Several years ago, I was invited to speak at a student leadership conference hosted by one of the world’s largest honor societies. While it’s fun and a privilege to speak to any group of young people, let’s be honest… this was an easy audience for a presenter.
Not only would the crowd be full of ambitious high-achievers, these student leaders would also be investing their own time and money to attend the conference. Unlike many students who are forced or bribed to attend professional development programs, these students would truly be there by choice.
Pretty easy group to connect with, right?
Before my presentation, I attended a program for the students by a staff member from the honor society. While she clearly meant well, her program was the typical “death by PowerPoint” presentation. Despite being seated in the 2nd row of the crowd, I could barely read most of her slides, which were full of convoluted charts, cheesy clip art graphics, and long lists. Even worse, she stood behind a lectern and read from her slides instead of having a conversation with her audience.
Despite her positive intentions, and despite the makeup of the crowd, anyone would have observed that the students were completely uninterested in what she was saying. She noticed as well, although she did not realize that her presentation style was the cause of their lack of interest. Afterwards, she came up to me, and said, “Pete, I don’t have any idea how you speak to students. Today’s students have such short attention spans!”
Best-Selling Author, Arnold Sanow, once told me about a brilliant strategy, “the 5-minute rule,” that he follows religiously when designing/delivering his presentations. He never goes more than 5 minutes in front of a crowd without an interactive element.
While no one likes to be lectured, Generation Y takes its need for interaction to a whole new level. It’s not because we (I’m part of Generation Y) think we have all the answers. It’s because we grew up in a world that told us that our opinions matter. In today’s world, you’re always just a click away from broadcasting your thoughts on any topic via Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, blogs, and so on.
Want to turn off Generation Y? Take away their voice and lecture them.
During a recent webinar for 300+ higher ed leaders, I was asked whether you should tell students before a presentation to put away their cell phones.
My answer? No. It’s your job as the presenter to make your program so interactive and to be so engaging that your audience does not want to be texting or playing on their cell phones.
Here are 5 easy ways to make any learning situation (i.e. live, online, synchronous, asynchronous, video, audio, written, etc.) more interactive:
- Tell stories of your own personal experiences or of people that your audience will be able to relate to. When you tell a story in an engaging manner, your audience will feel like they are experiencing the story firsthand.
- Use analogies that your audience will be able to relate to. Like a great story, the audience also gets to “participate” when you share a well-constructed analogy.
- Ask your audience for their opinion on a subject before you provide your opinion.
- Let your audience ask questions. You can then allow other members of your audience to chime in with their thoughts and/or you can answer the question yourself.
- Play 1-2 minute video clips to illustrate your points, to introduce new topics, to share stories, to emphasize analogies, etc.