Who builds and sets up the presidential lecterns?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I saw an AP article by Zeke Miller and Colleen Long from October 11, 2022 titled Give him a hand: Biden ditching lectern for handheld mics. It mentioned that the type of large, bullet-resistant lectern shown above is known as a Blue Goose, and its smaller brother is a Falcon. An article by Josh King at The Verge on January 25, 2017 titled Trump’s big league microphone described the switch to a single close-in gooseneck microphone replacing the former pair of Shure SM 57s. That article described how the audio and other setups are carried out by a military unit (mostly of non-commissioned officers [NCOs]) known as the White House Communications Agency (WHCA).

 

Another article by Jacqueline Harnes at the U.S. Army on January 26, 2011 describes how the President is Wired for Sound. Still another article by Michael L. Lewis at the NCO Journal on April 21, 2015 titled NCOs Integral to Enabling the President to Communicate Anytime, Anywhere notes that:

 

“Service members at WHCA build every presidential podium, outfit and man every motorcade communications vehicle, operate the president’s TelePrompTer, and transport the necessary equipment wherever it is needed worldwide.”

  

Paul Simon even mentioned the presidential lectern or podium in a verse of his 1973 song, Loves Me Like a Rock:

 

“…. If I was President

And the Congress called my name

I’d say ‘now who do…

Who do you think you’re fooling?’

 

I’ve got the presidential seal

I’m up on the presidential podium

My mama loves me, she loves me

She get down on her knees and hug me

And she loves me like a rock….”

 

There is a good article about using microphones by Brian Young on pages 14 and 15 of the July 2015 Toastmaster magazine titled The Power of Sound. There also is a 5 – 1/2 minute YouTube video titled Toastmasters Tips -The Proper Way to Use a Microphone.

 

An oblique view of a Blue Goose lectern came from here at Wikimedia Commons.

 

 

20 Excellent brief YouTube videos from Patrick Barry on poise, rhythm, optimism, being dynamic, and the unexpected

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In my previous post I discussed Does your speech have ‘legs’? Erik Palmer’s PVLEGS is a checklist for evaluating speaking by public school students. In that acronym P stands for poise, so I next looked for videos on that topic. 

 

Patrick Barry teaches at the University of Michigan Law School. He has a public speaking series with twenty YouTube videos on the five topics of Poise, Rhythm, Optimism, Dynamic, and the Unexpected. They are not linked together in a coherent way, but I searched them out and organized them. (He also has a lot of videos about writing, which I will discuss later).  

 

There are a half-dozen about POISE in speaking from the Good with Words workshop series posted on March 30, 2018. Those total to just over 12 minutes:

 

Poise: build in pauses (2:34)

 

Poise: oxygen should be a part of your presentation (2:48)

 

Poise: you don’t win points for saying the most words (1:09)

 

Poise: interpersonal skills (2:10)

 

Poise: the virtue of clarity (1:09)

 

Poise: charisma (2:20)

 

 

There are seven more on RHYTHM:

 

Rhythm: rhetorical repetition (anaphora and epistrophe)(2:14)

 

Rhythm: that’s slavery (1:41)

 

Rhythm: parallel structure (“safe place. Real support.”)(2:44)

 

Rhythm: structure, specifics, stakes (0:41)

 

Rhythm: the rule of three (4:06)

 

Rhythm: constraints can be freeing (1:20)

 

Rhythm: order out of chaos (1:00)

 

 

There are three on OPTIMISM:

 

Optimism: smile more than you think appropriate (1:55)

 

Optimism: the smile of someone who has something to share(0:54)

 

Optimism: informed hope and entrepreneurs of ideas (2:16)

 

 

There are two on being DYNAMIC:

 

Dynamic: your mouth should not be the only thing that moves(3:23)

 

Dynamic: a bad presentation with good technology is still abad presentation (1:01)

 

 

And finally, there are two on the UNEXPECTED:

 

Unexpected: be surprising in a convincing way (2:28)

 

Unexpected: include a little mischief (1:32)

 

What is a dais, and how should you pronounce that word?

