Yes I agree, it was a great 2009 convention in Phoenix organised by the National Speakers Association of the USA. Top keynote speakers informed, moved, shook and inspired an (international) audience of 1,500 colleagues. There were lots of laughs, some tears and many standing ovations. I felt fortunate to be part of it.
I could not help noticing that all keynote speakers were making one big mistake. In this report I like to share my insight with you.
From the stage (I was there for five full minutes) an audience of 1,500 looks like a vast ocean of people. On the other hand from the audience viewpoint there seems to appear a ‘small puppet’ on a large stage quite far away. NSA is aware of this and used large video screens on the left and right side of the stage. Compared with a speaker of six foot (or 1.80 cm) the video screens were at least five times bigger. Most of the time a multi cam live registration of the keynote speaker was displayed on these screens. Sometimes spiced with PowerPoints or a videofilm. Most of the time, the audience looks at the screens, instead of looking at the speaker. Even the eyes of people on the first 10 rows meandered from screen to speaker, I observed during these three convention days.
Ok, let’s get to the point. The mistake that all of the speakers of the NSA Convention made, in spite of all their professional skills, is that not one of them looked into the main camera! They just did not adapt their presentation to the live screen presentation. They used their routine skills and looked into the audience. Beginners looked until row 25. More experienced speakers looked until row 40. All the people that were seated further away from the main stage were visually not reached at the optimum.
So what? The solution is very easy. If you stand as a keynote speaker on a platform in front of a large audience and there is video registration look regularly into the main camera in the back of the room. And smile into the lens. Even if -for your feeling- the camera is very far away. Your face will be magnified, especially with close-up shots on the huge screens left en right from you. You make your story more personal and strongly increase your impact. Good luck the next time!
Speak well,
Hans (:-)
Via LinkedIn:
Hans … you’re RIGHT about the absence of camera skills on NSA main stage. Thanks for bringing it to our attention. I’d like to follow your blog. Do you have an RSS feed link on there?
Dale Collie
Via LinkedIn:
Interesting insight, Hans. Well put. Never thought of it this way.
Martin Larschkolnig
Comments (16)
Glen J. Cooper
Business Coach/President/Owner at Maine Business Brokers, Speaker, Professional Practice Management Instructor
Great point Hans! Thanks for reminding us! It’s very hard to do that unless you practice, however. People’s smiles in the front rows are more engaging than that distant camera. You are, however, giving us very good advice.
Posted 3 days ago | Reply Privately
Kae Groshong Wagner
President, North Star Marketing, National Speaker, Author, Star Speakers Founder
Hans, excellent observation. I’ve seen many people freeze up in front of a camera, but one at the back of the room shouldn’t be too intimidating. Thanks for the great advice. Kae
Posted 3 days ago | Reply Privately
Neil Tyson
Fraud Risk Consultant and Trainer T/A GNT Fraud Solutions
Very interesting, I will try to keep in mind.
Many Thanks
Neil
Posted 3 days ago | Reply Privately
Patrick Lee
America’s foremost leadership presenter as Thomas Jefferson to association and corporate meetings.
I received great advice about speaking to a large group when there’s an i-mag camera. Imagine that the CEO is running the camera. Continue to make eye contact with the audience, but whenever you make a key point, deliver it directly to the CEO!
Patrick Lee
aka Th:Jefferson, Daniel Boone and Lewis & Clark Co-Leader Capt. Wm. Clark
http://www.PatrickLee.com
Posted 3 days ago | Reply Privately
Lindsay Adams
National Director of The Referral Institute
Great observation Hans,it is hard under the lights to figure out just where the camera is sometime, so best to check out the room well before you go on the platform.
Lindsay Adams CSP
Posted 3 days ago | Reply Privately
Andrew Bryant, CSP
Certified Professional Speaker, Executive Coach, Leadership Consultant, NLP Master Trainer
Great tip – thanks
Posted 2 days ago | Reply Privately
Kathleen Schulweis, PCC, CPCC
Certified Professional Coach. Consultant, Trainer, Author, PCC, CPCC
Great tip. And what I notice is that with the cameras and big screens everyone looks like they forgot to put on their stage make-up. These cameras and screens change everything and a poor appearance is a serious distraction and authority-killer.
Posted 2 days ago | Reply Privately
Adriane Berg
CEO Generation Bold/ Executive VP MMG at Generation Bold and Media Management Group
Very good point-an another idea. If you are in front of group with large screens consider it similar to tv appearance with respect to makeup-non sweat, coverup makeup. Do not exaggerate your gestures. Keep normal body language. It is not so much a stage performance as a video performanace
Posted 2 days ago | Reply Privately
Fabio Salaverry
at
Very well observed, thanks for the tip.
