Keynote Speaker
A keynote speaker provides motivational speeches for graduates, business people, and other groups that are involved in a significant event. A number of factors are involved in the selection of a keynote speaker, but you also need to consider yourself as a potential speaker for an event in your community.
There are few specific qualifications for a keynote speaker in terms of their oratorical skills. While former congressmen and heads of corporations often give keynote speeches, there are many occasions when a local celebrity or someone who is appropriate for a specific event should be considered. You should think about the larger picture when thinking of which keynote speaker you want to utilize, instead of worrying about their accent or diction.
A reliable biography of the speaker and research into past keynote speeches by an individual should form part of your decision-making process. You should utilize a list of references provided by a keynote speaker to determine their expertise, if your event is focused on a singular issue. For example, a conference on technology in the classroom can have a keynote speaker who is not necessarily an accomplished speaker, but has developed software to help children read. It is simple to conduct an online search using the potential speaker’s name and area of expertise to find responses to any speeches they have given in the past.
Speaker’s bureaus are centralized resources within a corporation or university that distribute information on potential keynote speakers within their ranks. Corporations typically charge a small rate to send their managers and chief officers out into the public, unless it is an event that directly markets their product. Public universities often compile a long list of professors and staff members from various departments to provide event organizers a free resource for almost any topic they could possibly need. It is important to utilize university speaker bureaus that provide specific areas of expertise or past speeches given in order to find the right speaker for your needs.
There are also private speaker’s bureaus in major cities that allow you to find an expert in keynote speeches at a premium price. These bureaus typically house motivational speakers who are attuned to a certain tone of speech rather than a topic. You should consider these private bureaus, if you have a significant budget for an event and want to meet with the speaker beforehand to go over specific topics covered in the speech. It is important to meet with a variety of speakers from speaker’s bureaus in order to get the most diverse selection of keynote speakers possible.
It is important to schedule at least one appointment with a keynote speaker before your event begins. You should bring advertisements, brochures, and other materials pertinent to the event to help the keynote speaker shape their oration around the needs of the audience. It is also important to outline the material covered by other speakers and presenters during a conference to avoid duplication. A conference on a specific topic like the Israeli-Arab conflict that features multiple speakers may end up with overlapping information. It is important to avoid duplication for the keynote speaker, because this person is the highlighted presenter for your event.
Your keynote speaker should reciprocate during your meeting with their approach to the most important speech at your event. A brief outline or a list of ideas is sufficient in the early stages, but you should begin to be worried if there is little planned with two weeks or less before an event. It is sufficient to gently prod speakers toward more concrete ideas if you feel panicked about their progress, but remember that they have a great deal of expertise. Off-the-cuff remarks are fine for certain events, but a keynote speech is expected to be polished, so you should maintain some degree of oversight with a speaker up until they take the stage.
Your experience with a keynote speaker during a conference, graduation, or other event may not involve any planning. Professionals in all industries will come across keynote speakers throughout their career of varying degrees of quality. It is important to understand how to actively listen to a motivational speaker, even if the material is something you are intimately familiar with, or the speaker’s approach does not fit in with your perspective.
One of the most overlooked ways to listen to a keynote speaker is to take notes. Most events that feature a keynote speaker do not offer the opportunity to take notes, including graduations where the graduates are wearing gowns, or luncheons where the tables are filled with plates of food. You can use the back of an agenda or promotional piece from the event to take quick notes while you are listening to a motivational speaker. You can write down particularly strong arguments, a certain phrase that catches your attention, or the name of the speaker, in case you need a keynote speaker at a future event.
You should also read through the biographical sketch that event planners provide for a keynote speaker. This information is typically provided by a speaker’s bureau, which means there is a positive slant to the accomplishments of the speaker. You should look at what they have done in the past to determine their perspective on hot button issues and place their comments into context.
Your event may be struggling to find a keynote speaker for a topic that is specific or relatively new to the general public. As an event organizer, you should consider using your expertise in the field to provide a keynote speech to educate your audience. Most event organizers shy away from keeping keynote speeches within their ranks because of an apparent conflict of interest. You should consider stepping into the role of speaker if you have a small budget, a difficult topic, or a short amount of time to set up your event.
