Charlotte Kemp breaks down audience analysis starting with demographics like age, income, and language, then focuses on what's often missed: whether your audience expects a scholarly lecture or casual conversation. Match your jargon, depth, and tone to that expectation or risk talking down to them or leaving them bored.
Now, the last way of looking at a client is actually the place most of us start when we're asking the client, what kind of an audience are we going to be dealing with? We're looking at the demographics. What are the types of people who make up this audience in terms of their gender, their living standards measurement, their religion, other demographics? What age are they generally, or what kind of generational category are they in? What country are they in and what is going on in that country at the moment? What language are they speaking? And perhaps would you need an interpreter in order to be able to communicate with them? Those are all really important considerations. But the one we very often neglect to consider is the educational expectation of the audience. And in no way is this meant to denigrate any audience or to say that one audience is more smarter or more clever than another audience. But what do they actually expect? Are they expecting a professorial lecture from you where you're going to give them deep wisdom and knowledge and insight from your decades of experience and your PhDs, or are they expecting some kind of information but in a light, friendly way that will keep the tone of the conference or the event fun and engaging? It's really important to understand that that tone, but as well the expectation of what they want to hear from you. Do they want to be educated by you, or is there the, the risk that they may feel like you are mocking them or making them feel stupid because they don't understand what you're talking about? We never want to talk down to an audience, but there is no reason not to actually have different styles of presenting the same kind of content, or one that would be for you know, examination purposes and another one that would inspire people to explore deeper in a particular topic that has only just been introduced to them where the jargon and the history of that particular topic is still unknown to them. Please really make sure that you get that educational expectation and that tone of the conference right before you go any further to speak to an audience.
Unlock the Power of Thresholds_ What Ancient Wisdom Teaches About New Beginnings
