Recently I spoke a keynote on Grounded, at the campus of Tennessee Tech University in Cookeville TN. This keynote a part of their executive presenter series for the Business School. Dr. Thomas Payne is the Dean of the Business School, and he knew about me from my speaking for the Tennessee Bankers Association. He was aware that I would be able to provide a solid performance as a professional speaker, but since this was the first time I would address college students, he was taking a bit of a chance on me. His staff handled all the details in advance of my talk, and I arrived on Thursday to Johnson Hall, ready to make my first full-fledged college lecture.
The lecture series at Tenn. Tech is not a required event, so there were about 100 students in attendance, plus some faculty. I had altered my prepared remarks to tailor it for a student audience. All in all, I thought the delivery was good, and I saw many of the attendees making notes on the Grounded worksheet I had handed out. As we didn’t start right on time, I wound up going several minutes over the time and as such, there was another class that was going to start immediately in the lecture hall and the most of the students all had to hustle to get to their next classes.
Immediately following the lecture, they had prepared lunch for me with eight of the business school professors and staff. I had a chance to post-mortem the talk and got valuable feedback from them. In fact, the Q&A at lunch will make future talks at college campuses more impactful for the students. Initially, I thought that there would have been no way for me to gain that type of insight before the event. After all, it was my first college lecture, right? But then, thinking about the type of Grounded preparedness that I espouse, I thought there were several things I could have done. I could have asked Dr. Payne for traits that make excellent presentations or common mistakes to avoid. I could have reached out to my NSA friends for tips on how they adjust to campus talks. I could have also put out an appeal on LinkedIn, to name a few options.
When you are doing something new, reach out to those with experience and learn. And research your venue and audience to tailor your presentation as much as possible.