Posted 2 days ago | Reply Privately
Mike Staver
Owner, The Staver Group
Its amazing how much impact that has not to mention that if your client gives you the raw footage it increases the intimate feel when played on a computer screen. It gives a much more personal impact.
Posted 2 days ago | Reply Privately
John Hogan CHA CHE PhD
Successful hospitality executive, educator, speaker, consultant & entrepreneur now looking for a new challenge
Excellent opening observation and thank you all for sharing the refinements. Good lessons to be learned.
John
Posted 2 days ago | Reply Privately
Andy Edwards
Owner, Marketing MAD Ltd and Senior Associate with The Colour Works
Good one. Same applies to webinars. Too few speakers look at the web camera. Audience engagement across cyberspace is hard enough (especially if you are conducting polls and showing Power Point presentations too). Regularly lean into the camera and/or away for dramatic effect
Posted 2 days ago | Reply Privately
Carlos Navarro
Profesor Doctor, Ponente y Creativo Publicitario
Muy bien por el comentario, Hans. These kind of views may help not to ruin a speech.
Carlos Navarro
Posted 2 days ago | Reply Privately
Raju Mandhyan
Lead Facilitator at Inner Sun
I saw Patricia Fripp once in the presence of 1200 audience. She was talking to the camera yet addressing the audience.
I just watched another huge speaker on a large screen and he was talking to the first 100 rows in an audience of 5000.
When we get up there and the lights are in our faces, we need feedback, we need transaction confirmation and analysis. Hans is right, we’ve got to work the camera for the back rows and we’ve got to work the front rows for ourselves. Creativity is catalysed by connections. Engagement and influence comes about through creativity. Thanks, Hans!
Posted 2 days ago | Reply Privately
Abdallah Al-Jurf
Training and Career Development Manager at Cristal Global- Yanbu Site
Thanks Hans for sharing this valuable point.
I believe that a professional speaker should maintain a balance between the camera for the back rows and the eye contact with front rows, so everybody will feel engaged with the speaker.
Thanks again for noticing the unnoticed!
Posted 13 hours ago | Reply Privately
John Bowen
Businessman, Trouble Shooter, Trainer & Public Speaker. Celebrating 25 years of having fun while making things happen.
An excellent point, well supported by the other comments. it is one of those obvious points that are so often overlooked, as I had until reading this.
Many of us may have learned our craft from speaking to increasingly larger groups where, picking up on the point Adriane has made, our success has come through the connection with the live audience; the stage performance.
I’m not sure that I will find applying this lesson of adapting to newer technology easy, especially when caught up in the moment, but thanks to having read this thread, at least I shall be trying.
Thanks to Hans for raising this, and to you all for the additional comments and tips.
Posted 38 minutes ago | Reply Privately
Comments (8) from the LinkedIn Group International Federation For Professional Speakers.
Christine Morlet
keynote speaker at christine-morlet.com
This is so true Hans! What a great tip. I’ll think about it next time I’ll have the chance to speak in front of a large audience
Take care,
Christine
Posted 6 days ago | Reply Privately
Olivier Soudieux
Adventurer, speaker and trainer
Sometime, the most obvious things are part of the most important ones…
but we miss the point !
Thanks for the suggestion ! Sure I’ll keep it in mind too !
Posted 6 days ago | Reply Privately
Carole Spiers
Chairman Carole Spiers Group. Motivational Speaker. World Authority on Executive Stress. Gulf News Columnist
Well that certainly focuses one’s mind and made a really useful point.
Many thanks.
With kind regards
Carole
Posted 6 days ago | Reply Privately
Nishant Kasibhatla
Trainer. Speaker. Author. @ Memory Vision
Great observation. I was not there at NSA, but I did attend few huge conferences and you are right. The speaker probably doesnt even know where the camera is! A great tip to note and implement for all speakers who speak to large audiences.
Thanks for your sharing.
Posted 5 days ago | Reply Privately
Judy Arnall
Author: “Discipline Without Distress:135 tools for raising caring children without time-out, spanking, or punishment.”
Brings home to mind the need to be flexible – always adapt to the room arrangements. Eye contact is so important.
Thanks for the tip!
Posted 5 days ago | Reply Privately
Erwin Van Lun MBM MSc.
