TREND REPORT SPEAKERS
HOW SPEAKERS ARE MIXING UP THEIR SESSIONS
Professional speakers share the latest trends to keep audiences engaged.
FOR PROFESSIONAL SPEAKERS, engaging with an audience can begin months before stepping out onto the stage. Their first audience interaction might come through a teaser video in an event promotion email, says professional speaker and author David Fisher. Or they might also begin cross promoting the event on social media, accord-
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ing to Rich Gibbons, president of SpeakInc., a company that books event speakers and headline entertainers. Once the conference is over, audiences might interact with Fisher further during a post-event webinar building on the conference content. Or they might receive an email newsletter campaign focused on applying what they’ve learned on the job. With events and conferences evolving into experiences for attendees, professional speak-
ers are taking this shift to heart. Judi Holler, improviser, author and keynote speaker, says what most of her clients want from her sessions is “change.” “[What they want are] tangible takeaways that can be used right away to make change in their lives or to inspire a different way of thinking,” Holler says. From fuzzy microphones made for tossing to the influence of TED Talks, read on to find out what four professional speakers and man-
P H O T O S : C O U R T E S Y O F J U D I H O L L E R ; ( O P P O S I T E ) R YA N E S T I S
BY MELISSA SERSL AND
| FALL 2019
8/28/2019 9:42:44 AM
