100 Things Every Presenter Needs to Know About People

2. People Need Context

Have you ever listened to a presenter who obviously “knew his stuff” but was hard to follow? It’s a problem when presenters know their material well but forget that the audience may not be as familiar with the topic.

Making a presentation is like walking up to strangers on the street and launching into your ideas. Your audience may not have a lot of background on the topic. And even if they do, they have other things on their minds and may not be as ready to hear what you have to say as you think they are.

Use Advance Organizers to Provide Context

In order to not overwhelm people, you need to provide context. And an easy way to provide context is to use an advance organizer, which is a high-level summary of the information ...