Launchpad Activity 13

Speeches which are remembered by the audience create impact by using a balance of emotion and intellect.

Activity 13 – Engaging, Entertaining and Memorable Presentation

Duration:  5-7 mins
Pre-requisites: Activities 1-12.

Outcomes

By the end of this activity, you will be able to:

  • Use your speaking skills to get your message across to the audience in an entertaining and  engaging way, and create a lasting impression.

Objectives

To do this, you will need to keep the following objectives in mind:

  • Choose your angle or approach.
  • Choose your method of entertainment – can be humour, suspense, drama or a combination.
  • Be crystal clear about your main points.
  • Plan how you will illustrate your main points in an entertaining way.
  • Design your structure with logical and clear sequence.
  • Design your transitions/links/segues between your main points.

The Why…

Speeches which are remembered by the audience create impact by using a balance of emotion and intellect. 

Where do I start?

Choose a topic from the list given by your Program Director.

This is the last activity in Launchpad. Spend a bit of time reflecting on what you have learned in the previous eleven speaking activities so that you can incorporate it all into this performance – and think of it as a“performance”! The aim is for your presentation to be memorable and this is done through being engaging and entertaining.  

The How

Specific guidelines on how to tackle this activity.

Choose your angle or approach

  1. This could be humorous, inspirational, motivational or informative or a mix. 

Choose your method of entertainment - can be humour, suspense, drama or a combination

  1. Entertainment is not humour alone. Entertainment is anything that holds the attention and interest of an audience, or gives pleasure and delight, so experiment with different forms of entertainment.

Make sure your main points have a relationship to your topic

  1. Make sure your main points have a relationship to your topic.

Plan how you will illustrate your main points in an entertaining way

  1. You can illustrate your main points with metaphor, stories, imagery, questions, symbolism, actions, etc. 
  2. If you can’t illustrate the point, then the point probably doesn’t fit.

Design your structure with logical and clear sequence

  1. Design your overall presentation before you start working on the detail.
  2. Working with index cards or ‘post-it’ notes is a great way to design your presentation (try shuffling into the order that works best).

Design your transitions/links/segues between your main points

  1. Sequence and linking of ideas is really important for engagement – you need to take your audience on a journey. 

Tips and traps

  1. Focus in your preparation on the three key areas: engaging, entertaining, memorable.
  2. Try to “move” your audience (to change the “state” of the audience).
  3. It’s not a “stand up routine”, so avoid telling jokes.
  4. Don’t make your speech memorable for all the wrong reasons!
  5. Surprisingly, you can be too engaging. Choose a tone, a pace a style that make it easy for your audience to listen.
  6. Don’t be “Over the Top”.

Guidelines for Program Director:

  • Choose 3 topics from the list of 100 topics in the Directory.

Resources that may be helpful

  1. Links to speaking hacks (#7, #9 etc)
  2. video links
  3. how to sheets