from Wikimedia

This is Why You Need to Understand Your Audience

Few years ago, a man from England presented how bad 1940’s Germany Communist was. Someone from the crowd shot him, he was arrested. The man said that half of the crowd were nationalist-minded Germans. He said that he shot the public speaker because of his jokes about Adolf Hitler’s mustache. He said “it was too much for me, I’m so proud to that big-mouth bastard”. What I get is: understand the audience - their culture, their jokes, their level of intelligence - and trust me, you won’t die.

So how to understand the audience?

First, and the easiest way, is to watch their television channels, and see if the majority of the channels are the same with what you have in your house. When you find that the majority of them were the same with what you have, then you can be sure that your jokes are their jokes. Remember, just JOKES.

Second, is to get informed where your audience comes from. You can visit their homeland, and learn whatever you can learn there. For example, your presentation’s audience comes from “Gayland School”. You can then visit this “it-sounds-scary” school, and learn how smart are your audience is, what is their culture, what are they laughing at, and many more. Trust me, learning is fun.
And trust me, Gayland School might or might not exist - honestly, I hope it does not.

Third, don’t be so stupid. If you just want to present something in front of the class, you don’t need professional analysis (come on, you’re hours with them everyday, don’t you?). Fourth, just be yourself. You don’t need to analyze your audience’s cultures. Honestly, the story above is an wanna-be urban legend I made just recently (you’re already scared, right?). Just be yourself, but keep learning - one good example is what are you doing right now, learning from this blog.

One more tips...

I have told you a wanna-be urban legend, and four tips that few of them are not a “real” tips at all. Anyway, I have a quote:

One summer does not make a swallow

And please, do not swallow a motorcycle gear. Learning just one thing like this “understand the audience” does not make you a great public speaker. Just keep learning from great resources like this blog, and please do practice too.

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