Too Much Information (TMI) Loses Your Audience

Too much information (TMI) is real in many areas of our life.

Recently my wife and I visited Bryce Canyon National Park in southern Utah.  It’s a place that we have heard so many good things about that we wanted to go see it ourselves.  We drove into the park and stopped at the first scenic overlook that we heard about called Sunrise Point.  As we walked to the spot, frankly we were underwhelmed because we did not see anything spectacular.  It wasn’t until we got to the top of the overlook that we saw the beauty and were overwhelmed!  We took the picture you see at the top of this post, but it does not do the view real justice.

From there we went to Sunset Point and had another overwhelming view.  Next on the stops was Inspiration Point followed by Bryce Point.  At each stop, we said that we could not believe how beautiful this is.  However, something happened that we did not anticipate before visiting.  It got to the point that we became numb to the beauty at each ensuing stop.  If it is possible, we became so overwhelmed that we began to lose interest.  While we wanted to see all of the park, we found that we had to get away from the views and go for a hike in the woods to be able to regain our interest in the wonderful scenery of the canyon.  We actually had experienced “too much beauty”.

How does this relate to speaking?

As I thought back to this experience, it reminded me of something that we technical presenters do quite often.  When we are asked to speak about our expertise, many times we want our audience to know everything we know.  Our thought is that in order to understand our subject, our audience needs all of the background information that we have acquired over time.  We think that if they know this, then they will really appreciate what we are telling them.

This is a common mistake that many technical presenters make.  We give our audience too much information (TMI) instead of giving them what they want.  I previously wrote about 3 Common Mistakes of Technical Presenters and this is the most common mistake.

How can you eliminate TMI?

So, what do you do to eliminate TMI from our presentations?  My best tip is to learn about your audience before you speak.  When you are asked to present, ask questions to find out about who is attending and why.  The 3 general types of questions to ask are these:

1. How big is your audience? This gives you an idea about the format you can use for your presentation.
2. Who is in your audience? This will tell you their background and perhaps what their level of experience is.
3. Why am I giving this presentation? This will help you determine what the audience expects to hear from you.

For more details on these questions and why to ask them, see my video called 3 Questions – Know Your Audience.

Much like my experience in Bryce Canyon with too much beauty, our audiences can be overwhelmed with too much information.  Remember, our goal is to simplify the complex.  We need to balance simplicity with detail.  If we do this, then our audiences will not be flooded with TMI!