How does your audience feel after your give a technology presentation? Too many technology presentations result in confusion, intimidation, distrust, and dismay. The result is delayed decisions or no action. You want the audience to walk out ready to take action. To do that they are going to have to understand how your technology will solve a problem for them. The challenge in communication is that people need understanding to make decisions and understanding is sometimes at odds with the complexity of the solution. The more complex, the harder it is to understand.

An Articulate Scientist empowers people. They empower people with the information they can use to make decisions. They help people understand ideas so they can act with confidence. They do this by making the audience feel smart. Yes, the scientist in the room could possibly be the smartest person in the room, but if they communicate like the smartest person in the room they might leave everybody else behind.

Wouldn't you rather make the audience feel like they are the smartest ones in the room? So they really get it and are more likely to take action? The audience should feel like they understand the idea and feel confidence before they are ready to move forward. An Articulate Scientist makes the light bulb turn on in the audiences head and that is empowering.

What does the audience care more about: you, your idea, or themselves? The answer is likely, themselves! The audience has problems to solve and issues to resolve. Does your science, technology, or idea resolve any of their issues? The better you can connect your technology/science/idea to a personal or business challenge, the more likely they are to support that idea.

An Articulate Scientist puts the audience front and center in their communication. The audience may need you to describe your technology, but they need the explanation done in the context of their business or situation. To do this, an Articulate Scientist connects their ideas to what the audience values. They explain the idea in terms the audience is familiar with and can easily understand. An Articulate Scientists makes the communication about the audience, not the technology.

Scientists learn a principal called “The Scientific Method” at a very early age. It is designed to take the bias out of research. It enables scientist to draw conclusions that are not biased by their own opinions or other influences. That is good for science, but bad for persuasion. In business advocacy, you want to create a bias, not remove it. Companies want people to embrace their products, services, and ideas. Scientists often want to convince people that their idea is worth pursuing and implementing. They want to create a new point of view. So, why would you use a process like the Scientific Method, which is designed to eliminate bias for your persuasive communications?

An Articulate Scientist understands that persuasion is required to get others to embrace, endorse, and implement their ideas. To be persuasive Articulate Scientists are able to simplify their ideas in order to make them clear. They are able to use technology and science to support their ideas. They are able to connect to the audience. In short, they are clear, concise and compelling.

Your audience needs you! They need you to make things clear. They are looking to understand your ideas. An Articulate Scientist drives to clarity. Articulate scientists embrace simplicity in their communications, not complexity. Yes, your technology may be complex and your ideas might be sophisticated, but the audience will not support your idea if it they don’t understand them. Articulate Scientists simplifying their idea before diving into the details. They provide just the right amount of information to the audience to help them understand the idea.