The bigger the crew, the less you have to worry about once you get on the stage. Well, sort of. What I’m really trying to say is that everybody has a role to play when it comes to making you look good as a Keynote Speaker. You are important in delivering the final product, but you can’t do it alone. Believe it or not, there are some other roles that are just as valuable as yours. When you are in the moment of delivering your talk, you don’t want to feel alone and you technically won’t be. There could be a team of people around you. It could be just another person that helps you shoulder the load, or there could be five other people all with a specific task. It all depends on the budget and the event. If you’re doing something locally, then there is a 50/50 chance that you could have multiple people help you deliver your stellar talk. If you are at specific conference, such as AfroTech, then you can rest assure that you will have a team working with you to help you be the best you can be when you take to the stage. Even if you do or don’t have a team of people helping you, you are bound to interact with people who take on these three specific tasks.

First and foremost, there will be someone there to watch your every move. But I’m not referring to your audience. How about I say it like this: There will be someone there to capture your every move. This person’s specific task will be to control the camera. So we’ll call the person the camera man, camera woman.. or how about this.. the camera operator. Every facial expression you give, everywhere you venture to on the stage… even if you are bold and venture into the audience.. they’ll capture it all. Usually you will both have a run through before it’s show time so that you know just how much of the stage you can use and you can be aware of any blind spots. If you are at an event where you have multiple cameras recording different angles, that’s even better. I’ve been at events where they’ll be a camera at floor level looking up at the speaker. Then they’ll be a camera at eye level with the speaker to catch he/she from a straight view. And for the real fancy events, you can sometimes catch a camera that is strictly recording the crowd. They get all the laughter’s and interactions from the crowd that can be included in the final demo footage. Needless to say, it’s a lot going on to capture the moment and there is a person behind the lens managing it all.

Secondly, they’ll be a person who controls the audio. It took me a long time to get used to hearing my voice when I spoke. When you are coming up with a talk that’s rather long, it can may take you some time to get used to hearing yourself talk continuously. There are so many microphone choices out there that you will be thankful that you have a dedicated person to take on this task. Hearing your voice on the mic for the first time (and well beyond the first time) can take some getting adjusted to. But let’s say this is your very first time and you don’t know the ins and outs of a microphone… you don’t even know how to handle it. The person who is in control of the audio will be able to help you navigate how to use the microphone correctly. They’ll tell you how far you should hold the microphone from your mouth, or if you have a lavalier mic they’ll do the initial adjustment for you. They’ll let you know of any possible interference with the microphone and if there are any dead spots where the microphone won’t work. They will do their best to make sure your audio is delivered consistently and crystal clear.

Last, but not least.. something that I’ve been adjusting to ever since I started releasing these tips at the top of the year. The teleprompter. Before this year, I had very little experience with using a Teleprompter. You see people use them all the time.. from newscasters.. to practically anyone in politics. But as a regular speaker you never really envision yourself using one. It can be challenging to use at first. So if you are speaking at a big event, then you and the teleprompter operator will definitely need to be on the same stage. There is a lot of things to consider. Rate of speech and breathe control are right at the top of your concerns. Everybody is different in this area. Having multiple practice runs will really give you the best feel for how fast you want the teleprompter to go. Just think about when you watch the news and the newscaster seems to go on for 10 minutes straight with very few breaks in their talking. For very few that comes naturally, but if you work hard at it, you’ll get the hang of it.

Make your next presentation, your best presentation!

Sincerely,

Julian A. Leonard
(Founder of The JLeonard Group LLC)

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