Why? Your audience does not yet know you.
Give them time to grok you and to become enthralled with your message.
As a former journalist who's given over 2,000 presentations I was impressed with the advice MIT professor Patrick Harry Winston gave at his annual presentation on "The Art of Speaking." Thanks to Cal Newport who took notes on his talk and my friend Ben Casnocha who followed up with his thoughts, you get some of the best advice I've ever heard on communicating to connect and be understood. What a great application of knowledge for a professor who teaches artificial intelligence.
Here are three of my favorites (from my research three is the magic number, the maximum that most people can retain, at one time, from a single talk or article):
1. Do provide an empowerment promise.
Explain why your audience will come away from the talk better than when they entered.
2. Describe the "almost" notions.
When explaining an idea, also describe other ideas that are close but not quite the same. This helps people understand the most vital points that define your central message.
3. One way to end a talk: with a joke.
They know you now. And if they leave happy they will assume the entire talk made them happy.
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by
Kare Anderson
Member since:
January 14, 2006 Don't Start Your Speech With a Joke
March 11, 2008 02:31 PM EDT
views: 6
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