Futurist, trend analyst (trendwatcher) and professional speaker, based in Sydney (AU) and Amsterdam (NL)
Actually I’d love to attend the workshop: ‘speaking in front of extremely large audiences’. That would allow us to really be trained and get a feeling on how it will look like. You can excercise in your own living room in front of a camera, but for this excercise you really need space, lots of space. And I believe even experienced speakers are not trained, as being it their second nature, to speak for large audiences with video registration. A night workshop at the next NSA (when the room is empty, except for the participants ?)
Posted 5 days ago | Reply Privately
Paul du Toit
Certified Speaking Professional, Author, Presentation Skills Coach and Mindset Shifter
Good one, Hans – and very true. It’s tips like these that make being part of GSF (Global Speakers Federation) and a group like this so valuable.
Posted 5 days ago | Reply Privately
Roger Harrop, The CEO Expert
Director at Speakers with Content Limited
Hi Hans,
Excellent point – and one that Warren Evans in his Platform Mechanics workshop at CAPS last year made strongly.
Guess what – we have Warren, the world’s leading expert on platform mechanics, running a mega session at the PSA UK Convention this year! – get booking….
kind regards
Roger
Posted 3 days ago | Reply Privately
Via LinkedIn NSA Group
Comments (8)
Bill Stainton
Professional Speaker, Humorist, and Beatles Expert
You make a valid point, Hans, although there are different points of view on this. Some feel that looking directly at the camera seems artificial. Regardless of one’s thoughts on looking at or not looking at the camera, though, I can tell you from experience that from the stage it’s almost impossible to tell where the camera is. The main stage room is a big one, and the audience is mostly in darkness. The back of the room, where the camera is, is in almost total darkness. In the meantime, you, the main stage performer, have bright lights shining in your eyes. The best you can do is guess where the camera is. There have been several times when I was on the main stage and wanted to do a “take” directly to the camera. On those occasions, I just looked straight ahead, and hoped I was somewhere in the right vicinity. Of course, since I couldn’t see the screens at that time, I have no idea how close I was. The bottom line is that this may be one of those things that falls into the category of “easier said than done.”
Posted 8 days ago | Reply Privately
Ryan Rigsbee
Graduate from California State University, Chico
Finding the camera can be easliy fixed by asking the videographer to put an LED device atop the camera. The speaker can then easily pinpoint the camera’s location at the back of a dark room.
Posted 8 days ago | Reply Privately
Craig Price
Professional Speaker and Trainer
also…you will know where the camera is during a simple A/V check before hand. So you can at least look into that general direction from time to time.
Posted 8 days ago | Reply Privately
Brad Barton
Owner, Brad Barton Communications, Inc
I’ve used this technique many times on the advice of a speech coach. My meeting planners regularly comment that they noticed. They often tell me how unusual it is and their feedback is always positive. Great observation Hans.
Posted 8 days ago | Reply Privately
Patti Branco
President, Management & Training Solutions/PattiBranco Speaks
Interesting points, but personally, my keynotes are best delivered with the eye contact and energy that can only come from the live audience, no matter the size. I often have house lights up just a tad VS very dark. Looking into the camera, while you make much sense with your critique, would put me into total ‘acting’ mode, I.E. making a film VS connecting with your audience. I think when you look to the back of the room, near the camera if not at the camera, that does show up as direct eye contact from the large screens, intended or not.
Also, a recent conference positioned the main camera off to the front side, somehow connected to the back-so in that case one would be looking down!
Posted 2 days ago | Reply Privately
Linda Keith
Helping Financial Institutions Improve Loan Quality
Would it work to include the location of the camera as one of the places you look to in the audience. So that some of the time you are looking directly at the audience for the IMAG?
Posted 2 days ago | Reply Privately
Patti Branco
President, Management & Training Solutions/PattiBranco Speaks
Might be a good solution! As for me, I still prefer my larger than life image to show me connecting witht the few front rows, smiling at them, engaging them, rather than appearing as on a talk show or a video…but I sure love this discourse, good brain food!!
Patti Branco
Posted 2 days ago | Reply Privately
Catherine White
Speaker | Presenter | Singer | Author
Interesting to hear this feedback, as I’ve been trained to begin talking into the Camera. Standing on an ever so slight angle to the audience, looking directly at the camera.
The other point to remember is you never, NEVER take a step back on a stage.
Posted 1 day ago | Reply Privately
LinkedIn Group Global Keynote Speakers Association
Comments 2
Jan McKenzie
Director, Training and Development at The Weather Channel Companies
Love your blog page! You have some new, unique insights into the challenges of speaking. I’m a fan!