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary says a dais simply is:

“A raised platform (as in a hall or large room)”

The Cambridge Dictionary has a longer definition:

“a raised surface at one end of a meeting room that someone can stand on when speaking to a group”

Dais actually is a ‘walking dead’ noun – it died before 1600 and then was revived after 1800. The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) begins with two different main definitions 1.a and 2.a, and then it continues with three more:

“1. a.A raised table in a hall, at which distinguished persons sat at feasts, etc.; the high table. (Often including the platform on which it was raised: see 2).  Obsolete since 1600.   

 1. b. to begin the dais: to take the chief seat, or preside at a feast: see BEGIN. Also to hold the dais in the same sense. Obsolete.

2. a. The raised platform at one end of a hall for the high table, or for seats of honour, a throne, or the like; often surmounted by a canopy. Obsolete since 1600, until revived c1800 in historical and subsequently in current use. 

2. b. By extension: The platform of a lecture hall; the raised floor on which the pulpit and communion table stand in some places of worship.

2.c. In Freemasonry (1866 quote) the platform or raised floor in the East, on which the presiding officer is seated.

3. In some early examples (chiefly northern) it appears to have the sense ‘seat, bench’; so in Scottish (a) ‘a long board, seat or bench, erected against a wall’, a settle; also ‘a seat on the outer side of a country house or cottage’; (b) a seat or bench, or pew in a church (Jamieson); chamber of dais;

4. transferred (from 2) A raised platform or terrace of any kind; e.g. in the open air.

5. [after modern French – not an English sense.] The canopy over a throne or chair of state.

Under 2.a. the OED gives an example sentence from Geoffrey Chaucer’s 1386 The Merchant’s Tale (with the Middle English spelling):

“And atte fest sittith he and sche With other worthy folk upon the deys.”

As shown above, the Old Senate Chamber in the U.S. Capitol had a dais for the Vice President with an ornate canopy.

How should you pronounce the word dais?

The Cambridge Dictionary gives two different pronunciations – an American one with two syllables (day-iss) and a British one with just one (dace or deys – pronounced to match how Chaucer once had spelled it).

An article by Nancy Keates in The Wall Street Journal on November 23, 2016 titled You’re saying it wrong: design words that will trip you up claimed: 

“Dais (a low platform or stage) is pronounced DAY-is, not DIE-is.”

A brief article at The Grammarist says:

“It is pronounced /dā-əs/ (day-iss) or /ˈdī-əs/ (die-us). Dais is commonly misspelled as dias. Its plural form is daises and is pronounced either (day iss iz) or (die us iz). Side note: Daises is commonly found as a misspelling of daisies (the white flower).”

Presumably a misreading of dais as dias (dyslexic?) gave rise to some pronouncing it as die-us.

Four other books I found in a search at Google Books discuss pronunciation. Page 95 in Santo J. Aurelio’s 2004 book How to Say It and Write It Correctly Now: The Ultimate Reference Book says:

“Dais (DAI-is, DY-is)”

Conversely page 124 in Charles Harrington Elster’s 2006 book The Big Book of Beastly Mispronunciations – The Complete Opinionated Guide claims you should use (DAY-is):

“…never say die.”

But he also begins his entry by noting:

“Burchfield (1996) points out that dais was pronounced in one syllable (rhyming with lace) until the beginning of the 20 th century but in two syllables since then.”

Page 45 of Ross and Kathryn Petras’s 2016 book You’re Saying It Wrong: A Pronunciation Guide to the 150 Most Commonly Mispronounced Words – and Their Tangled Histories of Misuse also says to never say die. But they also note that in American English dais went from one syllable to two. And page 184 of Elster’s 2018 book How to Tell Fate From Destiny: And Other Skillful Word Distinctions repeats that ‘never say die’ in an entry titled lectern, podium, dais, rostrum. It seems to have been styled after an article in a 1985 book he quoted in his 2006 one. That nasty article on page 153 of William and Mary Morris’s Harper Dictionary of Contemporary Usage, 2nd edition (1985) says:  

“Dais / podium / lectern  The three terms involve furniture in a meeting hall, lecture hall, or concert hall, and are frequently confused and misused.

A dais is a raised platform on which a speaker, along with officers of the club or organization, sits or stands.

A podium is a special kind of dais in that it is intended to accommodate only one person, such as an orchestra conductor. The small stand on which a speaker rests his notes is a lectern, not a podium. It would be very unusual for a speaker to ‘grasp the podium’ as one writer reported. The only speaker likely to ‘grasp the podium’ would be one who has fallen flat on his face. The most common error, however, is in the pronunciation of dais. It is pronounced just as it is spelled: DAY-iss. An astonishing number of otherwise educated people say DY-iss, which is incorrect.”

