COURSE NUMBER: MBA291T.12
COURSE TITLE: Audience-Focused Communication
UNITS OF CREDIT: 1 unit
INSTRUCTOR: Adam Leipzig
E-MAIL ADDRESS: AL@EntertainmentMediaPartners.com
MEETING DAY(S)/TIME:
Session 1: Sat Feb 24
Session 2: Sat March 3
Please note the unorthodox boot camp
format of this course, which meets all day on two Saturdays. You must attend
both sessions in their entirety in order to earn a passing grade.
CLASS FORMAT: In-class and video live presentations, lecture,
case study and role play examples, exercises
REQUIRED READINGS: Readings and video. These will be announced
one month prior to the first class
BASIS FOR FINAL GRADE:
Class participation is of utmost importance. Students who miss either of the
two, full-day sessions will not pass this class. Some of the class
participation will include video presentations. Grades will be based on
following percentages:
Participation and presentation: 55%, comprised as follows:
In-class presentations: 30%
Active listening, discussion and responding to case study/role play situations:
20%
Completion of video and written
assignments: 45%, comprised as follows:
Assignment 1, to be delivered prior to first session: 10%
Assignment 2, to be delivered prior to second session: 15%
Assignment 3, to be delivered two weeks after second session: 20%
CAREER FIELD: This class is ideal for anyone whose success
depends on making their personal communications skills, both live and virtual,
impactful, dynamic and persuasive.
ABSTRACT OF COURSE'S CONTENT AND OBJECTIVES:
In a boot camp, rapid-results format, to give students understanding, practice
and tools for Audience-Focused Communication: the way successful entrepreneurs
and executives communicate concisely, clearly, and passionately so they
understand their audiences, and their audiences understand them.
The Spring, 2018 edition of
Audience-Focused Communication will be in a boot camp format on two consecutive
weekends. Your presentation skills will improve markedly and quickly, plus
you’ll acquire the tools to keep getting better.
Questions from the “pitcher’s mound”:
• Why is the
audience important?
• How does my
audience impact my message?
• My idea is
great – I had all the evidence to back it up – why didn’t they invest in it?
• I’ve pitched
this three times before, I can just use the same pitch, right?
• Wow, I’m
embarrassed, why didn’t they tell me they were looking for that?
“Know your audience” is an admonition as relevant for board
rooms and VC pitch sessions as it is for the consumer marketplace. A retail
business that does not know or seek to serve its customers—its audience—will
not succeed. Similarly, entrepreneurs and executives, seeking to pitch an idea,
get funding, or motive a team, must have a clear and specific understanding of
their audience in order to achieve success.
However, just because you think you know your audience doesn’t
mean you do know them. Many internal corporate presentations have gone down in
flames because the presenter was unaware of the hidden agendas and subtle signs
from decision-makers. This class will provide the grounding in practice, and
tangible knowledge and skills to answer the fundamental question: How do I sell
THIS idea to THIS audience? What are the questions and expectations I should
expect from my audience—or any audience?
At times it appears easy to know your audience, as in cases
where you are already part of the same work group. At other times, it may seem
hard to you know audience, as, for example, when you walk into a VC pitch
session and face a room of strangers. In all cases, however, there are common
areas of interest all audiences have, which will allow you to present
effectively and persuasively.
In order to address the driving questions of this course (like
those questions above) students will develop the tools to discern their
audience’s needs, even if they are meeting their audience for the first time,
and how to speak in a language that resonates with their audience. In addition,
students will gain practical, in-the-room experience by making presentations
directed to the specific audiences they will inevitably face in the
marketplace, and will learn techniques for presenting virtually (on video) as
is required in so many distributed work groups.
Students will hone audience-focused communication strategies
through practice with the two basic types of presentations—those where you know
your audience in advance, and what their expectations are, and those where you
don’t. The latter generally takes place in a work environment, in which you
have been for some time and know your colleagues. The former may take place
when seeking investment or strategic alliances. This class will prepare you to
succeed at both types of presentation.
Course Objectives
At the conclusion of this course, students will be better able
to:
• Identify and
present from their strengths and comfort-zones
• Utilize
techniques to understand and address their audience’s overt and hidden agendas
• Determine
what is pertinent in their presentations, and what should be left out for a given
audience
• Present
information tailored to a specific audience’s way of understanding, and in so
doing, answer the audience’s unspoken or implicit questions
• Demonstrate a
level of mastery of their presentation skills by exuding confidence, presence,
and influence through strategic, audience-focused communication
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH:
Adam Leipzig is Special Creative Adviser to CreativeFuture,
a national non-profit that advocates for the creative community nationwide, and
CEO of Entertainment Media Partners, which provides informed guidance, dealmaking intelligence and relevant connections for
prestige media companies and creative entrepreneurs needing access to Hollywood
expertise, the US marketplace and audiences worldwide in order to maximize the
value and visibility of their entertainment content. In this role, he also
advises a wide range of companies in all areas of their businesses, and
specializes in empowering key executives to excel in communications skills.
Adam is the former president of National Geographic Films and senior vice
president at Disney. Collectively, his films have earned more than $2 billion
on $300 million in production cost. He has been involved as a producer,
distributor or supervising executive on more than 30 films that have disrupted
expectations, including A Plastic Ocean, March of the Penguins, Honey, I Shrunk
the Kids, Dead Poets Society, and Titus. He has a history of working with
artists as they explore new realms of their creativity – including producing or
supervising the first films directed by Jon Turteltaub,
Julie Taymor, Joe Johnston, Craig Leeson, Cherien Dabis and Mary Agnes
Donoghue, and the first plays directed by Robert Altman.
He is the author of Inside Track for Independent Filmmakers: Get Your Movie
Made, Get Your Movie Seen and co-author of Filmmaking in Action for Macmillan
Higher Education, the definitive university textbook on contemporary filmmaking
and premiere all-in-one resource for emerging filmmakers. Adam teaches at UC
Berkeley’s Haas School of Executive Education, sharing entertainment industry
approaches to leaders from a wide range of business sectors, and in the
graduate program at Chapman University’s Dodge College of Film and Media Arts.
Adam has worked with many established directors, including Robert Benton, Lu Chuan, John Curran, Barry Levinson, Dan Petrie Jr., Donald
Petrie, Roger Spottiswoode, Fernando Trueba, Peter Weir and Peter Yates. Actors he has worked with include Ellen
Burstyn, Nicholas Cage, Colin Farrell, Morgan Freeman, Whoopi Goldberg, Tom
Hanks, Daryl Hannah, Ed Harris, Dustin Hoffman, Anthony Hopkins, Nicole Kidman,
Jessica Lange, Queen Latifah, Julianne Moore, Edward
Norton, Brad Pitt, Saoirse Ronan, Forest Whitaker, Robin Williams, Bruce Willis
and Elijah Wood.
Adam is the publisher of Cultural Weekly (www.CulturalWeekly.com) a digital
magazine, and his articles and essays have appeared in the New York Times,
Screen International, Written By, American Theater, Theater Communications and
High Performance magazines. He is working on his next three documentaries.Adam
is the publisher of Cultural Weekly (www.CulturalWeekly.com) a digital
magazine, and his articles and essays have appeared in the New York Times,
Screen International, Written By, American Theater, Theater Communications and
High Performance magazines.