I liked the audience research questionnaire section of our assigned reading. At first it seemed a bit silly to me until I reached the conclusion that it was similar to marketing and then it all made sense. It was used to get the opinions of the perspective audience, but I think more importantly it was used to gather the knowledge of them. It is good to tailor your speech to their opinions in some situations, but even if its tailored for their tastes and they are not knowledgeable enough to understand what you are saying might might as well not even give the speech. You as the speaker have to understand what they know. Example is sure most people know of pollution and they know its bad, but do they understand why there is pollution in the first place? Do they understand that their decisions are making the pollution so, do they get what it is doing to the environment, is there a clear connection between action and results for them? Once you have understood their knowledge of the particular situation then you can make a speech that will be comprehended by everyone.
I also thought that the research questionnaire was a little unnecessary. It seemed like too much of a hustle when I'm just trying to express some ideas to a group of people, but the trust is that public speaking is pretty much marketing (just like you said). If you don't know what would appeal to your audience you might as well be wasting your breath. I thought it was interesting what you said about people understanding what pollution is. I agree up to certain point that people that have a basic knowledge on your topic might get a lot more from your speech than other that do not. However, I also believe that is the speakers responsibility to engage the audience even if the audience did not have previous knowledge of the subject.
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