I found it hilarious that they incorrectly claimed a dais just was furniture. The image I show above has one built into the room and covered in wall to wall carpet.

There are times when pronouncing dais as (die-us) is appropriate. Three decades ago in the movie Who Framed Roger Rabbit? there was the following dialogue:  

Eddie Valiant: You mean, you could’ve taken your hand out of that cuff at any time?

Roger Rabbit: No, not at any time, only when it was funny.

A comedian is entitled to say (die-us) when his jokes are not working, since he is ‘dying’ on that platform.

Lecterns in cartoons

In cartoons a lectern usually is a prop notifying us the topic is a speech or lecture. See this Savage Chickens one from 2010 and this Bizarro one from 2013.

Yesterday’s F Minus cartoon had a character proclaiming:

“Now hold on young lady. I just want to talk to you before you go out. Don’t assume it’s going to be a lecture.”

Other times it’s different, like this 1995 Dilbert cartoon where Dogbert goes to heaven. None of the Dilbert cartoons are indexed under the keyword lectern; they all are found under podium.

The drawing of a lectern was adapted from one at the Library of Congress.   

Don’t be an acousmatic speaker!

That’s when you manage to hide completely behind the lectern. Unless you are either George Bush or Hillary Clinton you won’t need to hide to avoid flying shoes. Acousmatic is a fancy jargon term you can use to amaze your friends. Wikipedia says that:

“Acousmatic sound is sound one hears without seeing an originating cause. The word acousmatic, from the French acousmatique, is derived from the Greek word akousmatikoi (ἀκουσματικοί), a term used to refer to probationary pupils of the philosopher Pythagoras who, so that they might better concentrate on his teachings, were required to sit in absolute silence while listening to their teacher deliver his lecture from behind a veil or screen.”

If you hide like that, then your audience can’t see your gestures and you have no eye contact with them. That will make your presentation relatively ineffective.

Last year Brian Kane published a book titled Sound Unseen: Acousmatic Sound in Theory and Practice. Langdon Morrison reviewed it at Music Theory Online. In points [7] and [8] he notes that the Pythagorean veil really may have just been an allegory. Kane states the history for the key myth in a paragraph on page 50 of his book:

“The term ‘acousmatic’ refers to the disciples of Pythagoras who heard the philosopher lecture from behind a screen, curtain, partition, or veil (M1, M2b, M3, M4, M5, M6, M7, M8, M9, M10). The reason they remained on the far side of the veil was to promote a form of concentrated listening (M2a, M8b) or to emphasize the master’s message (M1, M3, M6, M7, M9) undistracted by the visual aspects or physical presence of the speaker (M1, M3, M6, M7, M8, M9). In addition to keeping a vow of silence for five years (M1, M5, M6, M7, M10), this exoteric ritual formed part of an initiation into the Pythagorean school where pupils would then see the master (M1, M5, M6). From the experience of the acousmatics, we derive the adjectival sense of the term, meaning a sound that one hears without seeing or being able to identify the originating source (M2a, M2c, M3, M4, M6, M7, M8a, M8b, M10, M11a). The term was transmitted by Diderot in the Encyclopédie (M1, M5) and in the pages of Larousse (M6, M10). A related term, ‘acousmate’ (M1, M3, M11), was found in the Dictionnaire of the Académie française (M11b), as well as Larousse (M3). Apollinaire, a lover of rare words, used ‘acousmate’ as the title of two short poems (M1, M11b). These poems tell of voices heard in the air (M1, M11b). The writer Jérôme Peignot was the first to employ ‘acousmatic’ as a term for describing musique concrète (M2c, M3). Schaeffer learned about the term from Peignot (M1) and, by attaching it to the phenomenological epoché, developed a concept of acousmatics that formed a significant part of this theory in the Traité (M2d). Modern audio technology preserves the ancient acousmatic tradition of the Pythagorean veil (M10) or its mystical variants (M11). Acousmatic music continues the tradition of musique concrète Pythagoreanism by veiling sounds, through the use of the loudspeaker, of all causal and contextual associations (M2a, M4, M8b). “

The image was created by combining a face and a lectern found at Openclipart.

