I regularly get asked by speakers, meeting planners, speaker bureau folks – just about everyone in the speaking business, in fact – what trends I see in public speaking. In the short term, there’s interest in AI, millennials, and the customer experience. Those sort of topic trends wax and wane and underneath them leadership, the economy, innovation and growth are the balance of topics that are always popular.
Looking out more than a year or two, but less than ten, and we get the increase in competition, the slow but sure acceptance (finally) of more diversity on the dais, the increase in entertainment value of speeches (with a concomitant decrease in serious analysis and insight), the call for easy, bite-sized takeaways and instant lessons for the audience, and the increase in various kinds of technology in the speech itself.
In the longer run, say over twenty years, the changes feel more profound. Pre-Y2K your speech could be read, was expected to be footnoted and grounded in some sort of academic research, and was almost certainly given from the relative security of a podium.
Today, speeches must be authentic, transparent, honest, personal, conversational, and about something that matters deeply to the speaker. No podium. It’s a completely different world, and it’s almost all for the better.
Ratings, which used to be important, are now what speakers, bureaus, meeting planners, conference organizers, and everyone else live and die by.
And yet, amidst all that change, there is one piece of public speaking that has, if anything, gone backwards slightly. And that is audience interaction.
You might think that needing authenticity and transparency, not to mention honesty and personally revealing material, would push speakers toward audience interaction, but those things haven’t moved that proverbial needle in any way. Instead, as the stakes have gotten higher, speakers have reacted by attempting to exert even more control over the speaking hour – and not indulging in audience interaction apparently falls into that category of control.
It’s a huge missed opportunity. Bringing in skillful audience interaction always increases audience involvement, and almost always increases ratings on things like retaining what an audience has heard, remembering what a speaker has said, and the likelihood of one of the ideas mentioned in the talk show up at the water cooler on Monday.
So why do so few speakers create audience interaction moments? And I’m not talking about raises of the hand and shout-outs for Wisconsin. What I am talking about is a real, authentic digging into a problem with an engaged and responding audience.
There are so many ways to interact with the audience in front of you. This is the lowest of the low hanging fruit of public speaking, and yet so few speakers attempt it.
Why? Because what we are talking about – turning the control of the speech, even temporarily, over to someone else – is difficult to do at any time but is especially difficult now that the expectations for a flawless performance have become so widespread. How can you have a flawless performance if you’re relying on amateurs to do some of the work for you?
So in spite of the greater need for audience interaction, given the trend toward honesty and simplicity, the reality is that there is less, rather than more exchange with the audience going on.
If you’re thinking about adding more audience interactivity to your speech, first of all congratulations. Then think about the following ways you can get the most out of the audience in front of you.
You can ask them who they are and about the world in which they live. You can ask them to brainstorm with you, provided they get to stick to known games and rules (which you get to specify). You can ask them to report to the group as a whole, or to teach one or more members of the group one-on-one.
You can ask them to write a letter to themselves for delivery in the future. Then, your can get your IT people to design a way of putting all the letters in a digital vault until the day comes and it’s time to fess up.
All of these show us that audience interaction should not continue to be the forgotten low-hanging fruit of public speaking, but rather something essential and core to it. After all, how are you going to change the world if the audience isn’t working just as hard as you are?
This is a great way to turn your disappointment at how few people show up for an event (a library talk, a book signing, whatever) into a presentation you’ll look back on with glee. I tried it for the first time several years ago. I opened my presentation by asking each of the five — count ’em, five! :) — people what they were hoping to get out of our time together. Their answers helped me revise my presentation on the fly and turn it into a real conversation.
It was almost like hosting a talk show, but in person and with five guests who were delighted to participate and to learn from each other.
Would this work in bigger venues? You obviously couldn’t poll everyone in the audience, but if the number of people who responded was manageable it would certainly make it easier to decide whom to make eye contact with over the course of your talk!
Maureen — what a beautiful way to turn a sow’s ear into a silk purse!
Nick, I have learned and been using a very engaging way to involve the audience every 15 minutes of my hour-long talks. It works with groups of 5 to 500 and it doesn’t miss! When I found this out, it changed my talks completely.
Dave, are you going to share your nugget, or keep it to yourself??
Hi Nick,
I’m a consistent reader of your blog and often suggest to colleagues that they also subscribe to up their speaking game.
I accidentally developed a wonderful “stage bit” to encourage audience participation.
First of all, my main training program is two days on FEMA regulations and paperwork. This subject matter takes everything I have to make it interesting, engaging, and actionable. Audience active participation is crucial to my success.
I buy foil wrapped chocolate coins (high quality ones) and personally hand them (or toss them) to everyone that asks a question or makes a comment in the discussion. This works wonders. People get the message that participation is not only encouraged, but rewarded, and we have fun with the coins, commenting on how many one person accumulates, or eats, as the case may be.
This also gets me up close and personal, in a positive and non-intrusive way, to the audience. Repeat attendees often ask before the class if I have brought more chocolate coins. This little reward works wonders for keeping the room alive and audience participation high.
Mike
Thanks, Mike — bribery is indeed an ancient and effective way to encourage an audience to participate:-) And you do it in just the right way — keeping it light and fun. The key is to keep it playful. If you give out real money, then it becomes work and people start to get cranky. But chocolate? It’s all good.
In our programs on “Guerrilla Selling” and “Guerrilla Marketing” we handed out little plastic toy WWII soldiers. Same effect without putting the audience into diabetic shock.
Wait — the audience eats the little soldiers? OK, no, they can trade them for cash prizes, right? Orvel, just messing with you, that’s a great, non-caloric idea.
By the way, I’d love to know Dave Thompson’s little secret too.
This is so true! Thank you for sharing. A tip on the letter to the future I sometimes use myself in my courses: https://www.futureme.org. Keep it up!
Thanks, Edvard, especially for the tip!