Barriers are helpful between skin and sun or between deer and freshly planted flowers. Barriers are a hindrance between speaker and audience.
We have enough challenges in engaging an audience without imposing a physical element that our message needs to travel through. Yet, speakers routinely choose to block themselves from the people trying to listen to them.
Here are three physical barriers that can dilute a speaker's message and compromise an audience's experience.
TELEPROMPTER
Teleprompters act as a barrier because they focus the speaker's attention somewhere other than on the audience and force him to remain stationary. The speaker must keep pace with the scrolling text and that makes eye contact with the audience challenging and likely fleeting. As well, placement of the teleprompter screens may mean that the speaker is positioned farther away from the audience than she would be otherwise.
I wrote here about best practices for using a teleprompter. Minimize the teleprompter barrier by knowing the speech well enough that you can make eye contact with the audience beyond just darting glances. Large, animated gestures will help your audience catch your enthusiasm and make you seem less robotic.
PODIUM
In one of my recent presentation skills training classes, a participant asked my opinion about using a podium, asserting that he felt a podium conveyed authority.
Using a podium or lectern cuts off 50 plus per cent of most people's bodies. If you're on the short side, like me, your audience only sees a head, part of the upper torso and disembodied-looking arms. A podium is a huge barrier between you and your audience, making you seem unapproachable and distanced. Convey your authority through command of your subject and a well organized, easy-to-follow presentation, not by setting yourself apart from your audience.
Other podium problems: they encourage a speaker to lean on them; they make it easy to grip the sides, particularly when nervous; they can invite slouching; they give a top of the head view when a speaker is reading from notes.
Stay away from using a podium if at all possible. If you must speak from one, don't hide behind it, don't grip it, have lots of eye contact and use large gestures that your audience can see.
POWERPOINT SLIDES
Slides can be a real barrier -- if the projector gets between you and the audience. Or a perceived barrier -- if you focus too much on reading the slides from the computer screen or turning around to the large screen behind you. Remember that slides are meant to support your presentation not supplant it. You are who the audience came to see and hear.
Minimize the number of slides you use in your presentation so neither you nor the audience will be focused on reading from the screen. When you do show a slide, invite your audience to join you in interacting with the information shown.
If your presentations will include any of these three physical barriers, plan in advance how you can compensate for any disconnect they create between you and your audience.
Photo Credit:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/j0nny_t/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
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