Lecterns are not foolproof

John C. Maxwell has written a bunch of books including the 2010 Everyone Communicates, Few Connect: What the Most Effective People Do Differently. Watch this 4-minute YouTube video in which he struggles with ~$50 music stands provided as lecterns. Ad copy for similar stands claims:

“Easy, automatic no-knob friction-tilt neck delivers constant tension at any tilt position.”

But, it doesn’t say there will be enough tension to handle a one-pound Bible, and there isn’t. John finally gives up and tries something else (since even healing didn't work). He never gets around to finishing the joke he started to tell. Of course, the guy who complains about getting the bologna sandwiches packs his own lunches.

How many types of lecterns are there?

In a previous post about What are you standing on or behind? I suggested that there were at least four: floor or tabletop, and plain or with a built-in sound system (amplifier and speaker). There might be a lot more.

A plain floor lectern might be flanked by tables that could be used for other stuff like laptop computers or props. Floor lecterns are common in large spaces like auditoriums and ballrooms.

Plain tabletop lecterns are common in smaller spaces like classrooms or boardrooms. The one shown above is unusually clever - it can be flipped over to accommodate either shorter or taller speakers. Most tabletop lecterns are not adjustable, so a shorter speaker would have to stand beside them, or their hand gestures would be invisible.

Most floor lecterns aren’t adjustable either, but some simple ones with telescoping support tubes are.

Lecterns with built-in sound systems are both a blessing and a curse. They are easier to set up than a sound system with separate speaker boxes. You can’t walk directly in front of them while using a microphone without generating feedback.

Most speakers probably won’t need to purchase a personal lectern (perhaps with a built-in podium) from a door-to-door salesman, as shown in this cartoon.



If you do, than the lectern sales pitch might include them promoting other features, like Will It Float? I don’t think you need to consider that unless you speak on cruise ships, or at coastal venues with a risk of tsunamis. Have you ever had a speaker’s briefing including:

“In case of an emergency, your lectern can be used as a flotation device?”

Images of floor and tabletop lecterns came from Wikimedia Commons.

What should we call the stage furniture where we put our notes, laptop computer, and other stuff when we speak?

Should it be termed a multimedia lectern, or a presentation station, or even a projector cart? That may be an important question when communicating with an event organizer about the setup we need.

In North America, what isn’t important is just to distinguish between a podium and a lectern. (You stand on a podium, and supposedly you stand behind or in front of a lectern). Current North American usage does not make that distinction. The Oxford English Dictionary shows lectern in their second definition for podium, and their free online dictionary includes it too. Webster’s started including it way back in 1961, and their 1989 Dictionary of American Usage explained why. Ben Zimmer, whose job includes nitpicking, discussed the topic two years ago in one of his Visual Thesaurus columns about Owning the Podium (and the Lectern). He still suggested making a distinction.  

Late last month Craig Senior posted a nitpicking article about What is a lectern or podium? at the Message Masters Toastmasters web site. On Saturday John Zimmer (no relation to Ben?) blogged about Podium vs. Lectern. (John also is a Toastmaster).

Back in July 2009 I blogged about getting A Visit from the Lectern/Podium Police Patrol. Another old Toastmaster had taken issue with the closing sentence in the last paragraph of a previous post:

“Fear of public speaking is the most significant social fear for residents of the U.S. Fear of speaking up in a meeting or class is a very close second. Both affect about 1 in 5 Americans. Toastmasters, the best way to overcome both of those fears, remains the number one antidote. Don’t be snake bit – tell everyone how they can feel confident and competent behind and, yes, even in front of the podium.”

He claimed that a podium only was something you stand on. In my reply I gave five specific examples with the other use in recent books. I also pointed out that talking about where a word is derived from (etymology) isn’t relevant to its current usage (lexicography).

I think we have to carefully tell event planners how many flat or slanting surfaces we desire, and what heights they should be. Then they can tell us what they have, and we can compromise to get a presentation setup that really works. What do you think?

The multimedia lectern images came from here and here on Wikimedia Commons.

Would you rather be heard, or be able to read your notes?

That’s not a pleasant choice! Please check out the whole room setup before you speak - including both sound and lights.

If the light on that lectern needs to be on for your speech, then check to see it doesn’t generate a buzz that interferes with the microphone. Things might have been fine until when the incandescent lamp burned out, and it got replaced by a compact fluorescent bulb, as was discussed by a 2007 article in EDN magazine.

