Episode 59

How Can Thinking About Your Audience Improve Public Speaking?

In this week's episode of Ongoing Mastery: Presenting & Speaking, Kirsten and Kellie talk about being flexible in the moment so you can be responsive to your audience’s needs. Hear how a video development company is getting this very wrong and what Snoop Dogg has to do with Kellie’s syllabus.

Our favorite moments:

  • (03:21) Those in charge of technical training need to build adaptability into their processes
  • (03:53) Cross-training is not a waste of resources
  • (04:15) Software risk is reputational risk & customer risk
  • (05:17) Stay aware of how the zen of a subject applies to more than one thing
  • (06:32) Framing concepts to apply to an audience with a wide-range of experience
  • (10:53) People often don’t realize that the lesson is there, even if it’s not obvious
  • (11:05) With go-go-go behavior, not many people examine what they can learn from a moment or experience
  • (12:25) Reflection helps you take ownership of your actions
  • (12:56) Ongoing mastery covers a lot of topics beyond speaking and presenting
  • (13:24) Learning about storytelling had a huge impact of Kirsten’s work
  • (13:56) Making the subtext into the context – being explicit about the course’s connective tissue – made Kellie’s teaching more effective

If you enjoyed this conversation about flexibility when speaking, check out our earlier conversation on this topic, Season 4, Episode 46 How Can Speakers and Presenters Adapt in the Moment?  The link is in the show notes.

Rourke Training’s webpage: https://www.rourketraining.com/

Ongoing Mastery: Presenting & Speaking page: https://ongoing-mastery.captivate.fm/

RSS feed: https://feeds.captivate.fm/ongoing-mastery/

Read a transcript of this episode:  https://share.descript.com/view/10UbLov9WLM

For the video version of this episode: https://youtu.be/9PPnJuyHbmU

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kirstenrourke/


Looking for a kick-ass speaking group? Use our affiliate link to join Innovation Women: https://bit.ly/innovationwomen

Transcript
Kirsten:

This week, Kellie and I talk about being flexible in the

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moment, so you can be responsive

to your audience's needs.

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Hear how a video development company is

getting this very wrong, and what Snoop

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Dogg has to do with Kellie's syllabus.

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Let's jump into it.

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Hello everyone.

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Welcome to Ongoing Mastery: Presenting

& Speaking the podcast and the discussion.

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Hi Kellie, how are you?

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I am well.

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How are you Kirsten?

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Good.

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So what are we doing today?

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Well,

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Kellie: today we are following up.

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Last week, Pegine, in her interview with

you, Was talking about the importance of

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knowing your audience, and that's also

something that Heather Little preview is

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gonna be talking about with you next week.

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And so we wanted to pick up on this

topic about how knowing your audience is

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connected to being flexible in the moment.

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Kirsten: Yes, very, very much so.

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So

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Kellie: what does that look like

for someone with a background like

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yours, Kirsten, as a tech trainer?

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Kirsten: So this is something that

you and I were talking about earlier

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and that I think many people in the

audience who have some technical

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background, uh, are gonna be aware of.

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There is a company called

Unity, Unity Software, who makes

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a lot of very famous games.

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They.

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They're in the process of setting

their company on fire this week.

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So one of the things that happened is

they put out a statement saying they

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were changing their terms of service.

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They were trying to make some of

those changes retroactive, and

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they put some conditions in there

that was, once we update this, that

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means you've accepted the changes.

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Which hell no.

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And then they also put in, they

wanna do a revenue model that's

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based on installations of games,

which is a horribly stupid

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idea and is not going to work.

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I'm not shocked by this because

the CEO of that company is

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somebody who had a previous company

pitched charging users for every

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single bullet in a shooting game.

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Oh.

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Yeah.

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Like, wow.

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He's, he basically, this guy has

no use for gamers whatsoever.

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Being in charge of a game dev company.

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Unity does many things.

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One of them is game development.

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Clearly they've decided that part of

their business is just, doesn't matter.

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Wow.

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Which is a shame, but here's the problem.

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Beyond just the ethics of it all.

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Mm-hmm.

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A lot of people who are . Midway

Instream right now, like 2, 3, 4 years

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into their game dev and have been

using Unity, can't rebuild it, and

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you know, they'll lose all that time.

