Filed under: Public Speaking
I shifted in my seat, crossed my ankles and then my legs. I started to reach for my iPhone, where e-mail and Twitter awaited. Meeting etiquette loomed large in my mind, though, reminding me that relief from boredom would have to wait until the end of the talk.
The other parents and I had come to the middle-school auditorium with the highest of hopes. We looked forward to acquainting ourselves with Renzulli, the new online learning system for school-age children and their parents. It had been heavily promoted and we were ready to get cracking. That is, we knew everything about this magnificent learning system but how to use it—during this presentation, we had been told, we would learn how.
The school district speaker was an amiable guy, chatting up the parents and eating cookies long past the originally scheduled start time. After I raised my hand (I was in a school, after all) and respectfully informed the speaker that some of us had a clock to punch, he decided to begin. I immediately regretted my actions.
Mr. School District was a rambler. A monotone rambler. The type that conjures visions of the unbearably boring teacher in the movie “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.” Not only was the delivery exhausting, the content was all wrong. First, he droned affectionately about the history of education in our country. Not facts applicable to the day’s subject matter, but information regarding the advent of the corporate model and various teaching methods employed by schools since the 1920s. My mind wandered. After the leg-crossing and a few tweets (okay, I succumbed to a little temptation), I pulled out a notepad and wrote my grocery list: eggs, apples, bread, milk…
About 25 minutes into the history lesson, my ears perked up at the mention of Renzulli. Renzulli!, I thought. I sat with my pencil poised, but alas, instruction was not to come. He instead prattled on about the reasons we, parents of middle-school children, should appreciate this fine learning tool. We already knew this or we wouldn’t have been there. Half an hour later, we still hadn’t opened a link or learned how to register.
Somewhere between doodling Christmas trees and praying for a fire drill, I decided I could take it no longer. More than an hour had passed and we hadn’t acquired even one nugget of applicable information. I discreetly exited through the back door while bleary-eyed parents looked at me with longing in their eyes. They were undoubtedly wondering when they too could make a break for it.
I wish our Renzulli speaker had employed a few audience-centric thoughts before addressing our group. For example:
- Don’t just know your audience, REALLY know your audience. Think beyond gender, age and occupation. Part of understanding your audience is the ability to determine why they are there; what has made them block the time on their calendars and place themselves before you. Even though delivery is king with public speaking, poor or irrelevant content can confuse and frustrate.
- Craft your content to meet audience needs. Do your homework before you develop your speech. For example, Mr. School District spent a chunk of time selling Renzulli when we were already sold. A few phone conversations may have helped him shape his talk in a manner more appealing and useful to those of us in the room.
- Respect people’s time. If a starting time has been communicated, stick with it. At the very least, don’t act like you don’t care about it by eating cookies and making small talk. Not only did our speaker do this, I later learned that he presented for two and a half hours when we were told the talk would run no more than 90 minutes. Disinterest in punctuality on either end of your presentation is simply a way of saying you don’t care about your audience’s time.
- Brush up on your speaking skills. School District guy’s monotone delivery was the nail in the coffin of an otherwise disappointing program. If you are uncomfortable speaking before a group, consider a short tutorial or online course. Practice in front of a mirror or an empty room of seats to become comfortable with the material and your ability to communicate it. Try out your talk with colleagues, your spouse or a friend. Even my dog perks up if my speeches are worth a listen. Practice—it’s worth it.
Just the other day, I received a flyer from my youngest child’s elementary school, saying it would soon be holding “an exciting, one hour presentation on the new Renzulli learning system!” Then I read who the speaker was. Exciting and one hour, my foot. I’ll skip it this time and do what I should have done in the first place: turn on my computer and learn about Renzulli online.
"Bueller? Bueller?"
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