Posted 7 days ago | Reply Privately
Jean Steel
Speaker, Trainer, Author
Wow….good point. Funny since it is so simple but you are totally correct. Thanks.
Posted 6 days ago | Reply Privately
LinkedIn Group Speakers and Panelists
Comments (19)
Glen J. Cooper
Business Coach/President/Owner, Maine Business Brokers, Speaker, Prof. Practice Mgmt. and Business Appraisal Instructor
Great point Hans! Thanks for reminding us! It’s very hard to do that unless you practice, however. People’s smiles in the front rows are more engaging than that distant camera. You are, however, giving us very good advice.
Posted 8 days ago | Reply Privately
Kae Groshong Wagner
President, North Star Marketing, National Speaker, Author, Star Speakers Founder
Hans, excellent observation. I’ve seen many people freeze up in front of a camera, but one at the back of the room shouldn’t be too intimidating. Thanks for the great advice. Kae
Posted 8 days ago | Reply Privately
Neil Tyson
Fraud Risk Consultant and Trainer T/A GNT Fraud Solutions
Very interesting, I will try to keep in mind.
Many Thanks
Neil
Posted 8 days ago | Reply Privately
Patrick Lee
America’s foremost leadership presenter as Thomas Jefferson to association and corporate meetings.
I received great advice about speaking to a large group when there’s an i-mag camera. Imagine that the CEO is running the camera. Continue to make eye contact with the audience, but whenever you make a key point, deliver it directly to the CEO!
Patrick Lee
aka Th:Jefferson, Daniel Boone and Lewis & Clark Co-Leader Capt. Wm. Clark
http://www.PatrickLee.com
Posted 7 days ago | Reply Privately
Lindsay Adams
National Director of The Referral Institute
Great observation Hans,it is hard under the lights to figure out just where the camera is sometime, so best to check out the room well before you go on the platform.
Lindsay Adams CSP
Posted 7 days ago | Reply Privately
Andrew Bryant, CSP
Certified Professional Speaker, Executive Coach, Leadership Consultant, NLP Master Trainer
Great tip – thanks
Posted 7 days ago | Reply Privately
Kathleen Schulweis, PCC, CPCC
Certified Professional Coach. Consultant, Trainer, Author, PCC, CPCC
Great tip. And what I notice is that with the cameras and big screens everyone looks like they forgot to put on their stage make-up. These cameras and screens change everything and a poor appearance is a serious distraction and authority-killer.
Posted 7 days ago | Reply Privately
Adriane Berg
CEO Generation Bold/ Executive VP MMG at Generation Bold and Media Management Group
Very good point-an another idea. If you are in front of group with large screens consider it similar to tv appearance with respect to makeup-non sweat, coverup makeup. Do not exaggerate your gestures. Keep normal body language. It is not so much a stage performance as a video performanace
Posted 7 days ago | Reply Privately
Fabio Salaverry
at
Very well observed, thanks for the tip.
Posted 7 days ago | Reply Privately
Mike Staver
Owner, The Staver Group
Its amazing how much impact that has not to mention that if your client gives you the raw footage it increases the intimate feel when played on a computer screen. It gives a much more personal impact.
Posted 7 days ago | Reply Privately
John Hogan CHA CHE PhD
Successful hospitality executive, educator, speaker, consultant & entrepreneur now looking for a new challenge
Excellent opening observation and thank you all for sharing the refinements. Good lessons to be learned.
John
Posted 7 days ago | Reply Privately
Andy Edwards
Owner, Marketing MAD Ltd and Senior Associate with The Colour Works
Good one. Same applies to webinars. Too few speakers look at the web camera. Audience engagement across cyberspace is hard enough (especially if you are conducting polls and showing Power Point presentations too). Regularly lean into the camera and/or away for dramatic effect
Posted 7 days ago | Reply Privately
Carlos Navarro
Profesor Doctor, Ponente y Creativo Publicitario
Muy bien por el comentario, Hans. These kind of views may help not to ruin a speech.
Carlos Navarro
Posted 7 days ago | Reply Privately
Raju Mandhyan
Lead Facilitator at Inner Sun
I saw Patricia Fripp once in the presence of 1200 audience. She was talking to the camera yet addressing the audience.
I just watched another huge speaker on a large screen and he was talking to the first 100 rows in an audience of 5000.
When we get up there and the lights are in our faces, we need feedback, we need transaction confirmation and analysis. Hans is right, we’ve got to work the camera for the back rows and we’ve got to work the front rows for ourselves. Creativity is catalysed by connections. Engagement and influence comes about through creativity. Thanks, Hans!