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It is just, that's a huge problem.

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And then people who've

been in school, mm-hmm.

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, if those training programs and those

schools, which a lot of them do

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focus on one product exclusively.

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A lot of folks are coming out with

training now into the world on a tool

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that people are running away from.

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Like it's on fire.

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Yikes.

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So here's why that matters.

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When I was a tech trainer, because

I was freelance, I had to learn

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a lot of different products.

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And once you learn one product

in a suite, you generally

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then can extrapolate that out.

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But I.

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Because I was a freelancer, I also,

I needed to know not only their

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product, but I needed to know at

least something about the competition

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because people would ask me.

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Yeah.

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And they'd ask for comparisons and

things, and I would say, well, that's

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not a product I teach as I'm aware of.

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It's this, this, and this.

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Beyond that, I don't know.

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Mm-hmm.

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. So I'd give them the basics, but I

couldn't say every single time, no clue.

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That's not my thing.

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Because they were asking

valid, useful questions.

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So, yeah.

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Any CIO, any CTO, anybody at the top level

of any group right now that is responsible

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for technical training, please hear me.

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If you do not have adaptability built

into your processes, where you're

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looking at the tools that you're

training people on, and if the company.

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That tool belongs to, decides

to pull something stupid.

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, what does that do to you?

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Is that a reputational risk for you?

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Is that gonna suddenly kill your projects?

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It's a big risk to take.

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Yeah.

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But it's one of those things where

cross training and being a little more.

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I don't have the right phrase for it, but

essentially spending time to have people

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know the broader area of their subject.

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Mm-hmm.

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is not a waste, even though it's seen

that way by a lot of companies of like,

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well, that's not a good use of our time.

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It's like, well, but software

risk is reputational risk.

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It's customer risk, it's a problem.

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And if you're not thinking about the

fact that all your eggs are in this

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one basket, you've got a real, you

know, ride or die with that company.

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And if that company pulls something

like what Unity is pulling now, yeah.

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I mean, there are game

developers out there.

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Unity is putting out this, oh,

ridiculous thing of, oh, well,

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it's only gonna affect 10%.

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People are gonna go bankrupt.

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Yeah.

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Oh gosh.

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Some companies, some will actually

go bankrupt if they do this.

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This is simply not okay.

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And when it comes to this kind of

adaptability, if you're a technical

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trainer, if you're a freelancer,

you have to do what I did.

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You have to be, you know, multi-platform.

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You have to be agnostic.

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, if you're in something

where it's, we all use this.

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Mm-hmm.

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, just be aware.

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You may need to be trained up on some

other stuff in case you need to change

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jobs or in case something happens,

or in case suddenly there's layoffs.

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So just build in a certain

amount of, stay aware of how

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the zen of the subject applies.

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Yeah.

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To more than one thing.

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Like knowing game development at

the core levels crosses product.

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So yeah, that's my, that's my

rant that I needed to have today.

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So thank you for opening that door.

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'cause I've been a little

cranky for a few days.

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. So for you, how does this show up?

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Because I know this shows up for you.

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How does this show

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Kellie: up?

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Yes, it does.

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So we are recording this at the

beginning, more or less couple

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weeks into the fall semester.

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I teach this semester three sections

of first year college writing.

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And so when I have to think about my

audience, I have to think about who's.

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In my chairs, and it's not just as you

might think first semester freshmen,

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it's a lot of first semester students

brand, brand new college students.

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But I have a surprisingly large

number of transfer students who

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are juniors, and so they don't

need the same level of conversation

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as the brand, brand new freshman.

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But I can't.

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Just teach to them.

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It's not what the class is for.

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So I have to find a way to kind of

square the circle and frame the way I am

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talking about the concepts of the course

as everybody has skills to get here.

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This class is to make sure everybody

leaves it with the same orientation

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and the same exposure, and so

it's not minimizing or dismissing

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anybody's previous experience.

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But it's a, this is how we do it here,

and we take a project-based approach to

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a lot of the writing assignments, which

students may or may not be familiar with.

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And so there's a fair amount

of breaking bad habits.

