I’ve been thinking and researching about memory lately, because I’m curious to see how our learning abilities (of which memory is a key part, of course) are affected by the pandemic.  Anecdotally, I heard from many sources that much normal processing of information was hard for people at the beginning of the lockdown because they were undergoing such an extreme upheaval in such a short period of time.  When everyone’s lives are overturned, they can’t pay close attention to new ideas or easily form new memories about other things.

Once we’d all settled into our new, weird routines, though, some ability to handle other information naturally returned.  We stopped staring out the window and devouring our news feeds and gradually returned to real work – if we were lucky enough to still have it to do.  Lots of evidence points to that work being harder to accomplish, however, because of all the distractions that the new conditions inserted into our routines.  Working from home means potentially juggling the multiple roles of parent, provider, worker, leader, and partner – all at the same time.

What does this involve for speakers and the speaking world?  Pivoting to the digital world for speakers means a loss of presence and impact.  You can’t just give the same speech to an audience of computers as you can to an audience of sentient humans.  If you want to have any kind of impact as a speaker online – to even begin to be memorable – then you need to re-think the idea of your speech from the ground up.

So how do memory and virtual speaking combine to create strong impact?  Here are a few suggestions to get you going.  You should think about these in conjunction with my earlier posts and book on virtual presentations.

Take frequent breaks – of a specific kind.  New research shows that taking 10-second breaks to consolidate memories works better than simply repeating what you’re trying to teach an audience.  And a good night’s rest works even better to encode new memories of work undertaken during the day.  So don’t skimp on the little breaks.  But do use those breaks to encourage your audience to remember specific points that they’ve learned.  Don’t just send them to social media.  That won’t help.  And overnight?  Give the audience the assignment to remember a specific set of things that will be key to their ongoing success in the future.

Dip their toes in the water.  For most people, learning a little about something intrigues us and makes us want to know more.  So introduce a few novel concepts to your audience early on, and return to them later on with more detail.  In fiction, that’s called foreshadowing, and it’s a powerful technique to keep us reading.  Think Dan Brown here – OK, perhaps not quite as over the top as Dan Brown.

Don’t oversell the rewards.  The research shows that we humans tend to overhype the anticipated rewards of some new idea or technique.  Then, when we set about learning it, we give up because in the moment of the actual activity the rewards don’t loom as large as the work involved.  So you need to inoculate your audience against this problem by warning them of the difficulties involved in new efforts and learning.  Sell people on how difficult something will be, not on how easy it is.  Counter-intuitive, yes, but it works.

Get the audience to write it down.  Writing – by hand – activates different parts of the brain and creates stronger, more positive memories.  In fact, one study found that merely writing for seven minutes three times a year – for a total of 21 minutes – helped save marriages for couples that were experiencing marital dissatisfaction. The effect lasted for at least another year.  As speakers, we can create positive memories for audiences by having them write down key learnings or commitments.

Rehearse important takeaways from different perspectives.  We used to think that memories were strengthened by reinforcing specific neurons through repetition.  Now, it seems to be more important to create more groups of neurons with the same or similar memories.  Don’t just repeat something; say it in a different way, or from a different perspective – and get your audience to play along.  The key is to get your audience firing groups of neurons – a kind of mental redundancy – to make it more likely that they’ll remember what you want to teach them.

Get your audience to look in certain directions.  This final item is a bit spooky, perhaps, but it works.  Remember how NLP claimed that you could tell whether people were lying or imagining things by where they looked to retrieve their memories?  Up or down, left or right – it was supposed to be a sure sign of lying – if only I could remember which way was which!

That turns out to be a pleasant fiction.  What we actually do is unconsciously move our eyes in the same pattern that they moved when we first learned something.  Doing so helps us recall the memories more accurately and easily.  Thus having your audience deliberately create a simple eye movement pattern will help them remember what you say.

And a bonus trick: tell your audience to make a fierce face.  It turns out that if you adopt a fierce, determined glare you improve your performance on some mental tasks by as much as 20%.  So, tell your audience to glare at their screens while learning what you have to offer.  After all, you won’t be able to see most of their faces anyway!

And one more bonus:  get them to tell their (friendly) neighbor.  When we tell someone we like or respect about something we intend to learn or do, it increases our memory and commitment.

Using these varied techniques will help increase your audience’s ability to focus on and remember what you say during this difficult time – and in the years to come.  However long we speakers are confined to the virtual world we need to make the best of it!

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