CHOICE Many of our speakers have developed the ability to “latch on to the audience.” They are talking to the audience, not presenting themselves. A few years ago, such speakers were a rarity at any conference. Typical was a speaker who presented to the audience slides and a prepared text, either without looking at the audience, or glancing at it. Today, most speakers in large halls go to the edge of the stage and look into the audience. Some don’t just look, they see. These “hook” for real.
SINCERITY Lately popular FuckUp-shows are emphasizing the tendency of turning away from formalized, artificial performance to search for a real, sincere self, which is able not to pretend anything, not to puff up cheeks and not to play a role. Sincerity helps liberate and reveal individuality. They lose out to speakers who exaggerate themselves. Smooth parting and patent shoes give way to ruffled hair and sneakers. Classic pants to ripped jeans. Not only self-presentations die, but also formal presentations. The audience dives into their phones as soon as they hear “And now a few words about our company” at the beginning. Throw a QR code on the slide, and those who want to know everything themselves.
INDIVIDUALITY How different they have become! Sometimes a well expressed trait – optimism, Buddhism, or piffiness – becomes the shocking force of a public figure and works for recognition and interest. The search for and exploitation of such individuality is becoming the norm today. The laws of marketing apply to public speaking. The search for and exploitation of such individuality is becoming the norm today.
DESTINATION I refer to the complacency that has arisen concerning the use or non-use of PowerPoint slides. They now occupy the place that they should occupy in most public speeches – a secondary place. Slides accompany the speaker, not the speaker accompanies the slides.
AMAZONICS It seemed to us yesterday that women had no place in the battle of men for supremacy in the agora. We were wrong. Men in the public space are not just overpowered, but often defeated by women.