THE DEVIL YOU KNOW

GO SPECIFIC

Think way, way back to the first unit of this course, in which we pointed out that every speaker has two audiences:

• General: anyone who receives the speaker's message, whether in person or otherwise.

• Specific: the group of people the speaker specifically wants to reach.

Now think back to the beginning of this unit when you read Scott Berkun's list of four things a speaker must do to prepare well. Second on the list was "Think carefully about your specific audience." (Berkun, 60)

It wouldn't make a lot of sense to spend time thinking about your general audience—and not just in the event that your speech goes viral or gets used in an online public speaking course.

The bigger reason not to think too much about your general audience is because doing so would wind up diluting the effect your speech has on the people you really care about reaching (and convincing): your specific audience.

Specifically Who?

You want to know more about your specific audience. But what exactly do you want to know? Here are some questions to start with:

How many people will be there?

Knowing the general size of your audience is key, because it will tell you what sort of atmosphere and mood you should go for. Will you be speaking to a very small group of, say, ten people? In that case, it's probably going to work best if you take a more intimate, less formal approach.

Will you be speaking for a group of more than hundred people? In that case, intimate is basically impossible. You'll want to go for a more public, formal approach.

Who are these people?

It's important to gather some basic demographic information about your audience. Relevant categories might include:

• Age

• Gender

• Education

• Occupation

• Group membership

• Political affiliation

• Religion

• Ethnicity

The demographic categories you'll want to investigate will depend on what sort of speech you're giving and the topic you'll be talking about. If your speech has nothing to do with religion, you probably don't need to worry about that. (Unless, of course, your subject is viewed favorably or unfavorably by people who belong to a certain religion. In that case, you should definitely look into it.)

Demographic information is incredibly helpful, but here's the thing about it: you have to be incredibly careful to avoid making assumptions based on stereotypes you have about any particular age, gender, religion, or really anything.

What will they expect of me?

Take the demographic information you have about your audience into account when answering this question.

For example, an audience that's made up of mostly people in their twenties will expect something very different than an audience of retired people. The twenty-year-olds will probably expect you to sound tech-savvy, while the retired people would probably prefer you just shut up about technology already.

(Okay, yes—we just relied on a stereotype to come up with that assumption. Shame on us. But it gets the point across, right?)

You'll also want to take into account the occasion and the type of speech when answering this question. This idea came up a lot in Thank You For Arguing. Basically, in order to display decorum (a.k.a. the art of fitting in) you'll want to know what your audience is going to consider appropriate.

What do they already know about the topic I'll be talking about?

This is a really important question, and therefore it's worth doing some extra investigating to make sure you know the answer. It can help you tailor the information in your speech perfectly so you aren't making your audience feel stupid for including terms and concepts that are way over their heads. On the flip side, it can help you ensure that you don't bore them by telling them stuff they already know.

Think back to the "Why we laugh" TED Talk you watched. Dr. Scott put a lot of thought into this question. She knew her audience was smart enough to understand the diagrams and data she shared, but she also knew that it would be a bad idea to bust out the really high-level stuff that only a cognitive neuroscientist would understand.

Then again, Dr. Scott had it easy. It's a safe bet that unless you're giving a speech at a cognitive neuroscience conference, you aren't going to get a whole lot of cognitive neuroscientists in your audience. It was doubly easy because the TED conference has a pretty well-established type of audience.

It won't always be as easy to know how much your audience knows. That's why it's worth doing a little extra leg-work when it comes to this question. (Don't worry—we'll cover exactly how to do that in just a little bit.)

What are their pre-existing attitudes about the topic I'll be talking about?

Closely related to how much your audience already knows about your topic is what sort of attitudes they already have about it.

Unless your topic is totally obscure, your audience is probably going to come to your speech with some pre-existing positive or negative attitudes about the topic, especially if the topic you'll be discussing is controversial in any way.

For example, let's say you're a high school science teacher giving a talk on how to effectively teach evolution. It's probably going to be important to know how your audience feels when they hear the word evolution. Are they like, "Cool, I always wanted to know more about that!" or more like "No such thing, friend."

Will they be there by choice?

Another important thing to consider is whether your audience will be made up of people who are choosing to listen to you speak, people who are sort of just stumbling into your speech, or people who are being made to listen to you speak.

Say you're a published author of historical novels that take place mainly during the American Civil War. You've agreed to give a talk at a small book festival. You'd want to know which of the following audiences to expect:

• Superfans who have read all your books and will line up for hours ahead of time just to gaze upon your eminent visage.

• Book lovers who haven't heard of you or read any of your books but are sort of into the Civil War, so why not?

• High school students who are on a school-mandated field trip and would rather be basically anywhere else right now, including at school. (Source)

Receptive, Neutral or Hostile?

Knowing whether your audience has pre-existing attitudes about your topic and whether they're attending your speech by choice will help you understand whether you'll be facing a receptive, neutral, or hostile audience.

• Receptive audiences already know something about your topic and generally support your perspective. As a speaker, your main goal should be to foster identification with audiences like these.

• Neutral audiences are usually not as aware or informed about your topic and most likely don't have strong pre-existing attitudes about it. As a speaker, your main goal should be to foster interest in your subject.

• Hostile audiences are already resistant or even hostile to your topic. As a speaker, your main goal should be to convince the audience to listen to you (and possibly to duck the rotten tomatoes they're throwing at you).(Source)

Unless you speak frequently about a controversial subject, you probably won't have to stand up in front of many hostile audiences. Of course, if you're planning to become President of the United States, you'll definitely want to get used to dealing with hostile audiences. You'll probably also want to practice ducking more than just rotten tomatoes. Remember George W. Bush and the shoe?

NO STALKING NECESSARY

You know what questions to ask about your audience. But how do you get answers?

Sometimes, the answers are so obvious that you don't have to do any sort of analysis to get them. For example, if you're speaking at a high school commencement, you probably already know that your specific audience is made up of young adults around eighteen years of age with a high school education.

If you were invited to speak at a women's entrepreneurship conference, then bam—you know your audience is going to be mostly adult women who are (or at least want to be) entrepreneurs.

If you were invited to give the speech, you have a great resource at your disposal: the person who invited you. Chances are that person is going to know at least a little bit about the audience, and it would just be a crying shame to ignore that easy source of knowledge.

But that's the easy stuff. If you really want to ace your speech, you're going to want to dig a little deeper. Consider one or more of these three methods for analyzing an audience:

• Direct observation: When you personally observe your entire audience (or a portion of it) beforehand. This method is easy in some ways and difficult in others. If you happen to have a chance to observe your audience beforehand, then it's easy to eye them up and take note of many of the important categories, especially demographics. Of course, it's not always easy to observe your audience beforehand simply because you may not have access to them.

• Inference: Sometimes you can gather information about your audience simply by intelligent inference. Think about what you know about the audience and what that information suggests. Say you're that author planning for a speech to a group of high schoolers. You know for a fact that they're all under twenty, and you also know that this is a mandatory field trip. What can you safely infer about them based on that?
  
  Although inferences can be helpful, they can also be harmful if you're making your inferences based on stereotypes or misinformation. So be intelligent about it, and don't be a jerk.

• Data Sampling: A more labor-intensive but very enlightening method for analyzing your audience is to collect data and gather statistics about them. This might include finding data that's already been gathered, or it might mean doing it yourself through surveys and/or interviews. (Source)

Audience analysis is an important part of the preparation process, but it doesn't end there. A good speaker should be analyzing the audience during the speech, too. We'll come back to that during the unit that focuses on delivering a speech.

See? Not creepy at all.