Knowing Your Audience Free Essays

Knowing the people in your audience can play a big part on the workmanship of your communication with them. I have noticed that just because someone has good communication skills does not mean they will do well when it comes to presentations because of the variety of people they will be talking to. We will write a custom essay sample on Knowing Your Audience or any similar topic only for you Order Now Over all the years that I have been going to seminars for work purposes, I have noticed that all of the presenters have done it differently but they have all been affective. Anyone presenter can improve their presentation skills by giving him or herself time to discover and research their audience before they start their seminar. The presenter should start by knowing who will attend, and what the audience is expecting to get from the presentation, once the presenter has this information they can start preparing for their speech.(Kettenkofen, 2006) Other than rehearsing for your presentation, nothing will improve your skills more than knowing the details about your audience. There are many things to consider when someone is trying to get to know their audience. Some characteristics that I look for are male or female, age of the people, level of education, attitude, expertise of topic, cultural background, and even the geographical location (Kurtus, 2005). The presenter will need to know the percentage of males to females and the average age of his or her audience; this will help them pinpoint the audiences over time. The level of educational background within the audience makes a big difference as well does the expertise of the topic the audience already may know. Knowing if the audience has an educational background will change the way the presenter should talk to them, whether to speak to them as they would a friend or as they would to a professional businessperson. If the people in this audience want to be there at the seminar or it is something required by their employer or their position, can change the attitude and how the presenter will want to c ome across. The most important characteristic to me would be the geographical location of the presentation compared to the geographical location of the people in the audience. It will change the cultural background more than people may think. The best ways to help the presenter find out about the characteristics of their audience would be using communication channels. They could start by mingling with the  people before the presentation starts, that way they get to know some of the people and their personalities. As a presenter, I like to start with three different types of jokes and see what the people in the audience react to best, such as political, silly, or straight liners and go from there. Beware of the diversity of the audience. Beings there are so many different types of people in this world; you need to be careful of what you might say. There are techniques that presenters can use to get the people in his or her audience to warm up to him or her. The person speaking would want to start by promoting him or herself. Once the audience feels comfortable the presenter will know more about the people in the audience, and that will help with how to present. There are people in this world that take things to heart faster than others do. As presenters, we need to be careful of these people so we do not offend them, because if you do the presentation will only get harder from there. Once the person giving the information has recognized his or her audience, they will want to ensure that they come up with the perfect way to get the information across. Just like everything else, they are different ways to go about this. Some of these are to use interacting, PowerPoint, handouts, or just talking with no other material. I personally like to start with a PowerPoint presentation; depending on the information I got about my audience, I would use graphs showing progress. Giving information to your superiors (management and stakeholders) or customers, you always want plenty of detail so you can answer any question that you think might come up, and try to answer it in your PowerPoint before it is asked. Within the PowerPoint, I would put few bullet points but have plenty to talk about with each bullet point. Everyone wants to see the progress whether it is within the company or with the product that they are buying. Charts are a way to make sure the audience is watching the PowerPoint; most people do well with visual information and they will understand it better. The recommendations that I would give any person expected to give a presentation or even write a paper, would be to know the audience and know it well. Most people I talk to about this, tell me that they know the people they will be giving the presentation to. What they do not understand is just because they know who the people are; have they done their research on how the people interact wit h information. There is a difference in knowing someone and knowing how to present towards those  people. Every time that I have to give a speech, I am usually not the first person to talk to the audience. What I do is sit aside the audience and watch how they are interacting with the speaker as he or she talks. I then readjust my information to coincide with what is working best with the audience, which is present. What we need to realize is that we need not to panic when giving our presentation. Note that anything can be changed wants we have figured out our audience, whether it is the order of the information or the depth that we go into on each point, etc. Practice is well needed in anything we do, but knowing how to play the game makes you the player that you are. So practice your writing and speech, but know your audience and you will conquer. How to cite Knowing Your Audience, Papers Knowing Your Audience Free Essays Running head: KNOWING YOUR AUDIENCE Knowing Your Audience Name BCOM/275 Teacher Knowing