A humbling morning spent watching some Shelter staff trying out presentations intended for potential funders of our services.  Given that a large part of my job is spent trying to sell our cause in to various audiences – politicians and policy-makers, other professionals, donors and the general public – I should be reasonably confident of my abilities in this area.  But just in an hour this morning I saw three or four new ideas that would hugely improve my usual shtick.
 
Presentation is very much on my mind today, following last night’s hugely successful benefit night at the Comedy Store, a follow-up to the event I blogged about a few months ago.   Having had to do a ritual five minutes there myself on the last occasion, I know first hand how incredibly hard it is to walk onto the stage and construct an immediate relationship with an audience which scents blood as keenly as does a shiver of sharks (I’ve always wanted to work in somewhere the fact that “shiver” is the collective noun for a group of sharks.  Cool, isn’t it?).
 
Standing at the back of the auditorium, it was fascinating to see how the professionals do it.  Some brought huge energy onto the stage, using every inch of it, bounding and shouting.  Others were deliberately still, playing with the tension and the audience’s expectations.  But all of them knew, really, knew, the persona they were trying to construct and how they wanted the audience to react.  Those were the keys – content was less important; delivery everything.
 
And part of Shelter’s problem is that we are so obsessed by what we want to say, we forget that what matters is how we convince others to listen.  Worthy but dull is easy.  Worthy and compelling is very rare.