I’ve attended a lot of keynotes at tradeshows and conferences and unfortunately, most are disappointing. It’s unfortunate because when someone has the spotlight for 45 minutes or an hour, the opportunity is often wasted on Powerpoint slides or they simply make it a long commercial for their company.

There are a handful of times I have been absolutely engaged by a speaker. Steve Wynn, of Wynn Las Vegas, kept about 250 us riveted for about 90 minutes a couple of years ago at the Society of Independent Show Organizer CEO conference. Without a single Powerpoint slide or notes, he walked on stage and talked about how he built his empire. It was fascinating.

But few people have that magic ability to capture the attention of an audience for that long. I think it’s truly a gift.

It doesn’t mean that most speakers are uninteresting - it’s just that they don’t have the speaking skills to convey their thoughts well to a large audience. I’m a big fan of Charlie Rose because in the interview format, he’s able to bring out the interesting points from his interviewees - no matter who they are. Most of the time, there is just something more interesting about a conversation between two or three people than a monologue.

Now, I’m no Charlie Rose, but this year I’ve decided to make our keynotes interviews. My goal is to interview the keynoter as if we were having a frank talk in a coffee shop - with the attendees in the surrounding booths listening in. I’ve been interviewing people for several years through our podcasts and I’m getting pretty good at it.

It means a lot more work for me because of the research and preparation I’ll need to do to make this work, but in the end I think the attendees will have a better keynote experience.