Audience-Centered Seating for Your Presentations

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Posted on 20th January 2012 by Kristin Arnold in presentation skills |Set The Tone |U R #1 Visual |Visuals/Props

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You walk into the room and see a traditional seating set-up for your presentation.  Theater-style with two columns of chairs, with a path down the middle.  The overhead screen is at the front in the middle of the room.  Looks pretty good, right?

While typical for many meeting venues, and perhaps most comfortable for you, the presenter, meeting planner, or hotelier, it is NOT the best seating arrangement for an audience-centered presentation.

So what’s wrong with straight rows?

1.  Focus.  The seats directly in front of the speaker are the only decent seats in the house.  Everyone else has to adjust the view to get a direct line of sight to the presenter.  And yet we give up this prime real estate to a multimedia projector table or vacant space for a center aisle.  Whenever possible, place the chairs in front of you, the speaker:

2.  Energy Drain.  Any feng-shui expert will tell you that the energy flows out of the room through a center aisle.  Wherever possible, keep the straight row center section right in front of you, with an aisle in between each outer seating section.

4.  Safety.  You may want to have some ability for people to get in and out of their seats, so you can modify the seating with some extra aisles starting a third of the way from the stage.  This way, the energy won’t flow out of the room!

5.  Blocked View.  Unless you are sitting in the front row, there will always be somebody taller or wider in the seat in front of you.  If you are lucky, you will have a semi-obstructed view of the presenter.  Worst case, you have to lean one way or the other just to get a clear view. Wherever possible, stagger the chairs so they aren’t lined up like soldiers behind each other.

6.  Pain.  Unless you are sitting right in front of the presenter, chances are you must turn your neck slightly to see the presenter.  If you are on the far reaches, then you are probably putting more weight on one butt cheek than the other and are constantly readjusting your seat!  Do this for an extended period of time, and it starts to hurt!  Wherever possible, angle the chairs toward the presenter.

7.  Disconnect. If you want to connect with the audience, the best way is to enable the audience to connect with each other.  They simply can’t connect with each other if they can’t see each other. Straight rows allow each person in the row to see only one person on either side (and the back of somebody’s head – but that doesn’t help connection!)  Wherever possible, curve the seating around the presenter, so the audience can see each other.

Finally, if you can, ask for the overhead screen to be placed on the left, looking at the front of the room (otherwise known as upstage right!).  Since we read from left to right, make it easier for the audience to “read” what you are saying by placing the screen to the left of the stage (downstage right in theater terms).  Place the screen at the same depth as you will be standing and close enough to your center position so that your audience’s eyes won’t have to travel a great distance from you to the screen.  Furthermore, should you have to point to something on the screen, you can use your right hand without turning your back to the participants!

Depending on the venue’s capability, you can transform a ho-hum, boring traditional theater-style room set into an audience-centered seating arrangement.  Being able to view the presentation in comfort, as well as to see each other enhances the dynamics of the presentation.  In the best of all possible worlds, orient the seats toward the front so they can comfortably connect with the presenter and with each other.

 

The Short List of Presentation Bloggers

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Posted on 7th January 2012 by Kristin Arnold in Polls |presentation skills |Speaking Trends

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I was talking (virtually) to fellow blogger Vivek Singh about the plethora of blogs talking about presentation skills.  He and I contribute to this specific space in the blogosphere.  So does Andrew Dlugan who put together an amazing list of 118 fellow bloggers and Ian Griffin lists 43 bloggers plus 58 from his National Speakers Association buddies.

Alltop is another site which is supposed to help us. The problem (again) is the number of blogs it lists. More than 50. Wouldn’t it be spiffy if we had a link to a small list of 10 to 15 blogs? Blogs that are great?  Blogs that do more than rehash stale content?  Blogs that make you think?

What blogs do YOU follow regularly? Blogs that have helped you become a better presenter?  Blogs that you absolutely love to read?

Share some names with me by leaving a comment here:

Understanding Your Audience as a Speaker

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Posted on 17th November 2011 by Kristin Arnold in Engaging Mindset |Group Interaction |presentation skills |Set The Tone |Uncategorized |Word Choice

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To be an effective, engaging presenter, you have to let go of your own internal conversations and focus on your audience. This means you have to care sincerely about and want to connect with each person in the audience. They need to know that you are putting their needs first. That means you need to know enough about them so they feel they can trust you and will want to listen to you.

