Who are these people? What do you know about them? What do they know about you or your subject? Before you go any further in your preparation, ask a few simple questions about the people in your audience. Once you know more about them, you can figure out how to motivate them to listen. These categories of information might prove useful as you prepare your remarks.

Age. How old are your audience members? Will they be familiar with the concepts you plan to speak about? What's their vocabulary range? What sort of life experiences have they had? Remember, if you're speaking to a group of 20-yearolds, you should know that they were born at the turn of the century during the latter years of the Clinton Administration. They have no direct memory of Hubble Space Telescope being launched, the Persian Gulf War began before they were born and the Internet has been available for use their entire lives. Make certain your references to events and ideas are both known to them and relevant to their concerns. Similarly, an older audience might have been around for certain events, but references to WhatsApp, freeware cross-platform messaging or social video livestream on Snapchat may well be lost on them.

Education. Knowing the age of the audience will tell you something about how much education they have had, but perhaps not as much as you would like to know. Presentation content, including central themes and vocabulary, will certainly be influenced by the level and type of education of your audience.

Personal beliefs. Knowing what this group believes may well be more important than knowing their age or education level. The reason is simple: your beliefs define who you are. Are these folks liberal or conservative? What's their political affiliation? Are they committed to a particular religious or social point of view? Do they have certain biases favoring or opposing such issues as red meat, gluten, singleuse plastic, gun ownership or parallel parking?

Occupation. What do these people do for a living? Are they students? As such, many of them may not work for a living, but might hope to have occupations someday. Are they managers, professionals or colleagues of yours? Knowing how people earn their living will tell you something about their educational background and their daily routines, as well as their motivations and interests.