A hands-on experience to boost the stickiness of your ideas... and your impact.
Fix Your Physical Environment
I’m in Denver at the Annual MDRT Meeting, and was not sure what to call this piece, so it’s a few things: an introduction to a series of posts on how to inspire like great speakers, insights into why this MDRT Experience is world renowned, and this first one on how you can almost always set up your physical environment to serve your communication purposes.
95% of the time you can change your environment – I’ll give you a few examples.
But first a description of the Reach New Heights theme and the stage set here at the Denver Convention Center for the Million Dollar Round Table meeting. 8,000 people in 
a big hall – what do you do? Have a resonant theme, and then make it unique. The hall is transformed into a mountain experience, with real pine trees and 4 large screens with changing scenics, artificial mountains and rivers – but the creative masterpiece is a river of light that makes a continously moving waterfall.
I don’t want to take the space necessary for the words to describe one of the best Convention Sets I’ve seen, (although I plan to get a video of it for YouTube later.) But it stimulated my thinking on a teaching point – make your physical environment work for you.
Here’s a few things you can do:
- Move the lectern to the side. Be sure you are the centerpiece of your presentation.
- Move any screen to the side – if you have PowerPoints and don’t use Black Slides (but please DO!), then and the screen is in the center of the stage or meeting room, like most are unfortunately, you can’t be in the center, and are stuck on one side.
- Get a lavalier (neck) microphone. Otherwise you are stuck with the lectern mike, and you’ll tend to lean over as if you have to talk into it, and the lectern (podium) blocks you. And you can’t move.
- Leave the light UP. You want it as bright as possible for audience interaction, but make sure your slides and videos can be seen.
- Don’t speak from the head table (if you can help it.) On Saturday I was keynote speaker at a different convention and they were going to have me speak from the head table. There was a lectern and raised platform across the room, so I said let’s have everyone speak from over there. Far better – for lunch or dinner speakers at head tables the audience has to look at all the faces that are sitting at the head table. And they might be staring back, or falling asleep, or doing anything except be non distracting.
- Use a table instead of a lectern/podium. Your notes and computer can sit on the table better than a podium and you can refer to and control them much better. (I always like to be hands on with my computer support – better than a clicker if you can swing it. And 90% of the time you can.)
Remember, the great majority of the time you can ask for and control your physical communication setting. Don’t let the phrase, "Well, that’s what they gave me," determine how you set your stage!
And if you are speaking from the Main Platform at a major convention – they’ll do it up right like at MDRT. More learning points coming shortly…
