Should your keynote entertain, educate, or radicalize attendees?
That question has been on my mind since a recent industry event. I had planned to use the time to clear out some emails, but the keynote speaker came highly recommended, and there was a fair amount of hype. Against my better judgment, I decided to invest the hour and see what all the fuss was about.
When it ended, I sat there asking myself: What did I learn?
It was entertaining, sure. There were over 20 f-bombs and a lot of dramatic reactions to screen captures. But halfway through, I quietly opened my laptop and started triaging my inbox. I realized I hadn’t learned anything useful. I wasn’t challenged. I wasn’t moved to take action. I was just… mildly amused.
And this wasn’t an isolated experience. Increasingly, I’ve noticed that many conference keynotes, especially in the marketing industry, are becoming more about theater than thought leadership. Substance is being swapped for spectacle. The more memes, punchlines, and pop-culture references, the better. And if you’ve got a big social following? Even better.
Somewhere along the way, actionable became unfashionable.
What a Keynote *Used* to Be
I’ve always believed the keynote should set the tone for an event. It’s your rallying cry — the “state of the union” for an industry or audience. The best keynotes are anchored in storytelling, but the story isn’t the end goal — it’s the vehicle that delivers insight, sparks introspection, or drives action.
They’re not just entertaining. They’re catalytic.
I think back to some of the most memorable keynotes I’ve seen over the past 20+ years of conferences. I don’t remember all the names. But I remember the messages. And more importantly, I remember what they made me want to do.
Take Avinash Kaushik. I have known Avinash for many years, but first heard him speak at a digital conference in Oslo. He was irreverent, fast-paced, and matter-of-fact in his message, calling out what people were doing wrong. Within the first few minutes, I was emailing my team to request changes to how we were using our data tools. That’s the impact.
Or Scott Stratten. He doesn’t just make you laugh; he makes you rethink your message, your brand, and how you communicate. I first heard him at PubCon on his QR Codes Kill Kittens book tour. He’s funny, yes, but grounded in relevance—many examples of failure and recommendations on how to fix it.
Another standout was Jeffrey Hayzlett, the former CMO of Kodak, who delivered a brutally honest breakdown of how easily great companies miss major transitions. His stories weren’t just war stories; they were warning signs, and they stuck with me.
These are the kinds of keynotes you remember. Not just because of who was speaking, but because of what they said and, most importantly, actions to take.
When Bullet Points Became a Punchline
A few years ago, I delivered a 45-minute session detailing Co-Optimization. The organizer specifically wanted to know how to set the strategy, business benefits, and give tactical insights in action. Yes, there were bullet points. Yes, there were annotated screenshots. Yes, it was dense. But I saw heads nodding, people taking notes, and phones snapping pictures of slides.
Then came the post-lunch keynote. The speaker took the stage and, midway through their presentation, specifically mocked my use of bullet points and detailed slides. They said my talk was “the last of a dying breed” and praised the simplicity of one-word slides and Hollywood moving screen captures.
The audience roared with laughter. I sat there wondering: Should I change? Should I ditch the data and start building decks full of Avengers screen captures?
I almost did.
But then, two years later, at that very same event, A woman approached me and said that my presentation had changed her career trajectory. She’d implemented a number of the tips, kept some slides pinned up at her desk, and, because the slides were so actionable, had shared them with her wider team to get buy-in to this radical process change. Another person echoed that sentiment.
I asked both if they remembered who gave the post-lunch keynote that day. Neither could recall. That told me everything I needed to know.
Entertainment vs. Impact: Are We Measuring the Wrong Things?
Over the past few years, I have been nominated to keynote various events. I was told I wasn’t selected because my style was “too actionable” or “you’re not popular on social media” – we want popular storytellers. Multiple told me they wanted TED-style flow.
That tension came to a head when I was invited to speak in at a CEO and Founder event I was selected as the “audience choice” speaker and asked to present to these senior executives a strategic session on what business leaders should understand about search marketing.
