It’s a presenter’s nightmare: some jerk in the audience decides to give you a hard time, asking impossible questions, challenging everything you say, making snarky comments, and trying to make you look like an idiot. Congratulations – you’ve got a heckler. Hecklers can really throw you off your game, and it happened to Laura who…
Want to speak? Be prepared to listen. Really skilled communicators, really dynamic and engaging speakers actively and intimately listen to and observe their audience. By giving his audience his full attention, a speaker is able to figure out what the audience needs to perceive, needs to feel, needs to hear in order to adopt the…
Here are some questions you need to ask yourself when working with an audience: Do you listen? I mean it – do you really listen to what your audience is telling you? Have you turned of the internal chatter? Are you taking in what they are telling you, or are you trying to think of…
It has been very, very hot in my hometown over the past week. People are hiding in their basements, seeking out air conditioned venues, and generally doing as little as possible. Men, women, children, and animals alike are sticky, sweaty, itchy, and irritable. This is affecting not only how people are saying their message, but…
Don’t be intimidated by the level of prestige of your audience members. Just because a room is filled with C-level execs doesn’t mean they are collectively CEO of Everything. Speaking to a crowd of academics and researchers? Don’t cower before their gigantic brains. I’ve met plenty of PhDs that couldn’t find their backsides with both…