Your Audience On August 5, 2010, a small copper mine located in Chile suffered a cave-in which left 33 workers trapped underground. With workers being trapped 300 meters below ground with limited food, water, and oxygen, nobody knew for sure how long they would survive. After four days of being trapped, there was still no idea if any of the miners were even alive. We will write a custom essay sample on Knowing Your Audience or any similar topic only for you Order Now Never before have so many workers survived being trapped underground for so long (Yang, 2010). Fortunately, in this case, tears turned to amazement as all 33 miners were located and rescued without any lives lost. Nobody really ever expects to encounter a situation like this until it happens. What does the employer tell the families of those who are trapped in the mine? What does the employer tell its employees? These are questions that many people do not prepare themselves for. These types of communications must be handled delicately and with the audience in mind. What are some considerations to remember given the different roles and people in the audience? This paper will discuss some of the potential needs of the families of the miners in receiving a message about this incident. It will also discuss the potential needs of the company’s employees when receiving a message about this incident. Finally, this paper will talk about what actions a person must take before and after the message is delivered to ensure that it was received as intended. As mentioned earlier, there are some considerations a person has to remember when communicating with the families of the victims and employees in this matter because of the different roles and people in the audience. If the audience is not taken into consideration when conveying a message, the communication could be lost, misunderstood, or incomplete. This could leave the audience misinformed and angry. When communicating with the families, there should be a sense of empathy and sympathy directed toward them. Communication to the families should be prompt so that they do not have to hear about what happened to their loved ones on the news. The families of the victims would probably like to know how this could have happened and what is being done to get them out. The families don’t know as much about mining as the employees do so they would probably like an explanation of what went wrong. These types of situations are tough because the company wants to keep the families informed, but sometimes the sender knows as much about the incident as the families do. Communicating to the employees about the incident would be a little different. People that work in the mining field know about the dangers of cave-ins already. So there would be no need to go into detail about the incident. The communication should reiterate the importance of safety on-the-job. The communication should also let the employees know that everything possible is being done to rescue the trapped workers. Keeping in mind that the employees could have friends who are trapped, the communication should also mention to employees that if they are not in the â€Å"right state of mind† to work, they should take time off for their own safety. Before a message of any kind is delivered to the audience it should be proofread and double-checked for grammatical errors and misspelled words. The sender should also find out if there are going to be any language barriers when communicating with the audience. If the method of communication is a phone call, it is a good idea to have a prewritten script to read off of to ensure that the communication is clear and concise. At the end of the message, the sender should ask the audience if they have any questions regarding the message or the situation. This will make sure that the message was delivered clearly and accurately. Depending on the circumstances, a follow-up communication may be made necessary to keep the families and employees up-to-date on the situation. Conclusion All communications must be designed with the audience in mind. The communication will vary, depending on the circumstances and needs of the audience. If the needs of the audience are not considered before conveying a message, there is a good chance the communication could be incomplete, inaccurate, or unsuitable for the audience. In a situation like what occurred in the Chilean mine collapse, extra care needs to be taken when reaching out to the families of the victims. References Weik, J. (2010). Over 30 workers trapped after chilean mine collapse. Manuscript submitted for publication, Library, University of Phoenix, Phoenix, Arizona. Retrieved from http://web. ebscohost. com. ezproxy. apollolibrary. om/ehost/detail? sid=84e3b3de-0140- Yang, J. (2010). From collapse to rescue: inside the chile mine. The Star, Retrieved from http://www. thestar. com/news/world/chile/article/873382 Communication 1 (Phone call to families of trapped miners) This is Mike Miller, operations supervisor at San Jose mine. One of our mines suffered a cave-in today leavi ng 33 of our employees, including your husband, trapped underground for the time being. We have no information as to their physical condition or how long it will be before we can reach them. We have everyone possible working on the situation and we are hoping to have them out very soon. I just want to let you know that my prayers are with your family. If you have any questions at all don’t hesitate to call. As soon as we hear anything you will be the first to know. Communication 2 (Memo to employees) To: San Jose Mine Employees One of our mines suffered a cave-in today leaving 33 of our employees trapped underground. We are currently working on the situation and are doing everything we can to reach them. This situation should remind us how careful we need to be when we are working in the mines. As soon as we have any information on the situation we will let you know. Human Resources How to cite Knowing Your Audience, Papers