{"id":2265,"date":"2013-06-17T08:39:38","date_gmt":"2013-06-17T07:39:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.curved-vision.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/?p=2265"},"modified":"2013-06-17T08:39:38","modified_gmt":"2013-06-17T07:39:38","slug":"whats-wrong-with-being-a-content-speaker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/whats-wrong-with-being-a-content-speaker\/","title":{"rendered":"What&#8217;s wrong with being a content speaker?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A couple of weeks ago I posted what turned out to be a pretty controversial blog called \u201c<a title=\"Being a motivational speaker\" href=\"http:\/\/www.curved-vision.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/whats-wrong-with-being-a-motivational-speaker-2\/\">What\u2019s wrong with being a motivational speaker<\/a>\u201d. I thought it would be only fair to turn things around therefore and post something about what\u2019s wrong with being a \u2018content speaker\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ll try to be just as tongue-in-cheek! :)<\/p>\n<p>Oh, and by the way, if you think I\u2019m talking about you, I probably am<a href=\"http:\/\/www.curved-vision.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/Pile-of-Books.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-2287\" alt=\"Pile-of-Books\" src=\"http:\/\/www.curved-vision.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/Pile-of-Books-300x218.png\" width=\"300\" height=\"218\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/Pile-of-Books-300x218.png 300w, http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/Pile-of-Books.png 448w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>!<\/p>\n<p><strong>Problem one: No charisma<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>We\u2019ve all met them. The character-free automaton who might know his or her stuff, but has apparently developed that expertise at the expense of learning social skill or how to engage with the audience.<\/p>\n<p>Like all cruel joke, it\u2019s funny because there\u2019s a shred of truth hidden at the bottom of it, perhaps&#8230;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>How do you spot the extravert computer programmer?<\/p>\n<p>They\u2019re the one looking at YOUR shoes when they talk to you!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Substitute the profession of your choice, of course &#8211; accountant are often a easy target, too.<\/p>\n<p>Typically this kind of presenter will cram slides with information, and if you\u2019re really unlucky, simply read it to you, with barely any admission that there\u2019s an audience. He (or she) regards his (or her) job simply to<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>get to the end of their alloted time without any messy stuff such as engagement with the audience; and<\/li>\n<li>throw as much information \u2018out there\u2019 as possible in any old structure, with no thought for anything messy, such as an audience.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>In other words, they don\u2019t want to be there and they don\u2019t you the audience to be there either!<\/p>\n<p><strong>Solution one<\/strong>: take something else to do during the presentation, pick up the print-out of the slides and read them back in the office. (After all, the slides are written as a document, not a slide deck in any case!)<\/p>\n<p><strong>Problem two: Old info<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>An awful lot of content-orientated speakers neglect their content. If it was good enough in 1962, they think, it\u2019s good enough in 2013. Sadly for them, science moves on. The earth is now pretty much now universally recognised as <b>not<\/b> flat.<\/p>\n<p>Unless the content-presenter continually updates their material to keep it absolutely current the audience is at risk of being short-changed with material that\u2019s out of date and sadly, therefore, often wrong.<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s an old saying that \u201cEverything you read in the newspaper is absolutely true, except the one story you happen to know a lot about\u201d. Content-based presentations are a lot like that &#8211; unless it happens to impact upon our particular area of expertise we tend to take what we\u2019re told at face value; after, the speaker is bound to have checked their facts, right?<\/p>\n<p>Right?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Solution two<\/strong>: Take everything you\u2019re told with a pinch of salt (and by \u2018pinch\u2019 I mean \u2018lots\u2019) and be skeptical about everything. Sadly, this means you\u2019ll also throw away anything the speaker tells you which is useful and accurate so you might as well not have turned up for the presentation in the first place. :(<\/p>\n<p><strong>Problem three: Bad data<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>A bit like the presenter with old data, some presenters will use the first data they find. To make matters worse, of course, they don\u2019t even actually just use the <b>first<\/b> data they find (which might be wrong, of course!) &#8211; what they actually do is use the <b>first data they find that they agree with<\/b>.<\/p>\n<p>In other words, they have something they need to say and therefore (albeit without meaning to) twist the data to support that. Something called Perception Bias means that people often don\u2019t even notice stuff they don\u2019t believe, so the only evidence they notice is stuff that supports their beliefs, not challenges it. We\u2019re all susceptible to it, even properly trained scientists &#8211; although a good scientist will at least take steps to reduce the risks of the problem. Unless your speaker is a professional research scientist the chances are their material is only partial!<\/p>\n<p><strong>Solution three:<\/strong> Ask yourself the old saw from <a title=\"Louis_Heren\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Louis_Heren\" target=\"_blank\">Louis Heren<\/a> about when he was interviewing politicians: \u201cWhy is this lieing bastard lieing to me?\u201d. They may not be, of course but going from the starting point that they <b>are<\/b> is a healthily skeptical place to be!<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00a0Problem Four: an answer to an unasked question<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s a sub-group of subject-oriented presenters who talk about what they know, because that\u2019s all they know!<\/p>\n<p>If all you\u2019ve got is a hammer, everything looks like a nail!<\/p>\n<p>If that topic or approach happens to match what you need, great. Chances are it isn\u2019t a perfect fit though. A speaker on resilience techniques for adults at work might be great (I am, I think!) but there\u2019s also the temptation to apply the same presentation to the need for a speaker on \u201cResilience Techniques for Children\u201d. Dangerous territory, indeed!<\/p>\n<p>By the way, as special subgroup of this type of speaker is the group with a \u2018solution looking for a problem!\u00a0 I\u2019ll bet you\u2019ve had to listen to them as they tell you the 10 top tips for doing something-you-won\u2019t-ever-need-to-do-if-you-live-to-be-a-thousand. (The top ten ways to put on your shoes in the dark while being chased by extinct dinosaurs without breaking sweat &#8211; special tools for Thursday mornings!)<\/p>\n<p><strong>Solution Four<\/strong>: ignore them and do something on your iPhone ;)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A couple of weeks ago I posted what turned out to be a pretty controversial blog called \u201cWhat\u2019s wrong with being a motivational speaker\u201d. I thought it would be only fair to turn things around [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2287,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2265","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-presentation-tips"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2265","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2265"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2265\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}