Demonstrative Communication
Danny Quevedo
BCOM/275
12-08-2012
Eileen Broyles

Demonstrative Communications Paper
The Unwritten Communication I was very interested in an article called, “Leaders as Storytellers: Finding Waldo,” by Janis Forman of the University of California, Los Angeles. It tells of a Chief Executive Officer of a real estate company, conducting a presentation to investors. In it, he discusses the “Finding Waldo” series of book of where children, who do not yet know how to read, are tasked with looking for Waldo in a crowd of other people and things. He tied this in as a strategy that his company uses to identify undervalued and commercial properties to purchase, develop them and sell at a substantial profit.
To me, this is an excellent unwritten form of communication that actually puts reality into the mix of obtaining investors to bank on the success of this strategy. This is the power of personal presentation skills. Many of us are and can be influenced by someone up on stage, stating fact or rhetoric to an audience with confidence, in order to convince them that they are buying into the pitch, product, or technique. In this example of a demonstrative communication style, it truly does capture an audience with the use of visual aids. The CEO was wise to utilize a real life example that people can relate to. I mean, most of us with children rely on visual aids, such as Waldo, children’s books, educational cartoons or children’s shows to help us provide education to our children as they start to grow and absorb information.
By putting into place a real form of communication that people can relate to, he automatically captures at a large portion of the audience. He has already gained confidence and now is ready to pitch his point successfully. This type of communication involves listening by the audience and he is able to gage the responses back from his audience to ensure he has engagement and the attention of the listeners. However, one who presents must be a good presenter in order to make this happen. The article discusses presenters after the CEO presentation that brought graphs, charts, and financial data in the mix to explain the particulars. What people remembered however, was Waldo. Whether it is real life examples or simply boring data being presented, this demonstrative communication by the CEO proves that a topic one can relate to in real life terms, is the most memorable. The funny thing is, decisions are made based on this type of impression. What if it wasn’t the right decision? This is why, even though a good presenter can capture the audience, the listener has the obligation to take in all facts before an impression or decision is made that can impact a company or person either positively or negatively.
Expressions and Body Language
Being in a professional environment, I am always part of meetings either in person, webinar, or conference calls. One of the biggest impacts is the in person meeting. Whether it be in a group setting or a one on one setting, delivery of your message and how it is received, can impact you either positively or negatively.
I have learned over the years that you can gauge the attention span by a person’s body language, expressions, tone of voice or facial expressions. Naturally, we need to have good engagement and make valid points that are interesting and factual. When we drift away, we can lose that audience’s attention span quite quickly.
If you talk to fast, you can encounter the “what was the middle part?”, expression. In other words, you can lose your audience and leave them behind the information trail, and soon lose their attention all together. This used to be my problem. Although I had great information, it is important to ensure that you are concise, thorough and explain well in order to keep your audience at attention.
This was brought to my attention by my boss a couple of times in the past, that I spoke to fast, while good content was indicated, too quick and too much to absorb by the listeners. I thought this was great coaching, because it was constructive. My boss was really trying to help me be clear and concise, so that I have the respect and confidence in the listeners. This would help me moving forward and to date, my presentation skills and statements said in a meeting environment are much more concise and well thought out that the listeners actually listen. You can gauge this by their body language and expressions during your presentation or meeting. When someone is nodding their heads as to agree with your comments, and their eyes are fully attentive towards you, this is a good thing. When they drift a bit, to do a quick response to a text from their phone, or seem to get glossy eyed, that is an indicator you are losing them.
Bringing real life or common conversation pieces into a meeting prior to getting started, really does help win the attention of the audience. The example in the first part of this paper of the CEO utilizing Waldo was a prime example of gaining the attention through demonstrative communication that is unwritten using visual aids and a common topic that really makes a listener listen. The impact if this can be successful to the presenter, if done correctly, as the CEO did as indicated above.

References
Forman, J. (2007). LEADERS AS STORYTELLERS: FINDING WALDO. Business Communication Quarterly, 70(3), 369-374.