Create Information Hunger

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You want to make your audience hungry for the information you are going to present—get them excited about, or at least interested in, your topic.

You want to make your audience hungry for the information you are going to present—get them excited about, or at least interested in, your topic. As you consider a topic for your informative speech, ask yourself, “How will this audience benefit from this information?” If you can’t come up with a compelling reason for each person to pay attention to what you say, you need to rethink your topic. Several strategies help you create information hunger, including arousing curiosity and working your topic.

Arouse People’s Curiosity. A few years ago, we watched a student inform the audience about kimonos. A kimono is a long, loose Japanese robe with wide sleeves traditionally worn with a broad sash as an outer garment. The speaker defined a kimono, contrasted different types of kimonos, and then demonstrated how to get into one and wear it properly. Although her speech was interesting and her demonstration was effective, in the end we had no idea why we had listened to it! The problem was that although she competently explained the historical and cultural significance of the kimono and gave a detailed demonstration of the process of designing and wearing one, she did little to make the audience interested in the subject as a whole. She might have fared better had she offered some sort of connection between the kimono and the daily lives of the audience. The following introduction to her topic, for example, might have addressed that issue.

Think of your favorite article or ensemble of clothing—that one perfect item or outfit that you just hope you have the occasion to wear. Would you have worn it ten years ago? Will it still be stylish ten years from now? Magazine editors and clothing designers like to throw the word timeless around, claiming that some things—the Armani suit, the little black dress—will never go out of fashion. But the truth is that style is a fickle thing, and lapels, hemlines, colors, and waistbands change with the tides. Today, I’m going to talk about an article of clothing that truly is timeless, one that is worn by both men and women and has remained largely unchanged in shape and form for over one thousand years. I’m speaking, of course, about the traditional garment of Japan, the kimono.

Here we’ve piqued people’s interest by asking them first to think about their own experience—about something they own or wish to own. We then draw them into our subject, the kimono, by contrasting it with what Westerners tend to consider “classic” fashion. Such comparisons and personalization of the subject can help keep the audience interested. We might, for example, go on to show ways in which the kimono has influenced Western fashion.

Work Your Topic. But what if you can’t change the topic? Sometimes you may have the luxury of choosing a topic that you find interesting and engaging, but in many real-world situations, you may be asked to explain, define, describe, or demonstrate something that strikes you as boring or irrelevant. A CEO will frequently need to address shareholders with reports of profits and losses, for example, and spokespersons for government agencies are often required to make statements about public policies or current events.

In every one of these cases, the speaker must find the relevance of the subject and establish it for the audience quickly and assertively. If your topic seems somehow disconnected from your audience, it’s your job to find the relevance. For example, can you save the audience money or time? Can you help people do something better or improve quality? Even if the benefit is not for the short term, will listening to your speech help them in some way in the future, once they become parents or graduate students or homeowners? Unless you present a clear benefit that people can derive from listening to you, you will not get or keep their attention.

For example, imagine that you are an office manager and need to deliver a presentation to your colleagues explaining how to fill out the company’s new expense reports. One way to get them interested in what they might perceive as an unnecessary presentation is to show them that learning how to do this task will benefit them in some way:

I know it’s hard to get excited about something as mundane as filing expense reports. But the good news is that our new electronic transmittal system will get your reimbursements to you faster and more reliably. As you know, it typically takes four to six weeks for an expense report to be routed, approved, and transmitted to accounts payable and another two weeks for accounts payable to cut the check. With this new system, we’ll be able to have funds deposited directly to your bank account in as little as ten business days. So with that in mind, let’s take a look at how the new system works.

By clearly connecting the subect with the lives and needs of your listeners, you’re more likely to have their attention as you demonstrate the less interesting aspects of the process. If you cannot find the subject’s relevance, you may need to refine or revise the topic.