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Ad Lagendijk Ad Lagendijk 23 June 2008

Are you also a speaker who loves to drown his audience?

Posted in Ethics, Speaking in public

After many years of experience I come to the following conclusion: Giving a good talk for a lay audience is extremely difficult and not very rewarding. Reading this statement will upset a number of people. So I have to do some explaining.

Drowning them
I have seen so many talks delivered by guys (yes usually guys) who want to prove that they are smarter than anybody in the audience. The speaker comes with chaotic – but intimidating – slides, in false colors and with a lot of impressive formula’s. Hedrowning.jpg utters a lot of one-liners that are popular in the media (in the case of physics it is about strings, black holes, time travel, supernova’s, dark matter) The orator speaks fast, to extremely fast. He radiates enthusiasm. There is no chance for the listeners to understand anything, which is exactly the purpose. It is all about intimidation. The speaker gives two or three talks rather than one. He goes way over his time. And the prevailing – for me disappointing – opinion of the audience is: “This guy is extremely smart and very enthusiastic. I wish I was that smart. Great”.

Anybody knowing some math can intimidate an audience this way. It is so easy to deliver such talks.

Saving them
Much more challenging is to have as goal to teach your lay audience some new science. You can only use a few sheets, or you have to use a blackboard. You really have to explain everything. So life_vest.jpgthere is much less science you can cover. You are not allowed to intimidate your public. If you do your job well, you will discover that your audience is dissatisfied. For a number of reasons. They realize that they learned something new but they cannot believe that good science can be that simple. And secondly they will come with a real question in the form of a suggestion. And then you have to explain to them that either their suggestion has already been pursued, or that their their suggestion has some error in it. Now they are really disappointed. I usually tell them that they should be very happy: they understand the new material so well, that they can ask a good question. When I look at their faces I see that they keep on being unhappy.

It is so much easier to drown them and get an ovation.

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  1. Timmo

    24 Jun 2008 7:33, Timmo

    That is so true, unfortunately. In all disciplines. For example, the best musicians I know, play small – with restrain. They realize thoroughly that they are good, and do not feel the need to stretch. The result is audible passionate perfection, and an attentive audience hanging on their lips.

  2. Unregistered

    24 Jun 2008 9:57, Dr Shock

    That is true but it also works for a professional public. My experience is that when you focus your presentation on three take home messages, if you don’t use slides loaded with bullet points but supporting graphics even professional appear dissatisfied. They think you took the easy way out. Not all of them but most of them.
    Regards Dr Shock