This was a personal Dunning Kruger experience for me.
“In literature the ambition of the novice is to acquire the literary language; the struggle of the adept is to get rid of it.”
– George Bernard Shaw
Many years ago, I participated in several face-to-face users’ group meetings in Europe. I thought my presentations at these conferences were well above average, and much better, particularly, than our CEO’s talks, whose delivery in my opinion was overly simple and deliberate.
At the close of the first day of one meeting, a few customer participants and speakers gathered in the hotel bar to socialize. Fishing for compliments (I was much younger and perhaps less wise than today), I asked some of my European customers who they appreciated most as speakers.
I was surprised (and slightly appalled, initially!) to learn that “the best speaker, without question, is your CEO…” When I asked, “Why?” they pointed out that for all the Continental participants, English was a second language. They said that “Your CEO’s delivery is easy to understand, and he uses words that we don’t have to look up afterwards!”
Lesson learned!
Moral: Use international English and slow down your delivery.
And here is more great summer reading – at the beach, on a plane, in your favorite spot! “Suspending Disbelief” is 35 fun, bitesize, engaging stories and lessons learned like the one above.
For practical guidance on the use of language, humor, and other factors in demos see Chapter 15 in Great Demo! here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C9SNKC2Y/
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