Images from the History of Medicine showed Margo Heygood speaking at the 1976 NIH Conference on DNA. 

Avoid impending doom when opening your speech

On December 8th Doug Savage posted the fifth of his hilarious and thoughtful Savage Chickens cartoons about public speaking.

What should you do when opening your speech? Be prepared so you don't chicken out. If you’re nervous, then write out the first few sentences on a note card, so you don’t go blank.

What should you avoid when opening your speech? Don’t drink alcohol beforehand. Don’t imagine the audience naked. Don’t grip the lectern like you are driving a bus, or bang your fists on it (like Dwight did in The Office).

Technology by the lectern

David Pogue writes and speaks about computers. He wrote the Missing Manual books about both Windows 7 and Mac OS X Snow Leopard. On May 26th he blogged at the New York Times about Technology or lack thereof at the podium.

David described how audiovisual (A/V) technicians at various venues managed to get the job done, sometimes in surprising ways. He always carries an adapter (dongle) for connecting the video output from his MacBook to the VGA input on a projector.

David pointed out that it’s important to show up early so any A/V problems can be sorted out. He mentioned how he likes to use the Presenter View to see his notes and a preview of the next image. If you’re not familiar with this feature of PowerPoint, read a recent blog post by Adam Vero.

David also mentioned using a printout of the slides and notes at the lectern to get around his MacBook having to be off stage. (I usually print my slides at 9 per page on a handout and keep that summary on the lectern).

Your laptop might wind up on a cardboard box atop a chair or stool, as shown above. When possible I prefer to use my own laptop and remote. The last times I spoke at a university and a junior high school I used my simple remote with their desktop computer and ceiling-mounted projector. 

Looking at words differently using the Google Books Ngram Viewer

Last December Google released a new software tool called the Ngram Viewer. An n-gram is a phrase with one to five words. The viewer lets you look at the relative frequency of a word or phrase over the time period from before 1800 to 2000. Data for the viewer come from a huge sample of five million books from the collection that Google has scanned and digitized. You can read a tutorial here. There’s a longer article about this new topic of culturomics.   

Back in February I blogged about What are you standing on (or behind)? I mentioned the words rostrum, lectern, and podium. A graph for the word rostrum is shown above. Click on it to view a larger version. Frequency of use for rostrum peaked back in 1890, then fluctuated, and has been declining steadily since 1970.

We can see more by comparing the words rostrum, lectern, and podium. Starting in 1980 podium became a more popular term than rostrum. Also, back in 1950 podium became more popular than lectern.

Vacuum tubes were replaced by transistors, and integrated circuits came later. Then why is the word transistors showing up between back in 1900 and 1910? It’s an error where the optical character recognition software just misread the word translators. I had to check in the Google Books database to find that little glitch.

When we compare five words, things get even more interesting. Look at the comparison between different types of engineers, that start at different times but fluctuate similarly.

Also, look at what happens to the names of the Intermountain states.

What are you standing on (or behind)?

In the theater they simply call that elevated platform you stand on the stage. In public speaking a very small one might just be called a soapbox. A larger one might more grandly be called a podium. (As I have discussed previously, in modern usage podium also describes what you stand behind).

Those enamored with history might even refer to a more complicated stage as a rostrum. The Romans had one decorated with six bronze battering ram prows (rostra) from captured warships. Rostrum also is the name of both an Australian association of public speaking clubs, and an American magazine.

In the U.S. Capitol building the House of Representatives has an elegant three-tiered rostrum where the Speaker presides during the session. The lower tiers are occupied by other staff.

Originally a lectern simply was a wooden (or perhaps metal) stand for holding a speaker’s script or notes.

Now there is a more complicated taxonomy of floor or tabletop models, and either plain or with built-in sound systems. Other options include lights, and casters. Some office supply catalogs even call them presentation stations, since they also may have shelves for holding laptop computers.

There are carts for auctioneers that are a stage plus lectern with a battery-powered sound system. I once attended an industrial auction in an aircraft plant. They pushed the auctioneer around all morning. He just kept talking for miles - like the Energizer bunny.

