<\/p>\n
![\"Ron](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.gigsalad.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/Careers-Emily-Weaver-Ron-Shapiro-Awards-Presentation-2017-03-17.jpg?resize=450%2C337&ssl=1\")
Dr. Ron Shapiro offers tips for engaging your audience.<\/p><\/div>\n
You are planning a program for your business, college, community group, conference, convention, meeting, school, university or youth group and need to select the right speaker to meet your objectives. \u00a0What should you do?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Clearly specify (in writing) your objectives for having the speaker. By doing so, you will quickly recognize when you have found a speaker who meets your needs.<\/p>\n One factor to consider when determining the budget is how much the audience is paying to attend the session (or how much the employer is paying in salaries for the audience members to attend the session).\u00a0Another is the demand for a speaker with the skills that you really need. A third factor is how much additional income you will bring in by having that speaker\u2019s name on the agenda.<\/span><\/p>\n Speak with potential audience members and sponsors to see if they can recommend an affordable speaker to meet your needs. If so, you are in luck. Contact the speaker and interview them to see if\/how they will fulfill your objective.<\/span><\/p>\n If potential audience members and sponsors do not have any specific nominees, it is time to begin a search. Check with professional organizations relevant to the objectives specified above. Check with your local chamber of commerce. If you have a large budget and are looking for a big name speaker (say $10,000 or more), check speaker\u2019s bureaus that represent celebrities. Do online searches using services such as GigSalad<\/a> as well as your search engines. Speak with the potential speakers and find out how they plan to meet your objectives.<\/span><\/p>\n Once you have a list of speakers, it is time to decide who you would like to feature in your program. Here are some criteria:<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n There are, of course, many styles for presenting. Generally speaking, presenting materials using a variety of styles is best for everyone from a pedagogical perspective. <\/span><\/p>\n From a marketing perspective, having highly interactive sessions may increase interest in your event for many attendees. Other attendees may prefer more traditional lectures. You need to select the format that will bring people into the program (and keep them awake throughout the program, too.)\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Similarly, having a big name speaker may help bring people to the program (or keep them away, depending who the speaker is.) Having the big name speaker may or may not help keep the audience awake and tuned in. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Speakers who tell interesting stories are normally entertaining. The stories may be about overcoming adversity, completing an interesting adventure, or performing very successfully (or failing) in business. As an event sponsor, you need to be sure the stories the speaker will tell address your objectives<\/strong> in having the program. \u00a0You also need to be sure the speaker will help link the stories to your objectives and be sure the audience will actually remember the critical messages rather than just the stories.<\/span><\/p>\n I use a TV Game Show Style<\/strong> in presenting many of my programs. I begin my custom programs by showing and explaining what I am trying to accomplish based upon the sponsor\u2019s objectives. I then have numerous games and activities which illustrate the principles. I follow each game and activity with an explanation of how the activity matches the sponsor\u2019s objectives. <\/span><\/p>\n Some of my activities involve all members of the audience and some involve selecting members of the audience to come up on stage. At the end of my session I have the audience members who participated in the on-stage activities come back on stage and explain the activity, what they did, how it relates to them (and hopefully the sponsor\u2019s objectives).<\/span><\/p>\n This is followed by a final exam. I\u2019m confident that audience members will remember the games and activities. I\u2019m less certain they will remember the principles being taught without presenting the material in numerous ways, which is why I have many reviews during my programs. No matter what format your speaker is using, be sure that they present their content in multiple ways so that it can be easily remembered.<\/span><\/p>\n Generally speaking my programs are designed to show people more about how they think so that they can be safer, more productive and better communicators. My programs for technical professionals and students have the additional objective of helping the attendees learn to design better products and systems. <\/span><\/p>\n An additional goal is to provide all of our attendees with a toolkit of activities<\/strong> which they can use at their events. We believe that our structure makes it easy for people to remember what they learn without making lots of notes. We also believe that our programs are more fun than most parties. Since they are so much fun, we offer a special edition of our programs for parties, making them both educational and fun!<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n You deserve a reward for having read through much of this blog (smile), so I\u2019m going to present a few activities which I include in some of my programs. You may wish to use some of these at your own events!