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Keeping an audience interested



Printed From: 123PPT Video Backgrounds Studio Forum
Category: Presentation Help & Techniques
Forum Name: Corporate Presentations
Forum Discription: Help with creating and presenting corporate presentations
URL: http://www.123ppt.com/video-backgrounds-studio/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=240
Printed Date: 19 Mar 2024 at 00:13
Software Version: Web Wiz Forums 9.53 - http://www.webwizforums.com


Topic: Keeping an audience interested
Posted By: Digit
Subject: Keeping an audience interested
Date Posted: 03 Jul 2011 at 05:40

Hey community,

any help and advice on keeping an audience interested during a presentation?

Digit.
PresentationBoy




Replies:
Posted By: Jonathan Stock
Date Posted: 03 Jul 2011 at 06:43

Hi Digit.

I think every presenters nightmare is delivering a presentation where you notice that you've been talking for 30 minutes or so and you've been very invovled in your PowerPoint presentation which you've also been using for your notes as well as visuals.

Suddenly, you look out into the audience and notice that people are yawning, looking at their watches, and fidgeting in their seats. This is every presenters nightmare. Your audience has lost interest.

How do you rescue this presentation from certain disaster?

If your audience is snoozing in their seats, you need a tried and tested way of waking them back up!

In my experience Digit, the only true way to keep your audience focused throughout your presentation is to involve the audience in your presentation.



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Jonathan Stock
Presentation Consultant, www.123ppt.com


Posted By: Dave Clark
Date Posted: 03 Jul 2011 at 06:52

This is absolutely true, but an old trick that might be useful Digit is to just stop.

Sound strange? To stop in the middle of your presentation?

I promise you nothing gets attention faster. After all, lets look at the reason why your audience has begun to fall asleep in their chairs and switched off from the presentation. Most likely because they were not involved or found no connection to the topic or presentation subject.

There's nothing quite like PowerPoint to help a presenter become completely isolated from their audience. Nothing that allows a presenter  to become so self absorbed in the mechanics of the presentation, clicking previous and next slides, reading off bullets, etc.,

It makes it all so easy to forget the very reason why you are there and who you are talking to.

If the audience has begun to drift away and lose interest, somewhere in the back of their minds they can still here this blabbering voice of the presenter aimlessly talking. The moment that noise stops alarm bells ring. Huh? ...What's happening?. All these signals make the audience sit to attention and focus once more.

You may have lost your presentation up until this point, but now you have at least the opportunity to salvage whats left of your presentation.

  • Stop your slide show.
  • Insert a new blank slide from the menu.
  • Turn to your audience.
  • Ask them to brainstorm with you. To help you find the answer. To get their suggestions and ideas to solve the questions you have been posing until now.

Even if you have answered them yourself in later slides.  Just leave them. Let the audience drive the presentation, their thoughts can sculpt the discussion.

You are still in control and can turn the direction of the discussion if you feel it is getting off track or away from the point. But let the audience interact. Let the audience be reminded they are there for a purpose. Not only to listen. But to interact and provide valuable input.



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Dave Clark
Presentation Consultant, www.123ppt.com


Posted By: Charles Henry
Date Posted: 03 Jul 2011 at 06:55

I always find that if you ask your audience questions throughout your presentation you have a much better chance of keeping them involved from the start.

It's a lot like preventing the disease rather than searching for a cure.

Ask questions, move around the room. Remove, or skip over the boring ‘filler’ slides and get to the interesting and interactive stuff.

For me a goal is always to try to have my audience so involved that they are trying to anticipate the next point or my next slide.



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Charles Henry,
Creative Director, www.123ppt.com


Posted By: Digit
Date Posted: 03 Jul 2011 at 08:13
Thanks guys, lots of good and interesting stuff here but it is not about how do I "rescue" a presentation.

What I was thinking of was more general advice of "good presenting" or general "good presentation tips" that i can take with me.

Digit.
PresentationBoy


Posted By: Rachel S
Date Posted: 03 Jul 2011 at 08:18
How about just basically walking away from the presentation?

I mean just turning your back to your presentation and stepping away from it and taking a few steps towards your audience to ask questions.

It might sound super simple, but posing some direct questions to the audience really does wake them up and get them more involved

Rachel S


Posted By: MKN
Date Posted: 03 Jul 2011 at 08:22
At a recent conference where I was present, the speaker in the middle of his presentation said.

OK, everybody stand up, and change seats with the person on your left
.

It is apparently based upon a brain based research called "A change of state". Making an individual change their state mid flow increases their senses, heightens their awareness, and increases their mental state of mind.

Apparently it also makes them more receptive to absorbing and digesting information and data!

So the next time you are having a presentation and you want to get your audience to remember your PowerPoint bullets, key points and arguments...ask them to stand up, shake hands with the person on their left and swap chairs. It really works, I can still remember the content and whole point of the presentation.

MKN


Posted By: Digit
Date Posted: 03 Jul 2011 at 08:29
So I guess the basic guide then is to keep the audience involved and interacting?

Whether it is with questions. Whether it is with brainstorming. Whether it is with standing up and moving around. Swapping seats, or coming up to the podium?

If you keep the audience involved then they stay alert and stay engaged?

Thanks for all the input everyone I'm going to go back and change my presentation now and transform it to make better use of a question/ answer session and audience interaction.

Digit.
PresentationBoy



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