We have a responsibility to listen to you all the way to the end of what you’re saying. And so you should make that as easy as possible for us.
Not I-agree-with-everything-you’re-saying easy or there’s-nothing-challenging-about-your-ideas easy, still less making-easy-appeals-to-my-emotions easy, but interesting easy, engaging easy, you-have-put-your-life-into-this easy.
Put the good stuff at the beginning. Don’t make us sit through minutes of prolegomenon setting up some big reveal; that narrative arc doesn’t work anymore. Get good fast and stay good.
Avoid detours. They’re distracting for us and dangerous for you. There are slightly off-color remarks that way, and many the undisciplined speaker have tripped on them. Stay on target.
Make us care right away.
yep. Don’t bury the lede.
and, unfortunately, that means you have know what the lede is.