For the record, I am not a psychologist, so if you are, and what follows does not make sense, please set me straight by leaving a comment.

In essence, modern psychology is giving our “adaptive unconscious” more and more credit for making sense of what we see and hear and filtering the information without the need for conscious, higher-level thinking. This is both good and bad. It means we can effectively process and evaluate situations readily using only “thin-slices”, but we also unconsciously impose cultural bias and situational influences into our judgments.

What do I mean?

First, the research shows that we are pretty good at judging others in just a few seconds to a few minutes. We can read faces and tell when the delivery is sincere and truthful, and when it is fake and deceptive. We may not be able to tell you why, but our unconscious will sense a disconnect between what we see and what we hear. Video gives us both the visual and audio input to make that judgment.

Now the bad news is that we also bring a lot of bias – cultural, experiential, and situational – to these judgments. Gladwell uses the example of the performer that was praised as the most outstanding trombonist in a blind audition. When this happened in 1980, orchestras were still dominated by men, and it was commonly believed that you could tell the difference between how men and women played the same instrument. When they were introduced to Abbie Conant, a woman, they were in disbelief. Clearly if it had not been a blind audition, Conant would not have been selected.  This is one case where visual, video communication can work against you.

And how receptive we are is impacted by other, situational circumstances. In fact, you can influence other’s behavior by “priming” them with words. Gladwell cites an NYU experiment where two groups of students were primed with words and then sent off to reception to get their next assignment. One group was exposed to words like “aggressively”,”rude”,”bold”. “bother”, and “intrude”. The other group was exposed to words like “respect”,”considerate”,”patiently”,”polite”, and “courteous”. When they arrived at reception, the attendants were engrossed in a personal conversation with a fellow employee. The group exposed to the aggressive words interrupted on average after 5 minutes, while 82% of the group exposed to the polite words did not interrupt at all. (The experiment was stopped at the ten minute mark.)

Now I understand why they start playing good, upbeat music 10 minutes before the band takes the stage.  And how music lead-ins to presentations can ‘prime’ you to be more receptive to the presentation.  It makes you think we ought to be doing more than show dial-in telephone numbers before our web seminar’s start.

For more information, I recommend reading “Blink” or visiting Malcomb Gladwell’s website.

Are you wondering just how this is going to improve your webinars and presentations?

One of the services we offer is professional management of web seminars. As part of our service, we provide a practice session and make time for the event coordinators and panelists to rehearse.

We see two things happen -

(1) there will be one or more people who don’t make the rehearsal and

(2) those that are there are often multi-tasking and distracted.

When someone misses the rehearsal it actually impacts everyone. Beyond the last minute technology and system access questions that can add to the tension right before a live event, all the panelists miss out on reviewing the entire slide deck and hearing the other panelists key points. This helps each panelist understand how their message helps support the overall presentation message. Its also a great opportunity to practice your delivery out loud and get feedback in a safe environment.

I fully understand multi-tasking and am guilty of it myself.  But when your presenting, its really important that you have a clear mind so that you bring focus to your presentation and listen  to what the other presenters are saying.  I often hear this referred to as staying ‘in the moment’.

The impact of multi-tasking is obvious and easy to fix, but the impact of ‘mental clutter’ is just as great. Most of us juggle hundred’s of tasks each day in our work and family life.  This is where an organization system like GTD can immediately help, It prevents those random, nagging thoughts (“Did Sue send my the booked order numbers for our board meeting tonight? Did Jim get the signed P.O. from Worthington? Was I supposed to give the kids lunch money today?) from cropping up in the middle of your presentation.

I know there are many different organization methods out there, and which one is best will depend on your likes/dislikes and style of working. But whichever method you choose, work it so that you clear your mind and bring focus to your presentations.

OK, so maybe I did go a bit over the top with this posting title! But I did get you thinking.

What method do you use to stay organized and focused?

Bill

As part of our effort to bring a repeatable, scientific methodology to our web seminars we have been reading alot of literature on presentation development .

Currently I’m reading Doug Stevenson’s Story Theater Method; Strategic Storytelling in Business. This is a guidebook that shows how to mine your own life stories to help you connect with an audience.

Right away, Doug makes this point:

The key to becoming an effective speaker is to be authentic. The goal is not to change who you are, it’s to remain true to who you are. To do otherwise is to lose your power. Your power lies in your unique personality and style.

Doug goes on to talk about how actors connect IN to connect OUT to an audience. They go inward to pull from their own reservoir of emotions and experiences. If they do this well, they bring the character to life and the audience connects to them.

This approach is very different from the audience-focused presentation style most of us learned.  Here the speaker adjusts his presentation and delivery based on the audience’s verbal and non-verbal cues, trying to read the audience so they – the presenter – can connect to them.

Doug does not say you should ignore the audience – but the time to pay attention to their needs is before your presentation when you are preparing content, selecting which stories to share, and practicing your delivery.

This method of presenting – connecting IN to connect OUT – translates well to a webinar.

By definition you are physically separated from the audience, but that does not mean that you cannot deliver a powerful presentation and have the audience connect to you.  The strongest webinar speakers do connect IN, and their passion, enthusiasm and knowledge energize even the most dry or technical subject matter.

This is the essence of authenticity.