THINK YOU KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE THINK AGAIN! Know Your Audience How - PDF document

THINK YOU KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE – THINK AGAIN! Know Your Audience How you talk to a room full of family historians will be different from the way you address a group of local historians or a meeting of the local ladies or a Rotary club. Everything, about your presentation is different. Your topic selection, the language you use, the examples you give to illustrate points, even the humour you use should be tailored for your target audience. Put Your Audience First One frequent mistake made by presenters is focusing mostly on their own ideas and the story of their own family. Unless you tie these in with your audience's needs or to highlight a specific point, your audience will be bored, distracted, or worse, totally switch off. Put your audience first. Before you start writing your presentation, think about who your audience is and what their needs and expectations are. Yes, it is reasonable to assume most will be family historians but what about the WI or Rotary Club or indeed any outside organisation you are invited to talk to. Where do you pitch your content presentation level? As you write your presentation, consider the following: Why is you audience at your presentation? What do they hope to get out of it? Figure out what their expectations and goals might be and how your presentation fits into the criteria. How much knowledge and experience do they have on the subject? If there are any knowledge gaps, be prepared to fill them. Avoid spending too much time on the ideas that are too basic for your audience but do not assume the audience knows as much as you do. Try and aim at a mid-level knowledge base. What possible questions will they have? As family history society meetings usually end with a Q&A session at the end of your presentation you would need to have already answered the most basic questions throughout your presentation, thus paving the way for more interesting advanced questions at the end. Avoid trying to answer personal problem questions posed but turn the answer round to answer in an effective general way. The rest of the audience will be bored if you answer a specific question using a personal example. Craft a presentation that is as engaging as possible to your audience. Readability When testing out the templates you are thinking of using reduce their size on the screen. Can you still read the text effortlessly? If you are presenting to a large audience it is important that everyone can read any text on the slides, especially those people sitting in the back or those who have poor eyesight. This also comes down to colours and font size. We tend to think of presentations as our chance illustrate what we are talking about rather than to speak to an audience. Your persona is an important aspect – appeal to your audience 1

- your audience will expect you to connect with them. The best presentations end with a "question and answer" session where the audience can ask the speaker questions. Presenter stance Don’t stand still, and d on’t pace up and down like a caged tiger The amount of movement you do during your presentation can have a huge effect on how well people pay attention to you. If you need to stand behind a podium the entire time, your audience will perceive they are attending a lecture not a talk and probably be too bored to engage with you. If you pace like you are a caged tiger at a zoo you are going to be distracting. The goal of a good presenter is to be “purposeful in your movement.” How you move about needs to engage your audience’s attention and get your message across. The worst mistake to make is to let your unconscious movements control the mood so work on taming distracting nervous habits before you make a presentation. How to Ask for Questions and Spark Audience Participation In PowerPoint, you can build slides that facilitate the Q&A portion of your presentation. A well-designed slide may lead the audience to ask an interesting question. As the presenter try and take the lead on this. Be innovative – a couple of examples: 2

Do not close with either the presenter or chairman of the meeting sheepishly asking, "any questions?" Asking in a half-hearted way will guarantee that the audience will not ask a question. There are better ways to ask for questions. Instead of using the bland "any questions?" phrase try out something more innovative to elicit questions. Invoke a question by asking someone beforehand to ask the first question. Having someone break the silence and ask the first question will help others speak up or ask follow-up questions. No one in the audience will know you have seeded the questioning. Answer your own rhetorical question at the end of the presentation. Use phrasing like, "When I first started this … my main question was..." This is a good way to spark questions from the audience. Some inexperienced presenters will skip including a Q&A session. There is a simple explanation for why many presenters do not ask for questions from the audience – confidence or fear. Presenters fear being caught off-guard by the audience's questions. You never know what the audience may be wondering before you solicit questions and that uncertainty leads presenters to exclude it altogether. While you can never be certain of the questions you will receive, you can take steps to prepare for the questions you are most likely to hear from the audience. You can also turn it round if you do not know the answer by opening a controlled discussion amongst the audience. There will inevitably be someone in a family history environment who can voice an idea or opinion or suggest where to research. It is no slight on the presenter if you do not know the answer. Just say so and do not try to bluff your way around the question. Think about the questions you answered in your own mind while preparing the presentation. The audience will more than likely share many of the same questions and want to hear how you arrived at your conclusion. You should try to anticipate the questions that the audience is going to ask and include some in the presentation. Put yourself in their shoes and the questions they have may become obvious. Above all get the audience to remember your presentation: Combine your own (and unique) presentation skills with your innovative design skills to produce your presentation. Take your audience with you on your journey. Your audience will be attentive if you: • Inform • Entertain • Persuade • Inspire There is nothing more insulting than to present basic information to a highly knowledgeable audience and conversely speak at too high a level for a novice audience so know your audience. 3