If you find that you are successful as a keynote speaker during these events, you can consider working part time as a speaker. Most speakers earn little to no money doing speeches, but it can help build recognition for an issue or attention for your business. You can also assist event organizers in a similar predicament as you were while planning events, which can build good will between members of a particular educational or corporate community.
There are several occasions when a keynote speaker is appropriate for an event. One of the most popular instances where a keynote speaker is necessary is graduation. The keynote speech at a graduation typically involves a local celebrity or luminary who attended the university. Universities will also find keynote speakers who aren’t alumni of the school, if they have a specific topic for their graduation to give graduates the best possible footing as they leave school.
Another occasion for a keynote speaker is an academic conference that addresses a specific subcategory of a popular topic. Professors, authors, and others familiar with topics like immigration history or biotechnology are invited as keynote speakers across the country to address their colleagues. Conferences are unique from other events in that there are dozens of speakers and breakout sessions, which means there is the constant threat of overlap. The keynote speaker at a conference typically unites all the disparate elements within the conference.
Keynote speakers are prevalent at corporate events and parties that are meant to reinforce the vision of the company. Corporate planners look for high profile motivational speakers or national speaker bureaus to find people who will put the company’s mission in a new perspective. These speeches are shorter than the other two events mentioned above, because corporate planners try to fit these events within the business day.
The days of getting up on a soap box and speaking with your voice on its own is long gone, and keynote speakers need certain equipment to complete their task. The most important tool for the keynote speaker is a microphone with quality sound levels in order to send the speaker’s voice out to the audience effectively. If you plan on throwing multiple events within your facilities, you should invest in a small number of microphones that are recommended by audio experts.
A microphone will do little for a keynote speaker without the right set of speakers and a good soundboard. While the setup for these tools may seem complex, it is important to learn about audio quality in order to meet your keynote speaker’s expectations. Many speakers available through speaker bureaus have experience in a variety of speaking environments and have a certain threshold of audio quality in order to be comfortable on stage. There are a number of simplistic soundboards and speaker sets that will amplify the qualities of a good microphone.
You should also consider a teleprompter, if you plan on having a larger conference or a series of speakers with regional and national renown. Teleprompters range from simple video screens with streaming video, as used in newsrooms, to clear plastic displays that allow the speaker to look out at the audience while viewing their speech. There are many used audio and technical retailers on the Internet, as well as in your community, where you can find a working teleprompter for cheap.
You should lay out a series of expectations from a keynote speaker in your own mind, as well as in the contract that you provide for the speaker. These expectations can be separate, because you may have a general expectation that cannot reasonably be included within a contract. Contractual obligations for a keynote speaker include the length of the speech, the time in which they must arrive at the event, and any additional work that a speaker is asked to do at an event. You also need to include a flat fee or per diem that you are providing the speaker in plain language to avoid any difficulties following the event.
Your personal expectations and the expectations of your audience will deal more with the applicability of the speech than the specific details laid out in the contract. You should expect a keynote speaker to provide a series of anecdotes, examples, and other details that add something substantial to your event. Graduation speeches should include some humor, an example from the speaker’s own life, and a bit of advice that is unique to the event. You should also speak with fellow organizers of the event to determine their expectations in order to assess the level of success of a keynote speaker.
After a keynote speech is complete, you can begin processing the information laid out before you in the speech. The most common way to process a keynote speech is through informal groups at dinner tables and within small groups without the work of a moderator. Groups of a few conferees can discuss what was successful and unsuccessful within a keynote speech without the pressure of presenting this information before a large group. You can head from group to group and determine if there is a consensus about the performance of your keynote speaker.
If you are looking for a formal way to process keynote speeches, there are a number of tools available to you. You can break conferees into groups at random or by their job title and discipline to discuss the keynote speech. This is a less traditional approach, since the keynote speech is typically the final part of an event before dismissal. You can have members of your organizing team act as moderators and note comments for use in a file of keynote speakers for future conferences. A more efficient way to get input about your keynote speaker is to give each conferee an evaluation sheet that can be handed back to your staff or mailed back at their convenience.