I’ll never forget my first Toastmasters meeting back in 2002. There were three fantastic speeches followed by my favorite part of the meeting – Table Topics. If you’re not familiar with Table Topics, it’s the part of the meeting where folks are welcomed to come up and speak “off the cuff” about the topic of the day. I participated and lasted 47 seconds. And, thanks to the person in the “Ah Counter” role, I found out that I had some filler words. At first, I found that role to be very cool and useful, but there’s two reasons why I question whether or not it’s needed – or even helpful.

Throughout the last six years, I’ve heard at least a dozen folks who are good speakers tell other people that they should never open their speech with “Thanks, it’s nice to be here” or some other cordial greeting. I’ve asked many of these folks why they feel so strongly about it and have yet to receive what I consider a satisfactory answer – a giveaway that I might have a myth on my hands.

Here are some of the answers I’ve received when asking why this is so bad:

• It weakens your speech.
• It bores the audience.

I was just in the car a few minutes ago and saw something which I feel is a bad trend - a vehicle used to advertise the owner’s small business that also had political bumper stickers on it (at least one of which that was somewhat harsh). It caught my eye because one would think that the owner would have enough common sense to not do this because not only is it unprofessional but it’s just plain stupid.

I once heard that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again while expecting a different result. Well I’d like to add a second definition: trying to please everyone. Trying to make everyone in a group happy ranges from difficult to impossible and the only guarantee you have is that you’ll wish you never tried.

This topic comes up frequently in both my public speaking and networking classes as people are concerned about what others think. I think we all have a natural tendency to focus on the audience members that aren’t paying attention to us during a speech or the folks at a networking event that say “it was nice to meet you – I see a client on the other side of the room” immediately after you introduce yourself.

Of all the different types of hostile audiences out there, the disinterested or uninterested crowd can be one of the toughest to address. There are a number of reasons that your audience can fall into this category, such us being forced to attend the event, so we’ll look at what causes an audience to be disinterested and what you can do to bring them around.

What causes a disinterested audience:

A number of things can cause an audience to be soured about your presentation even before you reach the podium. They range from personal prejudices to attitudes related to the event itself. Here are some common reasons:

Today is a holiday for those of us in the US – Labor Day. As a kid, I used to have mixed feelings about Labor Day: on one hand, the weekend itself was always one of the most enjoyable of the summer but it’s also the last one of the summer. Even as an adult, I still see it as the last day of vacation despite the fact that I’m excited about the fall season, which is becoming my favorite season (I love all the activities in the fall, the temperature and I’m excited about all the events I have planned).

Earlier today an official in Texas took offense to someone using the term “black hole” to describe something negative. Later on, this same official also took offense to the fact that that Angel Food Cake (which the term “angel” has a positive connation) is white and Devil’s Food Cake (“Devil” having a negative connotation) is brown. I’m pretty sure based on the context that the phrase “black hole” was used (he was describing a local government office as place where things go in and never come back out) that the speaker wasn’t making a racist remark. However, whether we like it or not, as speakers and communicators, we may from time to time say something that is perceived in a completely different light than what we intended.