Stop drowning your audience

- if you want to transform healthcare and start a fire instead!

It was my first lecture in organic chemistry ever where I met “Professor Gatling Gun”. It was still the age of overhead projectors, and where others used individual transparencies, Professor Gatling Gun used a roll of transparent foil that he could crank onward to make new space for more writing while the old writings disappeared. And crank he did. In fact, he wrote, cranked, and spoke at such speed, that you only had one of two choices: Listening to what he was saying – or reading and copying what he was writing. If you tried to both listen and write, the text and formulas on the transparent roll were sure to disappear faster than you could copy them. At the same time, your focus on what he was saying would not be strong enough to actually remember.

That’s why he was “Professor Gatling Gun” – because using his crank, he fired off information at us at a speed that was impossible to process. Needless to say that the knowledge transfer in the lecture was minuscule compared to the information covered.

But he actually illustrated not just one but two problems: The first is that information needs time to be processed. The second problem, and exacerbating the first, is that there are two sources of information in a lecture or presentation: The speaker and the visual aids both provide information to the audience, but compete for audience focus.

But are we not all like this to some degree? Whenever I look around at medical congresses, and no matter whether it’s an academic or an industry session, the presentation style I like to call “dump truck presentations” abounds. Slides designed not as visual aids complementing and supporting the speaker, but to do double duty as handouts, garnished with citations you’d need a telescope to read from row 3 onward. Whether the audience can read, let alone process that information is often a secondary concern – the important thing is that we’ve talked about this topic, if the audience does something with that knowledge is their responsibility – but is it really?

The whole spectacle often reminds me of a scientific catwalk where academic speakers show off what great results they have and corporate symposia promote the company as a scientific partner. And while status is certainly a worthwhile goal, what about knowledge transfer? Aren’t we all in this to improve healthcare??

When I point out that print and presentation are different media and effective handouts do not make effective slides, I often hear “There’s no time to do both separately.” Time is certainly a resource that needs to be managed responsibly. But – if we get the time of dozens, perhaps hundreds, of people and hope for their undivided attention, undistracted from their cell phones and laptops, does it not behoove us to invest sufficient time into the preparation?

Totally aside from the financial costs of a conference, or an industry symposium, and the question of whether using them merely for showcasing ourselves is a responsible use of the money, are we really using our time responsibly?

·???????? Are we using our time responsibly when we hold a presentation that is less effective than it could be? That is less well prepared than it should be?

·???????? Are we using the audience’s time responsibly when we subject them to a presentation that may shock and awe, but leave little lasting impact? That doesn’t allow them to do something with the knowledge presented?

·???????? And most of all – are we using the time of patients responsibly, when we do not use an opportunity to disseminate knowledge about new research results, new approaches, and new solutions effectively??

Let us not forget there are people out there for whom the clock is ticking.?

For the rest of us, there are ways to quickly ensure you have both effective slides and good handouts with barely any extra effort once a few preparatory steps have been taken. One is using the Notes section and Notes Master to create (if necessary branded) Handouts within your presentation while keeping the text you would normally have included in your slide in the Notes for your own reference while presenting. And there are many more ways to make your presentations more effective.

Plutarch wrote in his treatise “On listening to lectures”:

“For the mind does not require filling like a bottle, but rather, like wood, it only requires kindling to create in it an impulse to think independently and an ardent desire for the truth.”

Let us, then, stop pressure-pumping information into our audiences and start making some fires!

If you want to learn how to make your audience burn for your medical science, use the link below to schedule a free Firestarter Call with me.? ?

https://calendly.com/dr-hauss/firestarter-call

#congresses #symposia #medicalaffairs #medicalevents #lectures #presentations #healthcare #medcomms #medical communications #msl #pharma #medicalwriting #MedicalEducation #HealthTech #diagnostics #medtech #HealthcareCommunications #presentationtraining #coaching