Even a newbie at public speaking knows they should make eye contact. But the term eye contact is rather vague. It can infer just making fleeting “contact” with a person then moving on. Don’t make eye contact – make “eye connection”.  Eye connection means spending time with each person so that person feels like you’re just talking to them. Eye connection has two major benefits:

After Debbie Friez's guest post on body language last month , these commenters wonder whether the eyes have it--or not. Here's what they wondered: In terms of body language, I would also love to know more about eye contact and what it communicates ...Eye Eye contact is not super-comfortable for me, but I'm afraid it makes me look evasive or dishonest (when I'm not at all). I often wonder how much eye contact is passable, professionally.

As a presenter, I feed off the energy of the audience. used to think that the audience determined the energy in the room, but after applying some of Jerry Weissman’s principles, I learned the presenter has more control over the room than I previously thought. At first, I thought it was just a “cooler” audience than usual (which it was) but I could tell that the way I was presenting was having an effect on their energy level as well. I There was good energy at my Web2.0Expo presentation.

So the critical step to avoid making hecklers out of people in your audience is to listen. It will probably feel far too long for you, and you may even see some people in the audience getting restless, but this is the most effective preventative method to stop them continuing to heckle. Address your response to the whole audience, not just the heckler – though don’t avoid eye contact with them either. Most hecklers are made, not born. If people don’t feel listened to they will turn into hecklers.

Since some of our readers recently asked questions about eye contact and connecting with the audience, take a look at his advice on where to look. He says eye contact will: ...make Obviously, there are many people in the audience and you can’t look at all of them at once. TED, the technology/education/design conference, hires a photographer to capture its dynamic speakers, and James Duncan Davidson offers this "dear speakers" essay on everything from taking off your name tag to how to move effectively around the speaking space. make them feel like you

Can eye contact trip you up? Absolutely--and you're less likely to notice it than is your audience. This week, my video--at the end of this post--is responding to Stephanie's #2 coaching priority and covers these aspects of how eye contact issues can work against you: If your eyes signal that your talk's off-track: Those quick, inadvertent looks to one side or the other (or up and to angle) happen at the same points that you might otherwise use a verbal "um" -- the points where you've forgotten where you are heading or what words come Here's a picture of a very brief visual um from Stephanie's video of yesterday.)

Here's Stephanie Benoit talking about eye contact, her second priority for stepping up her speaking. Eye contact's basic and essential for good speaking: You can't succeed without it. Yet for many speakers, it's tough to focus on the audience. Why? Eye contact: May distract you. Means you have to confront your audience, directly. May show you an awkward or awful reaction. May give away what you're thinking or forgetting. In my experience,all of those are valid concerns--but no reason to stop making eye contact!

Say hello to eye contact One problem some speakers have is lack of eye contact. They speak to the air over the audience’s head. My attention is so internal, trying to remember what I have to say, that I’m not focused on the audience. I’d be Do you strive to look, sound, and perform your best when you present? Say good-by to filler words

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.

But comparing them to the Karaoke singers, you really got a strong sense of the importance of connection with the audience. Even the best Karaoke singers had no connection with the audience. For them, it was all about the audience. They were connecting with the audience from the start, Last Friday night, I enjoyed the music scene in Nashville and went to both a Karaoke Bar and a blues bar.   While the Karaoke bar was an interesting novelty, I left after about 30 minutes.