Despite sending it over weeks in advance, upon arrival, the organizers told me to “make it more like a TED Talk.” Fewer tips. More visuals. They told me, “Just talk to the images in the slides.”
Despite being severely jetlagged, I rebuilt the presentation in three hours using photo-driven slides. When I began presenting the next day, someone interrupted me after the fifth slide, asking, “Where’s the presentation we asked for?”
I explained the change mandated by the organizers. They weren’t pleased.
To add to their frustration, the two sessions preceding mine had no real actionable substance; they also presented as requested, pontificating over pictures – one was about regional investment opportunities in digital, featuring 30 photos of sunsets over Mt. Everest. I was later asked to present my original talk, complete with all the bullet points and actionable information, in a separate session, replacing a networking event. It became one of the most attended and most talked-about presentations of the conference.
The Longevity of Substance
Here’s the thing about truly actionable content: it also has a long shelf life.
In just the past few months, I’ve received multiple questions about keynotes I gave years and even decades ago. In one week, two people reached out about a presentation I gave 15 years ago, asking for clarification around my statements on economic value and employee contribution modeling. That prompted me to launch my Epiphany series — a collection of the most enduring insights from those talks that still apply today.
Another recent email referenced a keynote I gave at Pubcon, where I spoke about the coming wave of AI-driven search and how companies would need to evolve their web strategies. Those predictions are now front-page reality. That keynote has sparked a new series of articles I’m writing on the need for total web effectiveness in an AI-first world.
And just last week, someone from India emailed me about a talk I gave in 2002 on the topic of findability—specifically, my framework around understanding the purchase decision tree and building content chains that reflect user intent. I described how companies should create a sequence of connected product information that not only serves current needs but also anticipates future ones, essentially by leveraging intent connectors to create a chain of answers that anticipates and guides users deeper into their answer journey, thereby creating a more cohesive and intelligent brand experience.
What was interesting about that keynote was that I had never planned to be a keynote speaker. The American who was engaged to do it did not realize he needed a visa for India and was stuck in Hong Kong. One of the organizers saw part of my workshop on Enterprise SEO and asked me if I could adapt key sections of it into an afternoon keynote for senior marketing leaders. I did, and it was well received, and I ended up with more than a dozen new projects for GSI’s consumer interest models.
That’s the real power of a keynote with substance: it plants seeds that grow.
The Style I Stand By
While TED-style talks often aim to inspire through a single elegant idea wrapped in a personal story, my presentation approach is different. I don’t want people to feel good during the session — I want them to do something different after it.
I motivate through real examples of where things went wrong — costly mistakes, missed opportunities, avoidable failures — and then break down the specific steps that could have prevented them. It’s not just storytelling for effect; it’s storytelling with utility. I provide audiences with clear takeaways they can revisit — not just a string of clever words floating over a scenic sunset, but frameworks, decisions, and slides that they can print, share, and act on.
Inspiration is important, but execution is what creates change, and my talks are designed to bridge that gap.
I’ve seen this firsthand with one of my most requested sessions: Missed Opportunities in International SEO. Despite what a few said was “too dense,” or “overly critical of mistakes,” I’ve won the speaker medallion multiple times with updated variations of it. Why? Because people didn’t just enjoy the session, they applied it. They fixed things. They got results.
Final Thought: What Should a Keynote Really Do?
So, should a keynote entertain, educate, or radicalize attendees?
Ideally, it does all three, but not in equal measure, and not for applause alone. For me, the true measure of a keynote is what happens after the room clears. Will the message be remembered? Will it motivate and inspire attendees to think in a different way?
Will it be findable, actionable, and inspirational long after the event, when someone is facing a challenge, planning a strategy, or coaching a team?
That’s the bar I set for every talk I give. Because if it doesn’t move someone to do something, whether it’s change direction, fix a problem, or finally take action, then it wasn’t a keynote. It was just noise.
And that’s never been the goal.
