An article that hit the trending spotlight on the social media platforms recently was a video on communication tips. Most interesting, the person who was sharing the tips was an unlikely subject – a physicist.
Dominic Walliman is a scientist who teaches quantum physics to kids through books and videos. He appeared on TED Talks and shared his best tips below on how to communicate effectively in meetings or presentations – no matter how young or old your audience is.
Starting in the right place
When you are meeting an audience for the first time, you will get a mix of people who already know about the subject or not at all.
But yet, you can’t split the audience into groups and speak to them separately. To combat this conundrum, Walliman advises the speaker to set the pace accordingly.
If possible, do some research on who you are meeting, the age group, background, job scope and more. You can even reach out to them through e-mail, give them a brief outline of the topics you are going to cover and ask them to narrow in the topics they wish to know.
By doing so, you can have more time to research and come up with answers to questions that they might ask.
Don’t lose the plot
Walliman cautions against divulging too many details when presenting a subject and not miss the focal point of your presentation.
To avoid doing that, make notes on the critical points you wish to cover and support them with insightful explanations. To find out if the audience wants to know more, ask the crowd if they want you to continue or gauge if they understand before moving on.
Also, when conveying your message, keep your sentences short and concise so they are can more readily understandable. If you have to explain a technical concept, try to relate it to objects or subjects in daily life to get the audience a foot into understanding the topic.
When they have a basic understanding, you can delve deeper and fill in the blanks more accurately.
Explain your passion for the topic
Enthusiasm is contagious – and a way to make a boring topic exciting is to make it sound fascinating with your attitude and energy level.
When your energy levels are high, your voice and your body movements can influence people to feel the same way and perk up and listen.
When people’s attention matches yours, you can get them to be more engaged in your speech and thus, aid in receiving the information you are transmitting.
