19. Keeping your audience in mind.

 Cool. So I am just sort of brainstorming about what I am going to do for my final. I am considering (as you may have already guessed by the title) presenting my ideas and the things that I have learned about keeping your audience in mind.

For the most important part is the beginning. If I can simply create a captivating beginning I think the rest will go smoothly. I can just go over some basics about why it is important to keep your audience in mind and a few techniques to do so.

Here is one thought. This was an activity that I was made to do a while back to try and understand another. Get in pairs of two, get within two feet of your partner and look into their eyes (I had to do it for 5 minutes, but there isn’t time for that, so more like 1.5 min) without looking away. I am going to ask them to not just focus on the eye-ball, as is commonly done to shrink from the uncomfort of the situation, and then I am going to ask them to try and put themselves in the shoes of the person as much as you can.After doing this for a while

1.   It is super uncomfortable

2.   You learn a lot about that person and you didn’t even have to talk to them

This would apply to learning as much about your audience before you even address them. We should all do the equivalent before we write a paper, try to look into their eyes and see life as they see. It is going to be venerable but it will make you more effective.

After the exercise I might ask the class to think about if that were to help them if now they were going to try and relate to this person in any way. (ask them on a date if that applys, to share some candy etc.)