Audience rules

Communication has little meaning if it is unheard, unread or unseen. So although it is important for us to get our message across, to be heard and to impact, I would suggest that the audience rules in the sense that every one of our communications is sent to a specific audience.  This audience determines whether the presentation is successful.  This success can be judged by how much the specific audience changes as a result of the presentation.
Imagine a spectrum ranging from a completely mechanical presentation to a completely organic one.  The completely mechanical one would be a pre-recorded PP presentation.  The button is pushed initially, a recorded voice drones, the slides are shown at a pre-determined rate.  The audiences leaves when the last slide has been shown and the words 'The End' appear on the screen.  An organic presentation ís when the presenter establishes good rapport with his or her audience, some stimulating and well chosen slides, appropriate to this audience, are shown,  the presenter tells some stories which are adapted to his or her audience and finally, the audience feel included and involved in some way or other.
The decision as to where your presentation will lie on the spectrum depends on a number of factors.  It can however, be interesting to start the planning of a presentation by firstly taking into consideration what the audience wants and needs to hear. Then add in what we want to say to them.  This then becomes a constantly shifting process between the two.  So, although it is an exaggeration to say that the audience rules absolutely, it is equally dangerous to ignore what they want and to plough on paying no attention to their initial goals and their subsequent reactions to what we deliver.

Communication and change

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.