Great article in Convene, PCMA‘s monthly magazine, written by Jeffrey Cufaude. He says, …”if you don’t give [the audience] a voice, they may raise their own.”
And they should!
What would we – speakers, sales presenters, teachers – do differently if we encouraged listeners to walk out on us if we bored them? What if we gave every attendee, student, colleague 3 flags – red (stop), yellow (somewhat interesting, tell me more about what this means to me) and green (great stuff) at the start of the session and invited them to raise their flags at 5 minute intervals? How about if we asked them to raise their voice in protest as soon as they felt we were wasting their time? What about asking them to text or Twitter their comments to us in real time – not so much to tell us how much we suck – but to help us to suck- less, to help us get back on track and create an environment that enabled them to learn best?
What different design would we incorporate to ensure they stayed with us for the length of our talk? What else would we do to engage and stimulate them?
What would you do to keep them from voting with their feet?
Power Sales Writing