Public Speaking: Working With Your Audience

Speaking in public is something I quite enjoy – but don’t get to do very often (apart from my monthly ramble with the LabExperience team at Lab49). A short while ago, the London chapter of the UPA (Usability Professionals Association) organised a session on how to get your submissions approved for their annual international conference. This contained a lot of common sense, and some useful pointers. I’ve tried to summate these into some ideas that work as a general reference, rather than specifically looking at the UPA model, for my benefit as well as others.

The Take-Away

It’s very difficult to get even vague information on who the audience is at many events. Unless you know them personally it seems many conferences recruit from a broad spectrum of the populous (to ensure they sell out). So don’t expect detailed personas and profiles to target, but do remember that people can self-select if your description of your topic is appropriate and accurate (more about that later).

Most importantly, it’s worth remembering that everyone will have invested something to attend – their personal time, their own money, political capital convincing their employer (boss, colleagues) it is worth spending some budget to send them on a jolly and they deserve to go. So, whatever you’re going to do, there has to be a point… from an hour’s session in a pub after work to holding court in a hall of 200 people – your audience must have a clear idea as to why they are there. Even more important, they must have an absolutely clear idea of what they learned and why they would come back to you for more.

If you’re not sure that people are going to learn, where the “value” is or you’re not sure why it’s important, then think twice about your topic. Is it genuinely something a broad spectrum of people are going to want to learn about, or is it so niche that you know the other 3 people who work in the field. Is it truly valuable, or just showboating…

Form needs to follow Function

Think about the form that will best suit what it is you want achieve.

Are you looking to explore something that’s relatively new, cutting edge or innovative? Do you want collaboration and collective input to improve the idea you have? If so, then a workshop is probably the appropriate mode of delivery.

If you are talking about something more established, or a particular experience you’ve had trying a methodology, technique or even just the peculiarities of a particular industrial vertical, then a presentation is more appropriate.

Engagement

Tricky. Especially when you’re embarking on a presentation. How do you avoid it becoming just another lecture? We’ve all sat there, frantically making notes, but not really taking anything in. How do manage to maintain some level of audience participation especially if there’s 200 of them? Oh, and a Q&A session at the end doesn’t count.

Schedule

This was an interesting idea. Rather than starting with a deck of slides, think about how much time you have, what you want to talk about and turn it into a schedule. How long are you going to spend introducing the main topic, what aspects of the main topic do you realistically have time to discuss, when are your audience interactions going to occur and how long (really) will they take. 60 minutes goes really fast when you’re talking (but not necessarily so when you’re listening) so how are you going to keep it meaningful, maintain a narrative thread and get the balance right between detail, time, and coverage of your topic? The simple idea of creating a schedule (maybe broken down into 10 minute blocks as a reasonable working unit of time) seemed a very constructive way of chunking a session and simultaneously ensuring narrative flow (because as you schedule you build your story).

Structure

Not a lot to say about this point – just remember you need a beginning, middle and end. If it’s going to be a long session, maybe think about using the 3 or 4 act play as a helpful construct.

Submission

When you’re creating your submission for selection at a large conference, it’s worth remembering that the audience for your submission is very different to the one that’s going to participate in your presentation or workshop.

Think about what a time-poor reviewer of 100s of submissions is going to need. A memorable title (but one that is meaningful to your ultimate audience). A more descriptive subtitle if one is permitted. A detailed and descriptive abstract that talks about the session, not you.

For both the reviewers and people attending the conference, think about what people will learn, where is there value, why it’s important and remember. Even better, if the abstract for selection is different to the one that appears on the website inviting attendees, then you can change the focus and terminology. It’s a fairly safe bet that reviewers will be slightly better informed than many of the attendees (maybe).

Other Useful Resources about Talking at Conferences

How I Approach Presentations: David Armano recently wrote an interesting piece based on a discussion between himself and Russ Unger about presenting at conferences.

Slightly older, but also useful, is Cameron Moll’s post in the now established “20 best…” style, but this ones: 20 Tips for Better Conference Speaking

Plus there’s lots of people talking about the do’s and don’ts of PowerPoint (or Keynote, which is my preferred tool): @jessedee offers some good food for thought in a no-nonsense manner in Steal This Presentation, and Presentation Zen’s musings on What is good PowerPoint design is always a good reminder and a quick read.