Posted 7 days ago | Reply Privately
Abdallah Al-Jurf
Training and Career Development Manager at Cristal Global- Yanbu Site
Thanks Hans for sharing this valuable point.
I believe that a professional speaker should maintain a balance between the camera for the back rows and the eye contact with front rows, so everybody will feel engaged with the speaker.
Thanks again for noticing the unnoticed!
Posted 5 days ago | Reply Privately
John Bowen
Businessman, Trouble Shooter, Trainer & Public Speaker. Celebrating 25 years of having fun while making things happen.
An excellent point, well supported by the other comments. it is one of those obvious points that are so often overlooked, as I had until reading this.
Many of us may have learned our craft from speaking to increasingly larger groups where, picking up on the point Adriane has made, our success has come through the connection with the live audience; the stage performance.
I’m not sure that I will find applying this lesson of adapting to newer technology easy, especially when caught up in the moment, but thanks to having read this thread, at least I shall be trying.
Thanks to Hans for raising this, and to you all for the additional comments and tips.
Posted 4 days ago | Reply Privately
Isabel Amaral
CEO at Isabel Amaral Lda
Thank you for the great tip Hans, to bear in mind not only before big audiences but also in videoconference seminars.
Thank you for the other tip, Kathleen and Adriene.The first time it happened to me,it was very early in the morning and I had normal outside make up.Some people in the audience congratulated me at the end of the lecture but told me I looked tired on the screen because of the dark circles under my eyes. Although I usually do not wear lots of make up I now have special makeup for big audiences and will keep you advice in mind.
Posted 4 days ago | Reply Privately
Derek Young
President at YMG | Young Motivation Group
Hans,
I applaud your thoughtfulness and clarity! Great advice!
Derek Young
YMG
Posted 3 days ago | Reply Privately
Jack E Rossin
Presentation Skills Trainer
Damn that’s smart!
Posted 3 days ago | Reply Privately
Group: Community Group for IFFPS – International Federation For Professional Speakers
Subject: New comment (10) on “A big mistake most keynote speakers still make on the platform. And how to repair it.”
Great advice, Hans. When working to several cameras it’s important to make sure they show a red cue light when they’re on so you don’t waste that eye contact on a dead lens.
Posted by Chris Roycroft-Davis the Can Do Communicator
Via LinkedIn:
Hans … you’re RIGHT about the absence of camera skills on NSA main stage. Thanks for bringing it to our attention. I’d like to follow your blog. Do you have an RSS feed link on there?
Dale Collie
LinkedIn Groups
Group: National Speakers Association (NSA)
Subject: New comment (14) on “All NSA09 keynote speakers made ONE BIG mistake. Really!”
The video is there to capture what is happening live, not as a TV feed. If you follow the need to look at the camera to its logical end, the speakers would have had to reduce their movements and vocal tone to appeal to the more cool TV/video medium. That would make them less interesting as a live event speaker and negated the need to be there live. Thr camera was an aid, not the main communication vehicle.
If there is a point to criticize it is that the stage was too low for some folks to be seen from the back of the room.
Lenn
Posted by Lenn Millbower
LinkedIn Groups
Group: Community Group for IFFPS – International Federation For Professional Speakers
Subject: New comment (11) on “A big mistake most keynote speakers still make on the platform. And how to repair it.”
Great advice, wish I’d read it last week, before giving a keynote that was videod! Next time I’ll check your posts before I speak!
Posted by Darcie Harris
LinkedIn Groups
Group: Community Group for IFFPS – International Federation For Professional Speakers
Subject: New comment (12) on “A big mistake most keynote speakers still make on the platform. And how to repair it.”
Good and sound advice thanks! The largest meeting I ever attended was 12,000 people attending Anthony Robbins in the Excel in UK 2007. I was luckily sitting in the 7th row…
Such an awesome speaker moved that huge crowd as though we were one! Thinking back now I think he used a mixture of the possibilities. He certainly kept contact with the camera’s but also with the crowds, that way it came across totally natural.
Posted by Engela Schemel
Hans is absolutely right in pointing out that in order to have a proper impact on the audience, the Motivational Speaker should have an eyeball to eyeball contact with them.
This is virtually impossible in a large gathering. But the technology has made the things simpler. With CCTV’s placed all over the audiotorium at strategic , The speaker should train himself to look directly at the camera while speaking. This is quite similar to the newsreaders reading the news on the television.