Last week, I was speaking at Krakow .NET Developers Group. Before the presentation I was afraid I wouldn’t complete my talk within given time. My wife commented the situation saying that I’d be stressed and would be talking faster than usual so I’d finish earlier anyway.
Well, while speaking faster would be a poor idea, because audience would hardly understand me and I don’t feel stressed much before public speaking events anyway, she was right about one thing. Most of people are scared of public speaking. People are scarred of public speaking even more than death as Rowan Manahan writes. And yes, being stressed we speak faster and we’re less understandable.
Although I like Rowan’s answers to the most typical fears connected with speaking publicly I’d add one more. Train. Don’t go through slides once or twice. Repeat it until you’re pretty sure that you can do it once more on a level you did it last time in front of the mirror.
My first try for 30-minute presentation usually takes an hour and a half. Yes, three times more than I have. And that’s perfectly OK, unless I want to finish training on that level. I just repeat it until I’m pretty sure I’ll match given time. For the subject I feel very familiar with and I could easily discuss it with friends or my team, it takes usually more than five trials until I’m ready.
Yes, it’s quite a lot of time spent for preparations, but it’s worth investing. You won’t lose your tongue after forgetting a couple of sentences. Unplanned interruption won’t be a problem. You can even throw in a quick joke if it comes to your mind during presentation, although planned ones usually work better. After training you’re just more fluent and it can be seen.
If you happen to speak publicly, take a time and prepare yourself. The whole thing will be easier. And believe me, evaluation results can be very rewarding.
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Pawel,
Excellent, succinct post. Thank you for pointing out the deficiency in my post. I’m an absolute DEMON for assiduous rehearsal and have covered this elsewhere in posts on this topic. I should have referenced this: http://fortifyservices.blogspot.com/2006/08/public-squeaking.html in my recent rant. I’ll amend immediately.
You should also check out anything you can find online about Presentation Aikido by Damian Conway. He recommends a 10:1 ratio of prep to delivery, twice that if the topic is tricky. I have worked with clients who will routinely spend 40+ hours preparing for an AGM, conference call or guidance statement.
Rowan,
Thanks for additional resources. I think numbers you point show something I feel unconsciously. When you’ve written about ratio of preparation to delivery I quickly counted how much time I’d spent for my last show. It took me more than 5 hours just to rehearse the presentation. And I don’t count time spent for preparing ppt. And I can say the subject was familiar for me.
Although I wouldn’t spend whole week for typical presentation – that’s huge overkill in most cases – I can think about audiences which would cause as big effort to present for them.