Elliott’s Learning Trends #445 describes how he puts together a keynote presentation. I know, I know: Your first reaction was a yawn. Wake up! There’s some good stuff here.
People who attend a keynote don’t recognize that the speech itself is a small part of the effort, 90 minutes that follow days of preparation spread over a number of months. I’m reminded of being asked “How much do you charge to write a white paper?,” as if there’s no analysis, research, prior knowledge, mindmapping, and rough drafts before the writing starts.
Tips:
The first 180 seconds are key. In that 180 seconds the audience is evaluating me and making a decision how engaged they will be for the coming 90 minutes. So, I start with a few polls and rapidly have them talking to each other at their tables. In other words, it immediately shifts from a speech to an interactive session.
For me, a keynote is a blend of pre-planned content, stories and activities … along with improvisational elements that come from the participants and the “moment”. When I ask them to all stand up, walk to another table and talk to each other for 3 minutes, it is all about engagement and dialogue.
The on-line archive of Learning Trends (née TechLearn Trends) dates back to November 1997. (One assumes there will be a birthday celebration at Learning 2007.) Elliott wrote a parallel post to today’s on February 4, 1999, Anatomy of an Online Lecture.
Tips:
Getting Pumped: Normally, I get psyched up for a presentation when I start to see the audience come into the room. Here I had to handle the psyche up differently. I actually decided to load up my brain with the setting. Went to dinner at a local Asian restaurant, looked a collection of pictures from a previous visit to Singapore and even went on the internet and looked up the weather and local news from the destination city. Then, I saw a link to a Real Audio live feed from Singapore’s radio stations and listened to the Mandarin Top 20 music countdown over the net.
Web Content. I decided to play 30 seconds of the Singapore Radio Station that I had been listening to prior to the speech. When they heard the Mandarin announcer from 93.3 FM, the audience felt a connection and a lightness was added to the air.
Sifting through ten years of observations of a fast-moving field can broaden your perspective. Too bad Permalink tagging on Learning Trends is screwed up, making it impossible to link to an individual post.
Elliott has fans and he has detractors. Some of the nay-sayers are simply envious. Some don’t think he’s deep enough (“You can’t please all of the people all of the time….”) And some are put off by his enormous ego. He’s earned it. If I’d accomplished as much as Elliott, my ego would be enormous, too.
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