's a subject I've worked on with companies over the years, but I don't usually lecture on the subject.

I rehearsed on Friday, and it did not go very well.  I realized that I need to take my own advice, and quickly.  So here are my three most essential rules for fixing a speech and getting it ready to go, when you're facing a deadline.

First, focus on one message and one message only.  I realized during rehearsal that I was trying to do too many things.  I need to whittle the speech down to one clear message:  Why each employee must become a passionate storyteller on behalf of the company brand in today's marketplace.  I'm going back to the draft to eliminate everything that doesn't support that one point.  Focus is essential for successful public speaking. 

Second, find a good hook that frames the message of the speech so that your audience is intrigued and brought into the discussion.  I've been trying out several openings, one a story, one a question, and a few others.  I've got to pick the one that best answers the question, why are we here?, for the audience. 

Third, deliver the speech in the problem-solution format.  The rehearsal made clear that I was trying to be too clever with my structure.  The only one that makes sense, when you're trying to persuade the audience of something, is problem-solution.  That's because our minds are structured to solve problems, and when we hear one presented to us, we automatically begin to think about how to solve it.  The structure follows our natural thinking processes, so we're happy. 

So I've got some work to do, to repair the speech, simplify it, and focus it on the audience.  Then, I'll be ready for another rehearsal.  The deadline approaches!

How do you plan an event or a conference?

Let's begin by admitting that running an event or a conference is tough sledding.  Few notice when it goes well; everyone complains when something goes wrong.  Lots of downside risk and not much upside potential, as a wise conference planner once told me. 

That said, there are ways to get the most out of the planning -- and the conference itself. 

First, a theme is not an excuse for a cartoon or a superhero.  Too many conference-planning teams begin by setting a theme -- and then forgetting it.  So they'll pick 'the superhero', say, and use that to inspire the designers, and perhaps hire a few actors to wear painfully hot costumes at one of the dinners, and that's about it.  The theme is forgotten when the actual programming is under consideration.  That's just a matter of hiring a few big names, booking your CEO, and getting a few stalwarts from Marketing to help with the rest, right?

Wrong.  You should pick the one big idea you want to get across to your audience, and then everything at the conference should support that idea.  A conference should tell a coherent story, from the opening gun to the last speaker's "in conclusion...."  Anything less is not doing your job.  Stories have beginnings, middles, and ends, and your conference should too.  That helps the audience retain more than a smattering of the incredibly expensive event you're going to put on. 

Second, the audience is more than just a sea of faces.  How can you get the audience involved?  Can they help structure the event, drive the programming, lead a discussion session, even speak at a breakout session?  Audience participation should be more than just occasional raising of hands.  The best events are audience-driven, not merely entertainment pushed at the masses.  Mix it up!   

Third, give your MC a real job to do.  Hire an MC (either one of your own or a professional) who can do more than indicate the exits and the bathrooms.  An MC is the audience's representative.  It's her job to take up the issues that have been raised, test them, integrate them when possible, and help the audience with takeaways.  A lot of information comes at an audience during the course of a conference.  The MC can help to make sure that the audience gets as much as possible out of the time invested. 

When we're hired to help design and plan conferences, we often annoy traditional planners who think in tidy concepts of venue, speakers, dinners, and so on.  We see an evnt as an (expensive) opportunity to bring a group of people together in an unusual setting in order to jolt them with some new ideas and new experiences.  Anything less is just filling in the blanks.