Hook your audience

Organizing Your Presentation

A good opening can captivate your audience from the very beginning.

You're delivering a speech about innovation to a cross-section of managers from your organization. Which of the following opening lines would best capture your listeners' attention at the start of your presentation?

What do Post-it notes and Silly Putty have in common? They're innovations managers originally saw as colossal failures.

Correct choice. These specific, interesting, and well-known examples—as well as the surprising fact revealed about them—will immediately capture your audience's interest.

Today, we're going to talk about creativity and innovation in organizations of all kinds.

Not the best choice. This opening line is too broad to hook your audience's attention.

Any company that hopes to do well in this age of increasing competition needs to be able to innovate.

Not the best choice. Though this opening line hints at the subject of your speech, it uses dry language and therefore won't capture your listeners' attention.

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