Showing posts with label Audience. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Audience. Show all posts

Thursday, 18 September 2014

Tips for Communicating with a Diverse Audience

Ten PC Tips for Communicating with a Diverse Audience

by: Simma Lieberman


By learning to speak to a diverse audience, you can broaden your client base transfer the learning to more people. We need to be more “PC”. Were not talking “political correctness”, were talking “Positively Conscious”, of who is in our audience and understanding how to make people feel included. The more people feel included, the more they will listen to you, use your information and come back for more. If you offend people they will shut down and you will lose them.


1) Use words that include rather than exclude. While some women don’t mind being called ladies, in a professional setting the word women is more appropriate. Be “positively conscious” of pronouns when discussing hypothetical cases. I have been inn workshops where the facilitator spoke as though all managers were “he” and all administrative support were “she”. Metaphors are very effective. Remember to mix them. Don’t use only sports metaphors. Have a balance. In Europe when they think of football they think of soccer. Be aware that people have different abilities. Instead of telling everyone to stand, you might say everyone who is able please stand, and have a way for others to participate in the exercise.


2) Learn the demographics of the audience before your presentation, and prepare.


3) Do not assume everyone shares your religious beliefs.


4) Look at everyone in the audience and smile at them. Speakers can have a tendency to visually relate to people who look more like them. Assume everyone wants to be valued.


5) Do not use humor that puts down any particular group. If you are not sure, get feedback from others.


6) Examine your assumptions about people who are different than you. Be open to letting go of those assumptions.


7) Do not be afraid to ask for the correct pronunciation of someone’s name.


8) If someone has an accent and you can’t understand them, ask them to repeat what they said slowly, because what they are saying is important to you.


9) Use methodology in your presentations to accommodate different learning styles. Visual Auditory Kinesthetic


10) Be comfortable with silence. In some cultures that can mean respect and attention. Be comfortable with direct interaction. In some cultures that can mean respect and attention. Be comfortable with saying, ” I don’t know.”


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Monday, 1 September 2014

Public Speaking: Delivering The Right Message

Public Speaking Tips – Are You Delivering the Right Type of Speech?


By





Expert Author Ernest Chen “No matter how good our policies may be, if the public does not appreciate or accept them, we lose their support and understanding.”



- Lim Siong Guan, former Civil Service Chief Singapore.


A good speech is focused and purposeful, and it has an appeal to the audience. The speech must be easily understood and the audience can relate the speech to them.


The best guideline is to ask yourself: what is your purpose in giving the speech.


The general purpose of a speech has to be one of the following:



Do You Want to Inform Your Audience?


English: A member of the audience holds a &quo...

English: A member of the audience holds a “Thank You” sign during President Barack Obama’s speech on medicare fraud and health care insurance reform at St. Charles High School in St. Charles, Mo., March 10, 2010. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)



We are in the midst of an information explosion. It has been said that the average person receives more than 20,000 words of information every day. Speaking to inform is the most common form of communication. These speeches can take the form of reports in business meetings, teacher-parents meetings, a marketing talk, or a talk on time management. The ultimate goal of these speeches is to inform.


Do You Want to Persuade Your Audience?


The purpose of this speech is to persuade and to influence the listener to believe and to act. The ability to persuade and to get other people to understand, accept and act upon your ideas, is an essential quality of leadership. The speaker uses goals, reasoning and evidence to identify with the audience and engage them with emotional appeals.


Do You Want to Motivate Your Audience?


The purpose of a motivational speech is to encourage the audience to set realistic goals and take responsibility for their lives, careers, personal and professional growth. The focus is on positive thinking and using tools like personal stories and examples illustrating how others have achieved success.


Do You Want to Inspire Your Audience?


This is a speech of the highest quality, and only an effective speaker can achieve the desired purpose. The desired purpose is to uplift the audience and inspire them to take action. It is a speech that challenges listeners to embrace noble motives or encourage them to achieve specific objectives, sometimes with personal sacrifice.


Do You Want to Entertain Your Audience?


Entertainment is a universal human need, more in demand now than ever before. As a speaker, you will often be asked to help fulfill the needs of the audience. The purpose to entertain is not an easy task because you have to entertain everyone and not everyone will appreciate your light hearted humour and some are often very serious in their outlook.


The intent of this speech is to get the audience to enjoy the talk rather than changing their belief or giving them tough information to digest.


Do You Motivate or Inspire?


Italiano: Author, life coach, and motivational...

Author, life coach, and motivational speaker Tony Robbins. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)



There is a marked distinction between motivational and inspirational speeches. Many speakers do not see the difference between the two of them. A motivational speech can include some of the aspects of inspirational techniques. However, an inspirational speech has to stand alone. Inspirational speech has to be focused.


