Hi Friend,
I was recently creating a custom keynote experience for a client, and I just couldn’t land on where to begin.
As I sat there typing and deleting, I realized my problem.
I was trying to create a presentation for an amorphous “them” instead of real individuals.
I went back to reread my notes, and got a good sense of who I was talking to … the people likely to be skeptics, and those likely to be fans.
But then I took it a step further, and made audience personas, grabbing stock images to represent each type of audience member. I even gave them names.
Once I had them pinned to my bulletin board, I got down to work, and thought about the “from/to” for each of those personas. In other words, how might their thinking, feeling, and behavior change from the beginning of my talk to the end?
And a face meltingly good keynote was born.
I tell you this not to brag, but to show you that it’s ok to literally picture your audience as you think about what they need.
In fact, I find that “knowing your audience” can sometimes require us to get creative. Whether you use a brainstorming app like Miro or Scapple, or prefer to bust out the scissors and bulletin board pins, the idea is to really activate our empathy for the audience’s perspectives, their concerns, and their pain points.
Your thought experiment this week is to picture the audience with whom you’re trying to communicate.
If you don’t know the people/person by name, just gather as much insight as you can about them and create a persona based on what you learn.
Speak to that persona, and your creativity will intersect with your empathy, and … a face meltingly good bit of communication will ensue.
Shine on, my friend. We need your light.
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