Your message should identify the objective of the presentation. It is from your message that the audience will reconstruct the details of the presentation and, having been led through Bloom’s Taxonomy towards higher order thinking on the topic, they may change their behaviour towards the desired objective. Your message is key to the translation of aim to objective.
A significant problem in presentations as they are currently delivered is that neither the audience nor the presenter understands the reason for the presentation. This is exemplified in the statement, “the aims and objective of this presentation are…’ in the belief that aim and objective are the same. (I have discovered that they are in Spanish!) Whilst the aim of a presenter is to deliver a list of facts, the objective, the change within the behaviour of the audience, cannot be met as it is frequently not identified by either the presenter or the audience.
A list of facts is not enough. The audience needs a purpose in the transaction of a presentation and this is their own and individual purpose, not that of the presenter. Recognising this requirement will allow the presenter to construct an appropriate message. The aim of a presentation is the delivery of information, the objective of the presentation is the desired change based on that information. Your message is the key to conversion of aim into objective.
Your message is determined not solely by the facts of the presentation, but by the specific requirement of the specific audience on the specific day the presentation is delivered. A presentation on the science of fail of presentations will have a different message if it is to be immediately followed by a workshop investigating the implications of that change compared to a polemic lecture delivered to an uninterested hospital Grand Round or the Head of Service considering hiring the presenter to deliver coaching on presentations to their department. The basic facts in each presentation will be the same, but have different messages: science is the reason for changing our presentations; you need to consider if your presentations work in the way that you believe they do; this presenter has expertise in presentations that will revolutionise education. Your message must be designed specifically for a particular audience and your desired objective.
In planning a presentation, write down, explicitly and precisely, the intended message before considering any of the details within the presentation. This will direct the nature, structure and content of the presentation. Ideally, it should be the introduction and the conclusion. Your message is the key to achieving the objective of the presentation.