It Is All About You

Chris Atherton talks about the single rule to follow when giving a presentation - manage audience attention. Audience attention should follow you.

Once you have audience attention, you can then delegate it to a slide, a prop, or someone else in the audience. Have the audience pay attention to whatever it is you want them to look at and listen to so that you make your point.

I say “you” because, when you are a presenter, it truly is “all about you”. This is the time to be needy and controlling, about your audience’s attention.

We are still biological beings, and we watch things that move because they might be food or make us food. For the same reasons we still watch shiny objects, like a TV screen or projected slide. We watch  shiny things at the exclusion of things less important at the time, like the presenter, maybe?

So it is no wonder then that an audience will look at a slide left up on the screen long after you have finished talking about it. It is there - we cannot help but look at it! The result of this habit is to deflect audience attention away from us. Which means they do not recieve our full message.

While presenting, follow this rule: manage audience attention!

Use the B button or remote to black out a screen after you have used the slide to make your point. Thus audience attention is directed back to you so they hear your key point.

When showing a slide, stand with the screen to stage left, (Your left while facing the audience. Not being an actor, I got stage left or stage right confused. Not anymore. I looked it up.)

After you show the slide and explain its contents, move forward towards the audience and blackout the slide. This directs attention back to you, not the slide behind you.

When using a gesture like “raise your hands if you like chocolate chip cookies”, make the gesture big enough for everyone to see and understand that they too should raise their hands for chocolate chip cookies. Extend your arm straight up over your head. It gets attention and is more credible too.

Move purposefully, not aimlessly. Stand grounded to make one point, then move across the stage and become grounded to make your second point. Grounded means both feet on the floor with your weight even over them.

When presenting, the only rule to follow is: make sure the audience follows you.