Speaker dilemma: Canned v. customized
I was chatting the other day with someone who does a lot of speaking work and who recently gave a presentation at a meeting industry association conference. I mentioned the canned speeches the “thought leaders” at ASAE and The Center’s conference did, and how they were swarmed afterward (the ones I saw, anyway), with planners interested in hiring them for their own meetings.
He brought up a point that I hadn’t thought about before. While we always say we want speakers to customize their presentations to our audiences, the very act of doing that may put them at a disadvantage. For example, this guy said he customized 90 percent of his session to be specific to meeting planners’ issues. But, because meeting planning isn’t his area of expertise, he felt he was shortchanging himself, especially compared to other speakers who barely tweaked their canned speeches. “I lose the opportunity to really showcase my stuff by customizing it totally,” he said.
Which makes me wonder if this holds true outside the meeting planning industry meetings. Do speakers risk losing something when they customize? Do audiences gain more than they lose? I still think customization is vital, but this was a different point of view that hadn’t occurred to me before.
September 4th, 2007 at 8:08 pm
Hey Sue,
It’s one of the reasons that I’ve stopped doing “showcases” in front of Meeting Planner groups unless its about my topics. Like the guy in your post, I certainly want to help these organizations help their members…but why would a planner hire somebody they’ve just seen give a presentation that wouldn’t be germane to their audience?
That said, I believe presenters must customize content and/or slides to a degree for every group. I don’t care how good or polished the speaker, a tip of the hat to the audience that the speaker cared enough to learn about them and their issues says a lot. And, by customize, I don’t mean create a new program from scratch. I mean 10% of the content is personalized. Maybe 20%…
Frankly, I’ve had to sit through far too many canned presentations by top-line speakers where you knew they were just picking up a paycheck. And then I shake my head on the way to the next session wondering why I invested an hour in someone that didn’t invest an hour in the audience.
September 5th, 2007 at 2:26 am
I find that I can easily customize my canned presentations by choosing examples and screenshots appropriate for each audience.
This means I can present the information in my area of expertise while making it more relevant for each audience.
September 5th, 2007 at 12:09 pm
Hello Sue,
From the attendee point of view, presentations should have both components; canned and customized segments.
When I have to evaluate the performance of the speakers, I consciously rate them on their ability to provide a framework for their presentations and their ability to customize their presentations with relevant and the latest happenings in the industry.
The framework provides the audience the focus of the presentation. This framework is normally canned common practiced paradigms of the industry, which the speakers would confirm or challenge. The customization part would be the speakersâ ability to customize their presentations with updated happenings and industry practices drawn from the speakersâ personal experiences or research.
On the other hand, even when speakersâ customize their presentations, they should make conscious effort to use updated examples.
I remembered attending two different retail conferences. Both conferences had a session on the importance of visual merchandising.
Both the speakers were specialist consultants from two different companies and countries. As I sat through the second conference, which was a year after the first, the examples quoted by the speaker of the second conference were similar to those quoted a year earlier. It leaves me wondering if the retail visual merchandising industry has stood still for the past year and there were no examples on new development for the speakers to use.
September 5th, 2007 at 8:19 pm
I’ve never cared for the word “canned” because it has such a negative connotation for some, yet there are many speakers whose boilerplate talk I would enjoy hearing repeatedly because the content is so relevant and their delivery is so strong.
That being said, I think it is our job as presenters to stick with what we know, but make appropriate and audience-specific connections by incorporating relevant and timely examples that illuminate our content. I had a mentor once who said that your core talk is like the Roman numerals in an outline and the customized elements are the numbered and lettered points underneath. That’s always resonated with me.
April 23rd, 2008 at 7:47 pm
I have struggled with this same issue in the past and have found a few things that work best for me, the audience and the decision makers. I take my flagship keynote speech, honed over the years and allow for certain segments to be flexible enough to customize.
This way the audience receives the benefit and enjoyment of a proven entertaining presentation that includes information relevant to their industry and current issues.
Audience members often comment that it seemed like I was a part of the company or had worked within their industry for years. The key to good customization is working closely with the meeting planner and key people within the organization. I often set up interviews with top performers a few weeks before putting together the final keynote.
Granted, this approach is more time consuming than simply presenting the same presentation each time. But well worth it in my opinion.
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