Speaking in public is a challenge. Most people fear it. Speaking in public, with cameras recording what you say and how you say it, is even more challenging. When your audience watches the video – days, weeks or even years later – it no longer appears to be a “live event.” The “live” audience that applauds your spontaneity, given the heat of the moment, is a different audience from the one that views the video through a different filter. The filter of time. The filter of history. The filter of “gotcha!”
This is the audience who will point to your grammatical lapses as proof that you are not as educated as you claim. This is the audience who can now “prove” that you lack the experience that you claimed to have. This is an audience that most speakers completely disregard – at their peril!
This is the age of YouTube. This is the dilemma that Sen. Hillary Clinton finds herself in. YouTube sleuths and the Mainstream Media are falling all over themselves to show how Sen. Clinton’s recollection of her “dangerous” arrival in Bosnia is dramatically different from her actual arrival as documented by news reports on the scene those many years ago.
It is not just the case that the “video never lies.” The “video never dies!”
The video is always there, lurking in the archives, ready to bite us wherever and whenever. And video is now viral – its reach is global and instantaneous.
So… if you are already fearful of speaking in public, you have a few more things to learn:
1) Think before you speak
2) Don’t just continue to make sounds while you are collecting your thoughts – vocal graffiti
3) Learn to master “the power of the pause.” Take one or two seconds to collect your thoughts when you are lost or stuck.
Read this short transcript from an interview that Sen. Clinton gave to the editorial board of the Philadelphia Daily News:
“I went to 80 countries, you know. I gave contemporaneous accounts, I wrote about a lot of this in my book. You know, I think that, a minor blip, you know, if I said something that, you know, I say a lot of things — millions of words a day — so if I misspoke, that was just a misstatement,” she said.
“You know” You know” “You know”
Vocal Graffiti!
What is the message that we get from this response? I know the message that I perceive / receive. And it is not good. The repeated use of “you know” in Sen. Clinton’s response leaves me with the distinct impression that she is not telling the truth.
Words do, in fact, matter!
Sen. Clinton would have been better served to remember “the power of the pause” and “the power of YouTube.” Less is definitely more in this case. Less vocal graffiti and more pauses. To illustrate:
“I went to 80 countries, (pause)
you know. I gave contemporaneous accounts, I wrote about a lot of this in my book. (Pause)You know, I think that, a minor blip, (pause)you know,if I said something that,you know, I say a lot of things — millions of words a day — so if I misspoke, that was just a misstatement,” she said.
It is not just what we say. It’s how we say it. Audience perception is what counts. We know!
Record yourself. How many times do you use “space fillers” like uh, uhm, erh? How much vacal graffiti is spry painted throughout your speech? I’ll wager that your answer is a lot more than what you thought! But, that is what your audience hears. That is how your audience perceives you. That is how your audience receives your message.
Learn to take control of what you say. Remember that “the video never lies.” And that “the video never dies!”
See you on YouTube!
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