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So I have to be up on what is it that

my, especially straight from high

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school students are likely to have

been taught so that I can effectively

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counter program it, as it were.

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Yeah.

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This is getting a lot easier as

our daughter is getting ever closer

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to the age of my college freshman.

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And so what she is learning is

much more in track with what

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they are learning overall.

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Of course, they still come from different

kinds of school systems and all, but it's

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a lot easier because I run more and more

things by her just for a generation check.

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Right.

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And I have to keep in mind,

I am at a business school.

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A lot of my students don't especially

wanna be in my class, not my

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class, just the writing class.

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Kirsten: Explain why.

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Explain what your class is, right?

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Well,

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Kellie: it's a required class and

it is the first of two required

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classes in writing, and it is not

how to write business memos or

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contracts or anything like that.

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It's not a business writing class.

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It's a how to think critically.

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And write about what

you're thinking class.

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And a lot of students don't see

the value of that right away.

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They're eager to get to the good stuff

and there's a lot of work involved.

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And that can be a hard sell,

especially at an institution that

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has a focus that's so specific.

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Having students be interested outside

of that focus is sometimes like,

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but that's not why I came here.

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It's like, ah, but it

is why you came here.

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You just don't know it yet.

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Kirsten: Yes, and that's exactly it.

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, yeah.

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Kellie: Thinking about being aware of

what my students are likely to have

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read, so when I'm talking with them, when

I'm making selections for the syllabus

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with a global student population, I

can't get this right all of the time,

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but I can try to pick things that are

less likely to be immediately familiar.

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To them.

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I have to think about my eight o'clock

class of students often has a lot

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of athletes in it because they need

their afternoon free for their sport.

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And so I have to think about something

like, okay, this particular eight

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o'clock class, we need to be energized.

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'cause these students have a long

day, they have rolled out of bed.

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Maybe they have practiced before

their eight o'clock class.

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Right?

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And so I can't just make assumptions

about who's in that class and why.

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But I can say at eight o'clock,

we all need an energy boost.

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And so maybe I'm gonna think about how

I arrange the activities that we'll

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be doing so that they can get up and

move around halfway through instead

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of sitting, sitting, sitting, sleepy

awake that you know, sometimes happens.

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Kirsten: Yeah, I, I definitely look

back on stuff I used to do in college,

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and I'm now embarrassed in hindsight

and grateful that I was never that kid

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in your class, , because you killed me.

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I showed up in pajamas with bunny

slippers and a two liter bottle of Coke.

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See, I don't even

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Kellie: care about that.

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I know so many of my students are in

their pajamas or their gym clothes, and

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as long as they don't stink, right, as

long as they haven't combed straight from

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the gym, trailing sweat, I don't care.

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I mean, some comb straight

from the fashion pages, so

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it's really quite a range

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,

Kirsten: so that's awesome because yeah, I . I made a few professors unhappy.

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Yeah.

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Kellie: You know what, if it's eight

o'clock and you're in your pajamas, as

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long as your pajamas are appropriate

to be out in public, I don't care.

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Yeah.

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Kirsten: I admit the bunny slippers

were a bit much, but I was, you know,

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I had to have this eight o'clock

class and I didn't wanna be there

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and I was a punk, but, you know, we

did it and, and they did a great job.

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The thing about.

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Your students and my customers and

everybody is, it's interesting how often

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people don't realize that even though the

lesson is not obvious, the lesson's there.

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Mm-hmm.

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So it's just a matter of, because

it's, there's this gung-ho go, go, go.

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Let's get to the goal kind of behavior.

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It's not really welcomed to stop and just.

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Take in, okay, what can I get from this?

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Even if this is a completely

counterintuitive thing,

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what might that teach me?

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That's not really a skillset

that's embraced in a lot of places,

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and I know you and I have talked

about this because it's something

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we work with on our clients.

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Yeah.

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With our clients.

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And it can be hard for people, especially

really type A people to just bring

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it back a little bit and not do that.

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That's sorry.

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Kellie: One of the things that we have

built into the program reflection, each

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of the major assignments comes with a

reflection piece that is due after the

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primary deadline, and it is part of the

grade for the thing, but you can't do

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it all at once because we want students

to go to sleep, get something to eat,

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go to class, do whatever, and come back

with a different perspective just because

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time has passed and take another look

at what they've done, what went well.