Research. We all despise the speaker who delivers his presentation on autopilot, never changing a word. It is the same presentation for one audience as it is for a completely different audience. To engage an audience, a presenter needs to find out their hopes, fears, and interests. Take the time to understand the people, their backgrounds, and the collective culture—often called the “personality” of the group—so you can connect your comments with what they care about.

Content. The actual message you share should address the issues that your audience cares about, not the ones you think they should care about. This is a subtle distinction with dramatic implications. If you do not address something that helps them make their lives better or improves the life of someone they care about, you are dead on arrival.

Make It Personal. Few things can help you bond and establish a connection with a group better than knowing and using people’s names.

• Obtain a participant list ahead of time and read through the list out loud several times. If possible, learn the correct pronunciation of the difficult names.

• As you  meet a new participant, say her name quietly to yourself a few times and make any associations that will help you recall the name later.

More “We” than “Me.” If you are truly focused on the audience, you will use more inclusive language. Rather than saying “I did this” and “Look at me,” you will inherently talk more about them, using either the words “you” or “we.”

Listen. As you are speaking, shift your focus from how you are doing to how the audience is doing. When you “listen” to the audience, you are much more aware of their verbal and nonverbal reactions during your speech. Are they smiling and nodding their heads? Yes; you are in the zone.

Adjust. As you listen to your audience, you can either continue as planned or adapt your speech. Because you aren’t going to hit the mark all the time, always prepare a plan B to pull out of your back pocket. Audiences are quite forgiving as long as they know you care about them. They want you to succeed. So if one technique doesn’t work, try another until you do connect.

 

An Attitude of Gratitude Beyond Thanksgiving

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Posted on 10th October 2011 by Kristin Arnold in Engaging Mindset |Group Interaction |Humor |presentation skills |Set The Tone |Uncategorized

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It’s Thanksgiving day here in Canada and we’re having a turkey feast with our family.  The sun is shining through an Indian Summer day and all is right with the world.  Doesn’t get much better than this.

A simple entry

As we went around the dinner table sharing our thanks for the year, it reminded me just how important it is to be thankful each and every day – not just on Thanksgiving.  Of course, I’ll be able to celebrate the US version of Thanksgiving in another month (pass the gravy, please!); however, I’ve started to make it a practice to start each day writing three things to be grateful for in my Gratitude Journal.

This past summer, Steve Foran gave a short presentation at the CAPS Halifax chapter meeting where he talked about the importance of giving thanks.  Yes, it is a message we have heard before: Have an Attitude of Gratitude.  Yet Steve did something different.  He handed each of us a small 3″x5″ leather, hardcover journal.  He challenged each of us to write three things we are grateful for.

I have been doing this since August, and I notice the day starts much more positive and energized.

What can you do to bring an attitude of gratitude to your team?

Use a Microphone for Presentations with More than 75 People

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Posted on 20th December 2010 by Kristin Arnold in presentation skills |Set The Tone |U R #1 Visual |Visuals/Props

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I have been doing a fair number of presentations to different chapters of the National Speakers Association.  Some fill up the meeting room (Go Ohio and Northern California!) and some are more intimate (Yeah Pittsburgh and Tennessee!).  Like most people, I like the more intimate conversations and don’t want to be bothered with a microphone.  HOWEVER, if you are presenting to more than 75 people, do us all a favor and use  a microphone.  Lavaliere or handheld?  No one really cares.  Use a microphone.  Even if you think you have a loud, booming voice.  Use a microphone.  It is not about your voice; it is about the audience’s ability to hear you.  So put away your pride and speak into a microphone.  Even in an audience of fifty it’s pretty nifty for everyone to be able to hear you!

Better yet, learn a little something about microphones.  How to turn them on.  How to turn them off before you go to the restroom.  How your mouth needs to be relatively close to the microphone to be heard.  And how to fish the little wire down your shirt so it doesn’t distract the audience by flopping all around.  (BTW, I use a Samson SE50 Omnidirectional wireless headset – and I highly recommend Bill Johnson at SpeakerTools.com)

While I’m on my micro-rant, please be nice to the A/V people.  Okay, be nice to ALL people, but especially the A/V people.  Find out their first name and use it.  Say thank you every once in a while.  Do your sound check with them.  Wander around the room while you do a sound check.  Note the “hot spots” (too much feedback) with masking tape on the floor – and don’t walk into the hot spots!  Then make sure the A/V person takes a piece of masking tape and notes your sound level on the mixer board – and then writes your name next to it.  If there are multiple people on the program, you will sound perfect – and the audience will be able to hear you!