Freeze the Moment: Make Your Point Indelible
To both offer a point and make it memorable, a certain university professor stood up on his desk in the middle of his lecture and poured a pitcher of water over his head, shocking the class and freezing the moment. While it’s not likely that you are going to pour a pitcher of water over your head while making a presentation and, presumably, you don’t otherwise want to engage in some type of behavior that seems all too staged, you do need to consider options for freezing the moment.
Why do you want to undertake behavior that makes you stand out, and makes your point memorable? The sad reality is most presentations, to most audiences, most of the time, are quickly forgotten. Presenters might offer an opening point that’s remembered or might make a closing point that’s remembered, but most of what’s transpires, during the middle, is ‘gone’ minutes if not seconds after the words have been spoken.
A Breed Apart
You don’t want to fall into that category. If you make any kind of presentation, online, to a small group, to a formal gathering, or simply to a camera, it’s to your extreme benefit to do something that causes your audience to retain the key point of your presentation.
Standing on a table, making an exaggerated movement, or raising your voice can effectively shock your audience and cause them to remember your vital proclamation. If you have such materials, take the time to review recordings or transcripts of presentations you’ve made, to determine where and when you might be able to add a gesture that will freeze the moment forever in the minds of audience participants.
