What to know about the physical space?

1. room size
   • I left the SXSW dais.
2. time of day (before/after breaks or food?)
   • I try to avoid last slot.
3. technology (computer, projector, audio, video)
   • I try to test it all, but still flubbed audio on last book talk.

Understand

• age
• gender
• sexuality
• race, ethnicity, culture
• religion
• socioeconomic status

but …

Don’t stereotype

Stereotyping: generalizing about a group of people and assuming that because a few persons in that group have a characteristic, all of them do

Totalizing: taking one characteristic of a group or person and making that the “totality” or sum total of what that person or group is (Tucker et al. 2019, p. 23)

Beliefs, attitude, values, needs

Consider your audiences’ beliefs, attitude, values, needs:

• beliefs: statements we hold to be true; singular building block of self;
• attitudes: stable clusters of belief and responses
• values: what we think important; core beliefs “almost impervious to change”.
• needs: deficiencies we are motivated to fulfill

What’s wrong with this?

We cannot say to 10% of the population that you can’t have that right [to full civic participation]; that your children can’t have the chance to develop whatever talents they have; that the only way that they are going to get their rights is to go in the streets and demonstrate. I think we owe them and we owe ourselves a better country than that. (Kennedy in Gunn 2017, loc. 115).

Can you find a similar flub??

Search your memory or the web for a similar instance of unintentional exclusion.

Share with class.

Controversy: Land acknowledgements

The October 2021 Boston Marathon opened with a land acknowledgement ceremony, prompted by criticisms of marathon organizers who had scheduled the race on Indigenous Peoples Day; its extensiveness drew praise from several Indigenous people in attendance. (James 2022)

Also: How do you feel about people self-describing before they speak in professional presentations?

Wrap up

Write down what you think are the three most important tips for when giving a public speech relative to the audience?

What were your three most important tips for when giving a public speech relative to the audience?