No one ever said that clarity and a connection with the audience were sufficient conditions for an effective talk; we only ever said they were necessary conditions. Three years ago I gave some advice for people giving technical presentations in this post. They have an outline near the beginning of the talk, which they repeat along the way so the audience can become reoriented with the larger-scale structure of the presentation. People often ask if technical or science-related presentations can be as compelling as presentations covering other less technical topics. Now,

Keeping audience attention is more important and more difficult than grabbing audience attention . What can I do to keep the audience’s attention through the whole of my presentation. It requires discipline and effort to simply sit and listen passively to someone speak for any length of time.  Reference: Hartley J and Davies I “Note taking: A critical review” Programmed Learning and Educational technology, 1978,15, 207-224 cited by John Medina in Brain Rules A

Now the question is: should you display a live twitter stream on a large screen so that everyone (not just the tweeters) in the audience can see it? Sir Ken Robinson speaking at "Hacking Education" organised by Union Square Ventures. So when the conference delegates arrived at the auditorium for the conference welcome and opening talk we found two computer displays: one of the speaker’s slides and the other a display Twitter is now a reality at many conferences. Photo used with permission from Fred Wilson

0160; Lose the Power Point – when you put up Power Point slides you ask the audience to look at 2 – or 3 – things at once: you, your slides, perhaps a printout of your slides. 0160;  Talk from the audience’s point of view – a common mistake presenters make is to explain an idea the way they learned it.  0160; But your history is not inherently interesting to an audience.  1.  That’s distracting.

Yesterday I had a skype conversation with Twitter follower Todd (@TJList) on how to include audience participation in a presentation. He’s presenting on getting through the economic downturn to an audience of small business owners. How can I involve my audience in the presentation? Here was his question: I

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When I misspelled my final word, I was a little shocked; the audience roared with applause. What I heard in that applause was an audience who was glad to see me eliminated! Somewhere along the way, it was explained to me that I got so much applause because the audience was acknowledging my achievement. When I was in third grade, I took third place in the school spelling bee, behind a fifth grader and a sixth grader. I

I just trained a group of nearly 100 scientists in speaker skills and message development for public audiences, at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco. We spent a lot of time talking about the need to start with your audience's needs, and the limited attention spans of modern audiences. So it was not a surprise when one participant asked, "What do you do if you're losing your audience's The daylong training allows for plenty of questions, and I'm always eager to hear what speakers and would-be speakers have on their minds . Here are some of my suggestions:

20 tips for better conference speaking ~ 16 February 2009 ~ View from on stage as I’m preparing to speak at An Event Apart New Orleans 2008. But if anything, I’ve done quite a bit of speaking over the past four years (see the summary on my LinkedIn public profile ), and therefore I’ve learned a few things about speaking along the way. The art of speaking I’ll be straight up with you: I don’t profess to be an expert speaker. I’ve had my share of presentations that have been total flops, along with some very successful

And it is the crux of the speaker/audience relationship. You can have good material, perfect organization and skilled delivery, but if you don't connect with the audience, something critical is missing. Externally, this translates to a speaker who is able to use facts and words as skillfully as emotion and expressiveness in engaging and impacting the audience. Download audio here. " Only connect! That was the whole of her sermon.