Ways to Keep an Audience Focused and Interested

Abstract

In theory, presentations can range in quality from extremely successful to extremely poor. In practice, however, even those presentations that are of mediocre quality (a good topic, but uninspiring delivery) tend to be remembered as extremely poor. The main reason for a presentation to fail is that it simply bores the audience. Boring presentations harm the reputation of the presenter and make the audience feel tired, demotivated and desperate for the torture to end. Although it seems like a somewhat elementary error to make, it is in fact surprisingly common to find presenters confusing what they themselves find interesting with what audience members want to know. An example of making this mistake might be the following. Suppose a clinical biochemist is asked to speak to medical students about laboratory investigations. The students will most likely be focused on the clinical value of the tests, in other words, how they can use them effectively in patients. If the biochemist instead talks about the minutiae of laboratory analytical technique (which is her main interest), the talk is likely to fall flat and leave the audience unsatisfied. Prior to giving a presentation, it may be a good idea to get your audience to complete an online survey asking them for their views on the importance of the topic you are due to present. If the answers indicate that there are individuals who are not yet convinced why the topic is important, it will be well worth spending the first part of the presentation outlining persuasive reasons for learning about the topic. For example, a presenter talking about communication skills in a business environment might give a real life example of when communication skills had helped to close a deal or how developing these skills has led to previous attendees getting promoted. Once there is a reason to listen, the audience will be more focused on what you have to say.