Across the Great Divide: five tips for embracing and engaging diverse audiences
It’s a diverse world, and every workplace is a microcosm of that world – a kaleidoscope of different backgrounds and perspectives, habits and tastes, ages and ethnicities. For event organisers, this diversity presents a challenge: how to engage, how to communicate, how to design experiences that bridge across the divide.
Here are five things to bear in mind as you seek to engage diverse audiences.
1. Focus on what we have in common
‘Cultural humility’ is a concept that rejects trying to play the amateur anthropologist. Regardless of good intentions, by amassing ‘facts’ about other people’s cultures, we risk ending up with little more than a slightly condescending grab-bag of simplified knowledge. In reality, culture is complex, multi-layered, subjective, often contradictory, and to some degree unknowable. While cultural awareness is important, as event organisers it’s perhaps more important to focus on your audience’s humanity, because that’s something we all share. We’re interested, we’re bored, we’re hungry, we have feelings. When thinking about how to engage, don’t try to be an ‘expert’ – be empathic.
2. Check your bias
Conscious, unconscious, implicit – bias is something that we all carry, and the first step towards addressing it is to recognise it. Maybe you default to particular gender pronouns when describing certain types of job (the doctor is he, the nurse is she etc). Maybe you assume that the neurotypical is the ‘right way’ to think, and accidentally exclude half your audience when designing an event programme. Maybe you find yourself choosing one type of person over another when facilitating a Q&A. If you didn’t do these types of things occasionally, you wouldn’t be human. But these things are about you, not your audience, so move it into your awareness and work on it.
3. Mix it up
Event programmes – especially lengthy ones – require as much in-built diversity as the audiences they’re designed for. Mix it up, change the formats and tempo, keep it interesting. A keynote followed by a debate followed by a team-building exercise followed by workshop sessions – as organisers, we all want every moment of every programme to be brilliantly captivating, but the truth is that your audience is comprised of people who are interested by different things, so mixing it up like this can keep engagement levels higher, and sends a strong signal to the audience: if this bit isn’t really your thing, there’ll be something else soon that will be.
4. Accept generational learning styles
Different generations have distinct learning preferences. Baby Boomers grew up in formal, lecture-based learning environments and tend to appreciate instructor-led sessions. Generation X-ers want interactive, hands-on learning, small group discussions and workshops. Millennials, being digital natives, thrive on tech-based learning and gamification. Tailoring your approach to these learning styles can significantly enhance engagement. If your audience spans the generations, go back to Step 3 and mix it up…
5. Tell stories
We’ll keep hammering this one into the ground until we reach Australia – the best way to engage the attention and interest of any audience is to ditch the bullet points and tell a story. There’s no better way to make your content memorable or to show that you really mean it – and if you can show that you care, your audience will care too.
At TFI Lodestar, we believe in the power of communication and connection. That means designing experiences that not only capture attention but also foster meaningful interactions and facilitate learning. By acknowledging and embracing difference and diversity, we try to ensure that every participant walks away feeling valued, energised, and enriched. All signal. No noise.
