I went to watch Judo at the Commonwealth Games.
But I also found myself listening very carefully to the announcers.
They used two simple techniques that transformed the atmosphere inside the arena.
And both can be used in a presentation.
It was a Friday morning.
The arena was busy but not full.
There were no medals up for grabs in the session.
So the announcers did two things to get things moving.
The second one is quite common. The first, less so.
Create Competition
The announcer created some healthy competition between different sections of the audience.
They introduced the chant :
“Let’s go judo.”
Three words.
Four syllables.
One syllable was allocated to each of the four sides of the arena.
The first side shouted “let’s”.
The second side shouted “go”.
The third side shouted “ju”.
The fourth side shouted “do”.
They repeated it a few times, and the intensity increased each time.
Every side wanted to be the loudest.
No side wanted to come last.
Create Collaboration
Next, the moved from competition to collaboration.
All four sides of the audience shouted in unison during the countdown to action.
They started at 10 and counted down to 1.
Then:
“GO!”
It has been noisy when each side shouted individually.
Now the noise was extremely loud.
If you try a countdown like this, start at 10 rather than 3.
It gives everyone enough time to join in and allows the energy to build.
Use Competition and Collaboration in Your Presentation
The lesson for your next presentation is simple.
Think about how you can use both competition and collaboration to increase audience engagement.
Create some healthy competition where appropriate.
Then give the audience something they can do together.
Competition and collaboration in presentations can both be powerful engagement techniques.
Competition works.
Collaboration works.
But competition followed by collaboration takes it to the next level.
The next time you want to raise the energy in a room, give both techniques a try.
In keeping with the theme of energy in a room, why not check out the following article on how one song changed the mood of an entire conference and what it can teach you about event energy.