<\/span><\/p>\n Sit down on a chair with proper posture. Now lift your right foot off of the ground and draw clockwise circles with it. Place your right hand in the air and draw a big \u201c6\u201d with it. Tell me what happened to your foot. Going forward, remember that you will make more errors if you multitask rather than completing one task at the time. Applying this to driving, if you talk on your cell phone while driving, you will make more errors. Oftentimes, you will get away with these, but sometimes you may not and the consequences may be a collision, potentially a costly or fatal one.<\/span><\/p>\n Ask the entire audience to spell SPOT really fast five times. Just as they finish, ask them \u201cWhat do you do at a green light?\u201d They will probably say STOP. The correct answer is, of course, GO. Applying this to your workplace, remember that if you try to go too fast, you will make errors. <\/span><\/p>\n We invite a member of the audience to come on stage and try out our inversion prisms which make everything appear to be upside down. While wearing the prisms, we ask the audience member to shake hands, read, and direct a blindfolded audience member to place a sticker on a chart in a designated location right side up. We talk about flexibility (in 3 weeks someone could learn to drive wearing these prisms) and how much flexibility is reasonably expected from colleagues, employers, and employees. <\/span><\/p>\n A blindfolded participant is told to find their present by asking the audience \u2014 which has been shown a description of the present \u2014 yes<\/em> and no<\/em> questions while remaining blindfolded. We talk about optimizing strategies for asking questions.<\/span><\/p>\n Our audience elects a champion (selected from the on-stage participants) based upon their performance in our program. The Champion is blindfolded and asked to name everyone who appeared on stage, describe what they did, and how it relates to the program\u2019s objectives. Then, they are presented with a prize which they need to identify (while remaining blindfolded). This gives us one final review to help reinforce our objectives. We also discuss who the Champion may have forgotten to name and why. Who do you think they forget? \u00a0After the Champion describes their prizes, we discuss the cognitive strategies they used to identify the prizes.<\/span><\/p>\n We blindfold our on-stage contestants for several reasons. First, we do not want them to have visual cues as they complete their activities. Second, we find that blindfolds attract attention! If we are presenting in an open area, passersby are not likely to stop. Add in on-stage contestants and more people will stop. Blindfold the contestants and even more people will stop to see what we are doing. <\/span><\/p>\n We use many of the same activities for all of our audiences from professionals and graduate students to third graders (though our explanations may vary). Sometimes the younger students outperform experienced professionals and graduate students!<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n While there may be some appeal to asking audience members numerous questions about a given speaker, numerous questions might be out of proportion to the length of the presentation itself. I have found that simply asking the audience members to describe my program in one word<\/strong> gives me a quick summary of how people felt about the program. I then input this feedback into a word cloud tool (Wordle). The picture tells a story which I frequently share on my website (and in my GigSalad profile<\/a>, too). The top 6 words used most frequently to describe my programs in 2016 were Awesome, Amazing, Entertaining, Fun, Funny and Interesting.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n I would like to thank Industrial Consultant, Dr. Margarita Posada Cossuto, and GigSalad Content Strategist, Tessie Barnett,\u00a0for their helpful contributions to this article.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Dr. Ronald G. Shapiro earned his doctoral degree in psychology with a specialization in designing easy-to-use products, solutions, and services. As an experienced educator, manager, leader and consultant, his educational programs offer participants valuable knowledge through fun, unique experiences. Visit his GigSalad profile to learn more<\/a>!\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\nChoosing the Right Speaker<\/h2>\n
1. Know what your guests need.<\/h3>\n
2. Determine your budget.<\/h3>\n
3. Get recommendations.<\/h3>\n
4. Search for other options.<\/h3>\n
5. Make a decision.<\/h3>\n
\n
Choosing a Presentation Style<\/h2>\n
My Game Show Style Program<\/h3>\n
![\"How](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.gigsalad.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/EPA-Networking-Game-Summary-Slide-2016-03-05-e1500932867397.jpg?resize=1000%2C750&ssl=1\")
<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n
More Fun Activities!<\/h2>\n
![\"How](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.gigsalad.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/NEMRA-Smiles-2017-05-18.jpg?resize=450%2C337&ssl=1\")
<\/p>\nMultitasking<\/h3>\n
Memory<\/h3>\n
Perceptually Inverted Navigation<\/h3>\n
Find the Present<\/h3>\n
Final Exam<\/h3>\n
Bonus Tip!<\/h3>\n
Measuring Speaker Success<\/h2>\n
![\"How](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.gigsalad.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/Barrington-High-School-Word-Cloud-2017-05-0209.jpg?resize=450%2C337&ssl=1\")
<\/p>\nReady to find a speaker who will bring your event to life? Book the best on GigSalad.<\/h3>\n