Pose a “burning question”

The way to engage an audience is to make your topic meaningful to them via a “burning question” (BQ). It highlights the problem or “pain” you are solving and/or the the opportunity you have captured! (The BQ can also be a provocative statement that infers a burning question.) The act of writing a BQ focuses your topic and the way you convey it, making the writing part easier. It’s the first step of ABCaP, a four-step communications protocol I developed for my clients.

ABCaP is rooted in “Rule One: it’s all about the audience” for good reason. People are busy; they won’t happily invest time in listening to you if the topic is not specifically meaningful to them from the first minute onward. The job of the BQ is to hook the audience – much like a newspaper headline or the first page or a novel or the first scene in a movie. Right after asking the BQ, provide a short “teaser” answer to set up the rest of your talk. You may also hint at “the ask” that will come at the end.

Set up the BQ with a brief story, an audience interaction such as a quick survey, a demonstration, a shocking statistic, or a visual (see examples below). If using PowerPoint, you can put the BQ on the title slide or the opening slide, or just  deliver it verbally.

Mind the gap

Keeping in mind “Rule One: it’s all about the audience,” identify where your audience is starting (what people know about your topic) and where it needs to finish (what people need to know in order to give you your “ask”). The space between is THE GAP in the audience’s knowledge: use your burning question to draw attention to it! It’s human nature to want to fill gaps in our knowledge: it’s why we will stay up all night to finish a mystery novel, and watch a TV show we don’t care about just see if the protagonist triumphs at the end.

Establish your audience’s starting point in advance; it not only defines the gap, it helps your narrow your content. Research these questions:

• What do they already know about your topic?
• What more do they want to know about it? What are priorities? Where are no-fly zones?
• What is driving their interest?

Using visuals

In January 2011, I spoke on this topic to the Toronto chapter of the IABC (International Association of Business Communicators). Participants asked about the use of photographs in PPT and so I am following up with the examples below. I combined burning questions with photographs pulled from iclipart.com to create fictional PPT. The graphics are plain on purpose; the examples are about content. You’ll notice many of the images rely on a metaphors. For help with those, use the Twin Trigger exercise.

For more tips on images, see Provoke with Photography and Use clipart but express restraint.