The Meals Plus Team Goes to #ANC17: “You Can Be an Effective Public Speaker”

The Meals Plus Team got the most out of #ANC17 in Hotlanta last month by venturing outside of the Exhibit Hall! We each attended an Education Session to learn how we can help keep your lunchlines moving. This gave us a new appreciation for everything child nutrition professionals do to feed our nation’s children.

Julia Barnette, Product Analyst for Meals Plus, attended the “You Can Be an Effective Public Speaker” Education Session, and these were her favorite takeaways from the session:

• Organize your presentation. Develop a structure that allows you to frame your 
  objective — cover all relevant material and transition smoothly from topic to topic. Finish strong and look organized. If you don’t look organized, people won’t think you are!
• Keep an effective structure. Make sure you actually tell your audience what you intend to tell them. Keep it short, relevant and focused.
• Wrapping up your presentation. Refer back to your introduction and summarize; leave your audience with an idea or purpose; avoid the worst ending to a presentation: “Does anyone have any questions?”
• Ways to alienate yourself from the audience. Talking about yourself and avoiding contact; not smiling or reading your entire presentation; and using inappropriate sarcasm or humor.
• The average adult only has an attention span of 30-45 seconds. You must keep your audience entertained!
• Keys to connecting. Speak to the interest of your audience and make sure to tell stories for use of examples; make eye contact and use names often; and use humor to get the audience involved.

The presentation for this and all of the #ANC17 Education Sessions are available on the  School Nutrition Association’s website. Click to view the presentation, “You Can Be an Effective Public Speaker.”