keep it as short as you can I hate platitudes and clichés, but the fact is, when it comes to public speaking and presentations, ‘less really is more’. In line with this, if you have nothing to say, say nothing. I was in the second hour of a post-graduate education lecture at university some years […]

keep it as short as you can I hate platitudes and clichés, but the fact is, when it comes to public speaking and presentations, ‘less really is more’. In line with this, if you have nothing to say, say nothing. I was in the second hour of a post-graduate education lecture at university some years ago, when the lecturer announced that the average attention span of a university student in a lecture situation is 45 minutes. Failing to see the irony in his comment, he moved on to complete his 120-minute monologue. I am not sure that 45 minutes is really the attention span of a university student, but, as an experienced public speaker and recipient of a number of awards, I am very sure that most audiences struggle to focus their attention for this period of time. So-called current affairs programs on television keep story segments at 3 minutes…