Your audience
Because your audience conditions the success of your talk, it is key to adapt the content and structure of your talk to their understanding of the topic and to adapt to their expectations.
You walk onto the stage, reach the lectern, grab your clicker, clear your throat. You look out into the room and see… nothing. The stage lights are so bright and the room so dark that you can’t distinguish a single face. Is there even anyone in the room?
I’m sure someone had this nightmare on the night before giving an important lecture. But why would it be a nightmare? Wouldn’t it be easier if there wasn’t an audience? Easier, yes, but it wouldn’t be a talk anymore. A talk needs an audience: your carefully prepared and rehearsed presentation is nothing without the people receiving it. The success of your talk depends on your audience, on them understanding your points, digesting them and walking away with something meaningful. And if you don't meet them where they are, you risk losing them entirely. An audience of 30 people disengaged from a 20-minute talk represents 10 hours of collective attention! I believe that is worth protecting with a few adjustments to your language and slides.
Your audience is very likely going to be diverse, sometimes with a clear (decreasing) gradient of seniority and expertise from the front to the back of the room. If that’s the case, can you satisfy 100% of your audience? I don’t think so. Your talk is likely going to be perceived as too technical by some, or too superficial by others. A more realistic objective is to ensure that everyone understands why you are doing this research and why you are using this approach.
In order to adapt your presentation, you first need to understand who will be listening. Are they all researchers? Are they all from your discipline? Is their work experimental or theoretical? What do they already know about your own work? If they are not researchers, what is the extent of their knowledge on the topic? Knowing this will help you adapt the depth of your introduction, the amount of details you provide and the vocabulary you use (see examples below). Another maybe less intuitive aspect to take into account is what I call your visual jargon. In your discipline, you are used to representing your data in a certain way, which can be very clear for you, but not intuitive at all for a non-expert audience or for an expert from a different field (stay tuned for a post dedicated to that topic).
If you are unsure, ask the organisers (the person inviting you) who usually attend this type of event or look at the abstracts of other talks in your session and parallel ones. You can also check past editions of the conference. And if you really can’t find any information, ask for advice from a senior colleague (which you can always do, of course!). The more information (and the earlier) you can gather on your future audience, the better. Adapting on the fly can be quite challenging.
Another thing to consider is why they're there. Is it out of moral obligation? Did they come to see you specifically or the speaker before you? Are they here to learn, to criticise, to get inspired? The same way you would adapt your content and your visuals to your audience based on who they are, you should adapt your content and its structure based on what your audience expects.
For example, what to expect (and to adapt) if you give a departmental seminar?
- your audience wants to know what you are doing / how much progress you’ve made
=> give context to your work
=> give a sense of progress or closeness to completion / publication / graduation
- some audience members attend just out of moral obligation
=> if you feel well integrated in the department, there might be room for inside jokes
- not everyone is familiar with your techniques
=> explain what you are measuring and how you are analysing your data
At a lab meeting
- some would rather be doing experiments or running analyses than listening to you
=> go to the point
- some colleagues might be happy to give their opinion
=> budget time for questions, comments and feedback
- some colleagues might go on and on in their comments or feedback
=> feel free to tell that one person that you’ll come and talk to them afterwards
At your first conference talk to a mixed-but-mostly-similar-field audience
- there will most probably by a tension between your objectives (getting recognised by your peers) and their objectives (just scoping out new ideas)
=> do not oversell your data
- some may be here to see you (they’ve read your paper and want to see the person)
=> feel free to share how you feel about certain experiments (pride, joy, frustration…)
- some choose to be here for the topic rather than for you
=> don’t make it all about yourself
- some may want an update on the topic or the technique(s)
=> give a brief overview of what is known and highlight what is new or different
Sharing your work in front of an audience is scary, even for a seasoned speaker. A number of speakers close themselves off out of fear of the confrontation. This reaction is very understandable but the audience is not here to fight. On the contrary, they want to see you succeed. Reducing your stage fright will allow you to open up to your audience and welcome them into your world. They will appreciate that effort.
Anticipating your audience’s knowledge and expectations will also reduce the risk of being taken off-guard by their questions after your talk (I’ll write specifically about the Q&A in a later post). Remember that adapting your talk to your audience is also a way for you to guarantee your success.
So, who are you presenting your work to next?