Governor Kathleen Sebelius (D-Kansas) made the Democratic response to George Bush’s State of the Union Address last night. Sebelius looked professional, smooth, competent, and knowledgeable.

But…

She read from a Teleprompter, and the truth is, it’s darned hard to read form a Teleprompter without putting people to sleep. Why? Because when non=professionals read form a Teleprompter, they tend to speak at the same speed, the same tone, the same volume throughout. The result? Sameness, which means boredom.

I happened to be watching Sebuelius’ speech with people who supported her politics and agenda. But after five minutes, everyone in the room was complaining about how boring and how long the speech was.

If you are going to use a Teleprompter, just realize that it is harder to do than working from notes. It is crucial that you get comfortable not only with the words, but with where you will change your speed, volume, tempo and where you will insert pauses. If you don’t prepare and rehearse these, you will bore your audience to death.

Tags: Kathleen Sebelius, presenting, public speaking, Teleprompter

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 29th, 2008 at 6:39 pm and is filed under Audio/Video Technology, Government, Politics, Presentation Skills Training, Professional Speakers, Public Speaking Skills, Speaking, Speaking to Media, Speech Technology, keynote speaking. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.