Here are the ingredients that makes up a motivational speech:



  • Share personal strategies of success

  • Relate to familiar situations the audience may face.

  • Issue an immediate challenge to the audience Inculcate faith in the action

  • Use vocal variety and apply Conversational tone

  • Share your recipe of success

  • Make the audience believe in your purpose

  • Make the audience understand the concept

  • Discuss the immediate benefits to the audience


And here’s what a public speaker will want to do if he or she is interested in delivering a truly inspiring speech:



  • Share personal success stories

  • Make the stories real

  • Inculcate faith in the action

  • Use a loud tone and pitch it at their hearts

  • Speak with enthusiasm and vigour

  • Explain that success is universal and repeatable

  • Overcome the adversity to achieve a personal goal

  • Touch the nerve of the audience and send an emotional signal to them



For over 30 years, Ernest Chen, Singapore highly sought after public speaking coach and author of bestseller “Earnestly Speaking”, has helped over tens of thousands of individual achieve their dreams of becoming better and more efficient public speakers.


Regardless if is your dream to overcome your public speaking fears, to become a more engaging Master of Ceremonies or to learn the tricks to writing powerful and captivating public speeches that either motivate, inspire, persuade, entertain or inform your audience, Ernest can help you achieve all of them.


For more information about his Singapore public speaking courses, visit his website at http://ift.tt/1eTPxtM


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Thursday, 21 August 2014

Conquering Public Speaking Anxiety

by: Frederic Madore




Making a speech in front, whether the audience number a hundred or just ten, qualifies as one of man’s greatest fears. This is why public speaking is one commodity that is quite rare right now for only a few manage to conquer the anxiety that accompany every speech.


But why do people fear public speaking so much? Psychologists believe that it is not actually public speaking that make people feel the anxiety but the ridicule and comments of people just in case they commit a mistake.


People who have public speaking anxiety do not have enough self-confidence in the way they speak. They believe that when they go in front and make a speech, they will blunder their way through it and suffer from the shame.


Public speaking anxiety can however be conquered with the right attitude and commitment. Here are some tips that can start you in your way towards a public-speaking-anxiety-free life.


Talk about what you know


Speaking on a subject that you are not familiar with can only lead to disaster. If you are considered an expert in a particular field, it would be easier for you to speak on that field. Anxiety only comes when you are not confident about your material and your ability to deliver that material.


Talking about something that you love and know will not only lessen the anxiety that you may feel will also make you appear passionate and enthusiastic about the project. So make sure that you only a public speaking topic that you feel you can handle or have a lot to say about the subject.


Practice.


Practice makes perfect and it can get rid of the anxiety for you. Cliché as that is, it is nevertheless true. When you practice, the opportunity for making a mistake lessens. This will make you feel more self-confident, knowing that you have prepared for the speech and that you have done your absolute best to present it.


In addition, constantly delivering your lines will make them seem automatic in your brain. The more automatic the speech is, the lesser the chance of having stage fright.


Prepare


Nothing gives you more confidence than knowing that you know your material well and that you can answer any question thrown at you. Part of feeling the anxiety is the fear that you will not be able to say anything in front. Scenarios such as forgetting one’s lines, choking at the middle of a speech or just plain not being able to answer the question in an open forum will probably be entering the mind. Anxiety results from these thoughts.


Study everything about the topic that you are going to talk about. Make sure that you have the right statistics and information.


Make the mirror your audience


Practicing in front of the mirror may seem stupid but it can be a great way to conquer your public speaking anxiety. Mirrors will reflect how you look and how your facial expressions look like when doing the speech. This will help you in schooling your features and in making your expressions appear confident and in control.


Do a dry run


Speech

Speech (Photo credit: pierret_christian)



If you can manage it, doing a dry run in the place where you are going to make your speech is a great way to get used to the idea of speaking in public. Knowing that you have already done it even in a dry run will help ease the discomfort and anxiety on stage. If practicing on stage is impossible, you can say your lines at home. If you are using power point presentations and other visuals, it is also good to do dry run using these visuals so that you can determine the timing involved for each.


You can also do a dry run in front of people you are close with. This will help ease the anxiety that you may be feeling about your public speaking engagement as you are already in a way able to speak in public even with your family and friends as the audience. In addition, they can also help you make the speech better by giving comments and suggestions. In fact, through their help, you can even improve on your presentation more.


About The Author


Frederic Madore is the founder of the http://ift.tt/PdPG6y and the http://ift.tt/1fJZVpC websites. Find all the tools you need to get rid of you anxiety disorder.


(c)Copywright 2005


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