Every time you say anything in English, every time you write anything in English, you change the world. Not quite true; but if you are heard, if you are read, then you will change your audience or your readers respectively.
You will instruct them, you will amuse them, you will fascinate them or you will bore them. But be assured, that they will not be the same after as they were before.
If this is the case, why not do a good job? Why not create those changes in people that you want? This is what TRIPLE A has been all about for over twenty years. Communicating in English, so that you achieve the changes in people that you want to. This is what this blog is about.
Try the following exercise.
Next time somebody is talking to you in Englísh, observe your own process. Observe how you change as the person talks to you....you become interested, you become bored, you become amused, irritated, fascinated and so on. Get used to observing the changes that take place in you. Logically, a similar process will be taking place in your listeners as you talk to them, or make a presentation. They will become fascinated, bored, amused, better informed in turns as you talk.
Then try and discover how the speaker caused these various emotions and states in you. What did s/he say or how did s/he say it that amused/irritated/informed you?
If you decided to carry out the above exercises - which might take anything up to twenty years to do perfectly - it would be great if you posted a comment sharing your reflections with others on this blog.
Monday 29 November 2010
An embedded presentation
How many times have you been to a presentation which has not impacted on you significantly?
You arrived three minutes before the speaker mounted the platform, you listened, laughed politely, noted what he or she said and then filed out with the rest of the audience after the speaker had left the platform. Two days after the presentation, you had forgotten all about it.
Imagine a smooth, flat stone on a smooth, flat, shallow rock near the water's edge. What happens when the tide comes in? The stone is washed off the rock. Now imagine some moss on the same rock. What happens when the tide comes in? The sea washes over the moss which remains firmly attached to the rock. An embedded presentation should be as firmly attached to your audience as the moss is to the rock. How to achieve this?
Begin the embedding process as early as possible
Make sure the audience know who you are and what benefit they will derive from your presentation in the programme notes or similar. You could also email or contact your audience ahead of time to prepare them for your offering. In this way you will have at least a neutral soil and hopefully a fertile one in which to plant your seeds.
Think back to the last presentation you attended. How could the presenter have prepared the soil better, to make you in the audience more receptive to the changes he wanted to induce in you? Did s/he do anything to prepare you for the presentation ahead of time? How much did you know about the presenter before the presentation? Would the presenter have made more impact on you if he or she had in some way or other have contacted you ahead of time?
During the presentation
You will be wanting to create some sort of change in your audience eg, you might want them to buy your products or you might want them to be better informed about your department's strategic goals. Whatever goals you have, make every effort to involve the audience in such a way that you create these changes. This is what a truly embedded presentation is - a presentation which impacts on your audience's lives for a long time after they have walked out of your presentation.
Again, think back to the last presentation you attended - or at least one in the recent past. What three things did the presenter do to make impact on you - to ensure that his presentation would become embedded in you, like the moss on the rock?
After the presentation
The success of your presentation can only be truly judged when your audience resumes their separate lives. To take the two situations above: if you receive lots of orders from your audience, then your presenation has been successful. If your audience uses the information about your department's strategic goals in a constructive way, by changing their work habits to fit in with the strategic goals of your department, then your presentation has been successful. You have achieved your goals. We could also think about what we could do post-presentation to embed further. We might email people perhaps, get feed-back from them, visit or phone them.
TASK THREE - What could the presenter have done to have embedded it further in you, so that it would impact on and influence you?
You arrived three minutes before the speaker mounted the platform, you listened, laughed politely, noted what he or she said and then filed out with the rest of the audience after the speaker had left the platform. Two days after the presentation, you had forgotten all about it.
Imagine a smooth, flat stone on a smooth, flat, shallow rock near the water's edge. What happens when the tide comes in? The stone is washed off the rock. Now imagine some moss on the same rock. What happens when the tide comes in? The sea washes over the moss which remains firmly attached to the rock. An embedded presentation should be as firmly attached to your audience as the moss is to the rock. How to achieve this?
Begin the embedding process as early as possible
Make sure the audience know who you are and what benefit they will derive from your presentation in the programme notes or similar. You could also email or contact your audience ahead of time to prepare them for your offering. In this way you will have at least a neutral soil and hopefully a fertile one in which to plant your seeds.
Think back to the last presentation you attended. How could the presenter have prepared the soil better, to make you in the audience more receptive to the changes he wanted to induce in you? Did s/he do anything to prepare you for the presentation ahead of time? How much did you know about the presenter before the presentation? Would the presenter have made more impact on you if he or she had in some way or other have contacted you ahead of time?
During the presentation
You will be wanting to create some sort of change in your audience eg, you might want them to buy your products or you might want them to be better informed about your department's strategic goals. Whatever goals you have, make every effort to involve the audience in such a way that you create these changes. This is what a truly embedded presentation is - a presentation which impacts on your audience's lives for a long time after they have walked out of your presentation.
Again, think back to the last presentation you attended - or at least one in the recent past. What three things did the presenter do to make impact on you - to ensure that his presentation would become embedded in you, like the moss on the rock?
After the presentation
The success of your presentation can only be truly judged when your audience resumes their separate lives. To take the two situations above: if you receive lots of orders from your audience, then your presenation has been successful. If your audience uses the information about your department's strategic goals in a constructive way, by changing their work habits to fit in with the strategic goals of your department, then your presentation has been successful. You have achieved your goals. We could also think about what we could do post-presentation to embed further. We might email people perhaps, get feed-back from them, visit or phone them.
TASK THREE - What could the presenter have done to have embedded it further in you, so that it would impact on and influence you?
Friday 26 November 2010
Welcome to the TRIPLE A blog
Welcome to all of you fans of TRIPLE A! You may have landed here through direct invitation from me through facebook, or through a friend - it does not matter: you are here. I am guessing that you have an interest in communicating in English or maybe in TRIPLE A itself, so I hope you find something here that will grab you. Please comment on what you like about the blog or what you don't. Does not mean you will get what you want, but I'll do my best to keep most of the readers happy most of the time: all of the readers all of the time might be over the top. Also of course, comment on the posts and pages you get on the blog. How it turns out is up to all of us.
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