CHAPTER 17
Audience-Centered Speaking for All Occasions

WE’RE ALL CALLED UPON TO undertake a variety of special communications tasks from time to time. Each one of these has special rules, perils, and opportunities. Keeping audience-centered speaking principles firmly in mind will help you get through them with élan.

Keep introductions to an elegant minimum.

An introduction is an opportunity to give a speaker a great launch by connecting the speaker with the audience in front of you. Introducers should keep that essential fact firmly in mind. It’s not about you, it’s about the other person and the audience. Then-Governor Bill Clinton forgot that when introducing the presidential nominee in 1988 at the Democratic National Convention, and spoke ...

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