Friday, October 15, 2010

Curtailing long speeches -- Stand up if you want someone to sit down

This may be the most important lesson you will ever learn about doing an event in which someone is addressing an audience -- getting them to stop talking.

Really, it is pretty simple, and is mostly about prep. You'll want to ask speakers to monitor their own time, but tell them that you (or someone) will be positioned directly in their line of sight and will stand, facing them, when it is time to wrap up immediately.

Provide this in writing, when you send them confirmation of the speaking engagement.

Include it in the reminder e-mail you send a few days before the event.

Make sure it is visible on the "insiders" agenda you hand them when they arrive at the event.

Remind them about this a few minutes before they go on stage.

Then do it.

Overkill? Not really. Some of the biggest complaints come when speakers go on too long. The worst case I have ever seen came with a panel discussion. When a television journalist had her turn, she literally went on for 20 minutes to answer the first question, half of the time allotted for the entire program. Obviously, no one had prepared for the (significant) possibility that a panelist would exceed her time. And what happens when we don't prepare?

One final thing to remember is to do this no matter what. A fairly curious phenomenon I have discovered is that when people say something such as, "Oh, I've never gone over time in my life, you absolutely will not have to stand up to get me to sit down," these are invariably the people who are the biggest problems. Every single time.

Stand up. That will be enough to get most people to sit down.