Been away too long - well not really away, but we've had a press of business that has kept blogging too minimal. I'm delighted to be back, and next week we are going to the National Speakers Association convention, and will post some daily delights!
Recently I was with a delightful and impressive client - and loved his comment about "Blackberry Abuse" in meetings and speeches. (A post is coming soon on that too, and what to do about it.)
He said that when he goes to national meetings of his top Fortune 500 company, he knows when certain people are going to be long. And boring. So he puts his text message off regular and on "unlimited plan." Might as well get some work done.
True story. It would be great if we could have a metric that would measure how much texting, email checking, and IM's went on as a measure of the effectiveness of the communicator in a large audience setting.
Seems to me that one way to capture more attention from the Blackberry/cell phone users in an audience would be to engage them THROUGH their device. For example, you could prepare a few survey questions related to your talk, then scan the audience before your talk for the proportion of audience members who are using these devices. If a good number of people are using something Blackberry-ish, then ask them to answer a couple of questions at one or more points in your speech using online survey software (I can’t recommend any, but I know it’s out there). You or an assistant can monitor the results using your own device, then incorporate those results into your presentation.
I’ve never done this, so I don’t know if it would engage those Blackberry abusers, or actually encourage them to abuse it even more. Might be worth a try under the right circumstances.