A visit from the Lectern/Podium Police Patrol

When I posted our article from the District 15 newsletter about fear of public speaking on June 23, I was hoping for at least one favorable comment. Instead I got a visitor from the self-appointed Lectern/Podium Police Patrol. His comment took issue with our closing line using the word podium to describe an object you could either stand behind of (or in front of) when you speak. He said that a podium only was something you stand on, and he eventually quoted me the etymology for both podium and lectern.

In my blog reply to his comment I noted that our use of podium in fact was consistent with current use, as shown both in the online Oxford English Dictionary and the Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage (1989). Current use is lexicography. I have looked around further since then. I quickly found five recent books on speaking which also use the word podium the way we did:

In the book on The Art of Lecturing by Parham Aarabi (Cambridge University Press, 2007), on page 72 you will find that he talks about standing behind the podium.

In the book The How of WOW by Tony Carlson (Amacom, 2005), on page 207 he talks about using a half-inch tall speech box to hold your text in place on the podium.

In the book Trust Me by Nick Morgan (Jossey-Bass, 2009), on page 148 he talks about standing behind a podium.

In the book The Complete Presentation Skills Handbook (Kogan Page, 2008) by Suzy Siddons, on page 114 she talks about being trapped behind the podium.

In the book The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Public Speaking (Macmillan, 1999) by Laurie Rozakis, on page 15 she talks about standing behind the podium.

Lexicography is about seeing where you are right now. It is useful because word meanings can and do change over time. Etymology just is about seeing where you have been. Etymology is like driving by only looking through your rear-view mirror. It works well for backing up, but is silly otherwise.

You are not alone: fear of public speaking affects one in five Americans

by Richard Garber, Ph.D., ACB and Michael Kroth, Ph.D., ATM

For people who are trying to improve their speaking skills, fear may be the most important factor influencing the decision to attend that first Toastmasters meeting. Where does fear of public speaking in the U.S. rank compared with fear of other social situations? Does it get the “gold medal” in the “Olympics of Fear?”

Some people still quote a survey of 3000 people from 1973 that was mentioned back in 1977 in the Book of Lists. However, there is a very large, but almost unknown, survey of the public which was published just last year. It is one result from a large ongoing mental health program called the National Comorbidity Survey (NCS). Their first survey of 8,098 people in the U.S. was conducted between 1990 and 1992, and results on social fears were published back in 1998.

About a decade later a second study called the National Comorbidity Survey – Replication (NCS-R) was conducted. This survey of 9,282 people was conducted between 2001 and 2003.

Data were analyzed, and those results on social fears finally were published in January 2008. You can read the entire article by A. M. Ruscio et al. here. Social fears are shown in the following bar chart:

First, 21.2% reported a fear of public speaking/performance, which was larger than any of the other 12 specific categories. Second, 19.5% reported a fear of speaking up in a meeting/class which is a similar question answering situation that Toastmasters will recognize as the impromptu speaking portion of their meeting known as Table Topics. Only 11.5% feared a dating situation, so almost twice as many people feared public speaking as feared going out on a date. The lowest specific category was using a public bathroom, which was feared by just 5.7% of Americans.

Fear of public speaking is the most significant social fear for residents of the U.S. Fear of speaking up in a meeting or class is a very close second. Both affect about 1 in 5 Americans. Toastmasters, the best way to overcome both of those fears, remains the number one antidote. Don’t be snake bit – tell everyone how they can feel confident and competent behind and, yes, even in front of the podium.

Richard Garber, PhD., ACB Is Vice President-Education for Capitol Club Toastmasters in Boise, Idaho.

Michael Kroth, PhD, ATM is an Assistant Professor at University of Idaho in Adult and Organizational Learning. He is the author of Career Development Basics, Transforming Work: The Five Keys to Achieving Trust, Commitment, and Passion in the Workplace, and The Manager as Motivator.

The above article is a revision of the article that appeared yesterday in the Summer 2009 issue of The Pulsebeat, the electronic newsletter for District 15 of Toastmasters International.

Aids to speaking: a 15-minute film from 1979

Have you ever noticed how some people grip a lectern like the steering wheel of a bus? Others imitate Teddy Roosevelt and bully it like an anvil.This oldie from the Centron Corporation has clear descriptions of how to use a lectern, a microphone, and various visual aids. Watch it here on YouTube. Just before the very end watch out when the bearded gentleman returns. He uses the microphone to practice a clarinet fingering!