Watching a Seminar Audience

I went to a seminar today on values in the workplace - personal and corporate. I found myself spending more time observing people than listening to the speaker (who, by the way, was very good and clearly knew his stuff). But it's ages since I have been to what I would call a training seminar - where the trainer speaks to a powerpoint presentation of headings and dot points and everyone tries to keep up. Only late in the hour-long presentation was there a brief table discussion...and boy, what a difference in the audience mood after the discussion. You could feel the sense of engagement rise 1000% for the rest of the session.

I could never run a lifestyle workshop that way. Lifestyle is a very individual issue and requires a highly facilititatory role on my part, with lots of input and discussion from the group. Even when I do a speaking presentation I get the audience involved in lots of ways - and my only use of powerpoint is to graphically visualise the occasional key point.

One of my core messages is that the best way to educate people is to make the process fun. There was all too little fun in the session today. I wondered how many people in the audience really enjoyed what the speaker had to say and how many were there because their job required them to learn it - not quite "or else", but you get my drift. I think the latter people would have struggled.