Probably one of the most significant public speakers I have heard was a guy from the National Weather Service. He came to fire behavior class I was taking and spent 2 days explaining how weather happens and how it affects fires. If not for his seemingly endless media displays, it would have been very boring. Instead his diagrams, pictures, charts and actual videos of weather and fire behavior were fascinating. These images captivated all of us and we actually not only paid more attention, we learned a whole bunch. His advantage was that he had been doing the same presentation to the same category of audience for 10-15 years. So, he had honed his Craft very well. One of the more interesting videos he showed us was a time lapse video of what's called"The Day of Transition". That's the day that, after the winds have been blowing from the land(high desert region) to the ocean for 4-5 days during the Santa Ana Winds, they turn 180 degrees and blow from the ocean to the land in the course of about 4-5 hours. This is the day most injuries to firefighters occur. Having actually seen it in the course of about 2-3 minutes was amazing. It was a very humbling demonstration. only through media was this possible.
I can't think of anything this guy could have done to have improved his presentation. It was about 16 hours long over 2 days and we all enjoyed it very much. Like I said, without presentation media, it would have been very boring and nobody would have stayed awake. I can't think of anything that had detracted from the speech due to the media presented. He was an accomplished speaker and knew his audience. Everything fit together very well. I felt bad for the guy who taught the last 2 days. By comparison, he was boring and unexciting.
F.D.
The example I used was also someone who had performed the same speech/presentation many many times throughout the years. I think this definitely shows when you watch someone. That just goes to show that practicing is so worth it! Especially if it means we can all give speaches as well done as these people. I originally thought visuals were only important for helping get the message across and for helping audience members remember the material, but I never saw it from the perspective of making a presentation less boring! This is an important thing to bring up, because I think a speech can be very boring if there is nothing to look at, especially if there is any type of length to the speech. I think this showed when we did our demonstrative speeches because they were so much more interesting than they would have been had we not had visual aids to look at.
ReplyDeleteWow that sounds excellent! To sit for two days listening to one topic by the same guy and not get bored is awesome. I can relate to that experience because of an all day seminar I've been to before that had media and also made it very interesting. I've also been at an all day seminar with no media presentation and it was horrifically boring. It's crazy how media can have such an effect on how the speech or presentation goes.
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