Hey, is someone listening??

Friday is seminar day. Students and outside speakers have an hour long presentation exactly during lunch time! Well, a lot depends on who and how the speaker is and most importantly how he communicates his ideas. During first year of my Pharmacy, at the Indian Pharmaceutical Association cultural evening, there was this well known figure (Mr.A) who was giving a welcome speech. According to that speaker, "A Talk should be like an Evening Gown, long enough to cover the important aspects and short enough to be interesting" It has been what 8 years since I heard that, but I still remember it and that one statement has got etched in my mind, based on which I judge whether the talk is going to interest me or now. Now, as I gain more exposure to speakers from different backgrounds, different countries and different areas of interest, to conclude as to how much I actually take home with me, I refer to that sentence given by Mr.A. Usually, if the person is charismatic and knows what he is talking about,the hour passes by in a jiffy. If the person cracks few jokes and sees humor in science, then thats an added attraction. Few months back, we had this another amazing scientist who apart from being a reputed person, had an amazing sense of humor. His introductory slide said " Germans say-Beer tastes best when served hot, Americans say, beer tastes best when served cold, Asians say, beer tastes best when served Free" [** I might have messed up between hot-cold and americans-germans]So please don't get into the details:p **] Forgive my ignorance as concerns alcohol. Then there was another speaker, who also happens to be quite well known and is a Professor at U Wash, Seattle..started his talk by almost presenting a Travelogue about Seattle. We all were quite amazed to see that he was good in photography and had wonderful pictures of Washington. More than that, since I have fond memories associated with Seattle, I was more attentive towards what he was saying. He had some cool anecdotes regarding Seattle and its rains:) It goes: What do you call two straight days of rain in Seattle? A weekend. What does daylight-saving time mean in Seattle? An extra hour of rain His introduction had some great pictures of Mt.Rainier which, BTW is the most beautiful snow capped mountain that I have seen. He added some trivia associated with Mt. Ranier. So here, he comes up with a joke that goes How to predict weather in Seattle?? If you can see Mt. Rainier, it's going to rain. If not, it already is. Well, the point of my narrating these incidents might not be apparent, but I have had experiences of listening to the the best of speakers and the worst of speakers. You might be the best and a big shot in your field but unless you communicate well and involve the audience, none is going to enjoy listening to what you have to say:) It would be wonderful, if audience are treated as people with ears and not mere chairs, sitting in a big room!