What has worked well for keynote lectures

As I have given a few keynote lectures over the past years, I wanted to reflect for myself on what has worked quite well with the audience. In general, I think keynote lectures are a different beast from general conference presentations – in the end, you are speaking for a longer amount of time, and you want to reach a broader audience.

So, here is what has worked well for me (and what, I think, has landed well with audiences):

• Think like an educator: To reach a broader audience, I put on my educator hat, rather than my researcher hat. I pull from my toolkit of keeping my students engaged in class for 1,5 hours to keep my audience engaged, and I focus on educating.
• Link to the news: Why is my topic relevant? If there are headline from the news that can relate to my story, I like to work them in.
• Discuss topics broadly: From under my educator hat, I tend to bring a broad view to a topic – either by compiling research from various projects into a global and coherent story, or by having a longer arc of storyline.
• But also give sufficient technical contents: At the same time, if it is a keynote at a technical conference, it is important to have sufficient technical contents. I think this part is typically easier to fulfill for us, as we are more used to wearing our researcher hats.
• Have a clear take home message: Which one concept or sentence do you want people to remember when they go home after the event? I like writing my take home message on a slide (in white letters, with blue background, to be precise), and repeat it throughout my presentation.
• Give broad reflections for the future: I like hearing from people who have reflected deeply on a topic and are able to give their points of view on what the future of the topic or research will or should look like. I’m trying to do so as well in my presentations

Which methods have worked well for you to engage a broad audience for a longer time?