"I want to find out where your breaking point is." I paused and looked around the room. There was some nervous laughter; the audience wasn't sure if I was serious or making a joke. It didn't matter; I had their attention to launch my talk.
Last month, I wrote about "Surviving the sharks in your tank." One of my tips was to engage your audience. Since I try to practice what I preach, I used this tip in my Ted-style talk hosted at Starz. I had spent hours preparing for a 14 minute talk, which is quite different than delivering a training workshop or even a presentation. It's much more like story telling. However, it occurred to me that the format would be highly effective for you to gain attention and pique interest for your "talks" as well.
There are three steps to format your talks and get your audience engaged: