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seminars

“Attendee”? I’m afraid not.

March 14, 2013 By Tim

Have you noticed that it’s common for people talking about events to refer to those who come along as attendees?

The “-ee” suffix means something happens to you. For example, an employee is someone who is employed by another person or organisation. Attendee actually means someone who is attended – perhaps they have servants!

To talk about someone who does the thing, you need “-er” – so employer or attender.

Slight snag: attender sounds awkward and impersonal when you use it. “The conference had two hundred attenders.”

Maybe we’d do better with a different word entirely. You could try delegate, especially if you want to sound a bit posh and official, though it really means someone appointed to represent another person or body, not just someone who turns up.

You know what you could call people who visit your event? Visitors.

Filed Under: You and your message Tagged With: conferences, events, grammar, seminars, usage, writing

Your clear seminar presentation

March 8, 2013 By Tim

Storytelling graphicThis is a bit off my usual track of written material, but it’s still info presentation, and I’ve been at an exhibition event recently so it’s something I’ve been mulling over.

Some presentations – seminars at events, evening talks, etc – leave you feeling satisfied and that the time is well spent, but I’ve been to many in the last few months that didn’t leave me feeling like that at all. So here’s what I think: perhaps you’ll find it helpful.

There are two types of talk. Entertaining ones are particularly suited to celebrities and well-known yarn-spinners, who can attract an audience just to hear them talk about their life and experiences in their special style. Most talks, however, aim at being useful: giving the audience new facts, insights and skills that they can add to their pool to solve problems and make progress in some aspect of their life.

Here comes the completely made up science part

You can think of your interaction with your seminar audience as a push and pull between two factors: satisfaction and annoyance.

[Read more…] about Your clear seminar presentation

Filed Under: You and your message Tagged With: conferences, events, presentations, seminars, speaking

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