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What do they need to continue to work

on for the next project so that it's

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not just a check it off the list,

get it done, move on, kind of thing.

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That they are themselves

looking at the value of it.

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And it's one of the things I

like best about the program

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because it helps students take

ownership of what they're doing.

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They're not doing it for me.

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I mean, of course they're doing it for me.

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It's my class.

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I grade it, but that's not the point.

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They have to be able to generate

this from within themselves and have

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some idea of how it looks in the real

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Kirsten: world.

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Yep.

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And so for everybody watching and

listening, this is ongoing mastery and

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it's about presenting and speaking.

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But as we've said in previous

episodes, and we'll say later again,

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a lot of things fall under that.

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You know, I'm talking about video games.

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She's talking about a literature class.

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What is it in your world that you were

surprised, gave value to your work?

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What is it that enhanced it or

refreshed your perspective on it

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that you never would've expected?

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Share that with us in the comments.

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You know, come on social and,

and let us know because we wanna

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see kind of where people are.

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For me, I'm gonna say I

didn't truly embrace how much.

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Learning storytelling was

going to impact what I do.

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When I started adding that into

to my work and it became more of

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a thing in instructional design.

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But I admit I was a little grudging

at first doing the, well, yes, of

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course, of course it's valuable,

but, and then really started going.

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Oh, okay.

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And it took a few rounds of it

for me to really see the value.

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What did that for you?

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When

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Kellie: I realized that I really

do need to make the subtext, the

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context, and you say, we are doing

this because here's how this connects

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to the thing we've done before.

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Here's.

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The five paragraph essay that you

are used to doing, and that's fine.

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It's not wrong, but it's training wheels

and it's time to take the training

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wheels off and really be much more

explicit about the connective tissue

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instead of, but isn't it obvious,

assuming that because it was on the

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syllabus and because it was stated in

a variety of places that students could

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follow the logic of how those things.

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Put together, and perhaps they could if

they put in a lot of effort, but since

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there are a thousand memes about reading

the syllabus, we're just happy when they

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read it, much less when they study it.

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And so instead of just being

frustrated, just making the subtext,

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the explicit context, and then they

start really getting it and applying

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it much earlier in the semester.

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Kirsten: That's fantastic.

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The syllabus thing, I mean, some people

put, you know, little, little jokes in.

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I know I've read one where at the

very end it's, if you got to this

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point, email me with this keyword

and I will send you a thing.

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Yep.

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You know, I have , I have

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Kellie: two, two Rick rolls, one of

them, you know, so you click here

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to download the file and then in

the same line it says, no really.

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Click here to download the file, but

still click here to download the file.

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And the second one is Snoop Dogg.

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It's a short little clip

on YouTube Yoyoyo students.

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Man, you gotta read the syllabus.

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That's where it's at.

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And the third one, . The third

one is, To the seventies, sort of

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smooth tune, just the two of us.

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It's on the syllabus.

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Oh God.

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You can read it if you try.

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It's on the syllabus

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Kirsten: and, and how many people

have come back to you or how many

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students have come back to you and

said, oh my God, that killed me.

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It

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Kellie: is not as high as one per class,

generally, at least one per semester.

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But, and sometimes someone will see

it and then I'll click on it and now

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everybody sees it and we all laugh.

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So that's, that's kind of cheating.

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But on their own, without any hint from

me, one out of 60 or so per semester.

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Kirsten: Yeah, sounds about right,

. Alright, so this is connective tissue,

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like exactly what Kelly was talking

about is we're taking from last week's

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interview with Pegine and we're looking

forward to next week's interview

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with Heather and there are cross

the stream kind of things going on.

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Yeah, so that's what we're doing today.

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And please, as always,

Subscribe, like, share.

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Let us know what you think

and we will see you next time.

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Thanks for watching.

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Thanks for listening.

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Bye.

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Kellie: Cheers.

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Kirsten: If you enjoyed this conversation

about flexibility when speaking, check

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out our earlier conversation on this

topic in season four, episode number 46.

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How can speakers and

presenters adapt in the moment?

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The link is in the show notes.

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