How to Tell When a Presenter Doesn’t Care About the Audience (video)

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This hilarious video demonstrates almost every bad quality a presenter can have:

Undergraduate Students Unwittingly Subjected to World's Worst Research Presentation

Her presentation is disorganized, rushed and confusing. She skips through the whole thing without really saying much. She relies on the slides instead of using them as a supplement to her words.

She is distracted by her cell phone. She talks down to the student asking a question. She is utterly unprepared to use her own powerpoint deck. She uses too many filler words. It just goes on and on.

And to top it all off, she asks for her check while still on stage and mic’d up.

Above all, the two most important mistakes here are in preparation and respect for the audience.

If you don’t care about the audience, this is what happens. Maybe not to this extreme, but elements of it. You are dismissive of questions, you gloss over important information, and basically just want to “get it over with.”

And a lack of preparation means a lack of respect for the audience too. If you don’t respect or care about your audience, you probably won’t prepare very much before speaking to them.

By contrast, an excellent public speaker always prepares very well ahead of time (both the slides and the actual speech itself). They will make sure their research is up-to-date, they will rehearse the speaking portion, and they will review and memorize key points in advance.

They will also anticipate any common questions that might come up and prepare responses.

And an excellent speaker cares about the audience, respects their time, and wants to make a positive impact on them. So they will speak clearly and concisely, and make sure the overall presentation is intelligible for them.

Keep these points in mind and it will make public speaking a lot less stressful and uncomfortable.

Justin Aquino