Public Speaking
In high school I had to speak at my ex-girlfriend’s graduation party (she was my girlfriend back then though) and I rocked the house. On a couple of other occassions I have spoken in front of small audiences, but coming this August comes my largest speaking gig yet and essentially my most important.
I will be in San Francisco August 17-19 for the Blog Business Summit where I will be speaking on the topic of Building a Blog Network with Corante leader Stowe Boyd.
To say that I am nervous as hell would be laughable. I am downright paranoid. I have the personality of a child and so I always feel like the kid around the adults even though I am approaching a quarter of a century in age. I will be speaking in front of established professionals who hold a lot of weight in many different sectors. I hate boring presentations and I hate embarrassing myself so I usually add humor to when I am speaking.
On TV they tell you to picture everyone in there underwear, but if you look at the speaker’s list I have no desire to see any of these people in their underwear. So I have decided to simply stand on stage and wait till the color of my shirt changes to a darker tone due to the sweat.
I run a company and am partner of another and they both have been making huge strides this year. To take it to the next level I need to get face time with these types of people so speaking is going to be a necessity. At this moment you can see that I am practicing my rambling skills.
In any case I invite everyone to come watch me make a fool of myself.
Good luck!!
By sunshine on July 18, 2005 12:46 pm
Just remember that in all likelihood, you will have more material than time. If something seems like it will take 90 minutes to cover, it will probably take 120. That’s a good thing. It means you’re not reading from a notecard and it means you’re expanding on everything that is important during the course of the speech.
Always prepare more than enough material to cover, but prepare also not to cover it all.
And of course, *never* use PowerPoint or any other slides unless you absolutely need to. Good luck.
By Mike D. on July 18, 2005 12:47 pm
You sound exactly like me, and lately in the company I work for I have been faced suddenly with a lot of client interfacing and discussing IA which is a very new discipline to me. Were I discussing webdev I would have no issue, since I am passionate and really know how to discuss web standards, accessibility, etc. But I like you have the personality of a child, even though I’m nearing 30 and have a 2 year old son, I am never going to be a grown up. I am not a good speaker and get very nervous, however (and the I’ll stop rambling) if you get up there and talk about your topic realize that you really know what you’re talking about, you’re passionate about it, and well you’re the man and that is why they came to listen to you,
Good luck!!!
By Christian on July 18, 2005 12:55 pm
Thanks for the advice Mike.
By Scrivs on July 18, 2005 12:56 pm
I had WAY more material than time. WAY. But it is better that way because it meant that I thought out everything in a pretty detailed way.
Usually questions will come up during the prezo that are about points I plan on talking about “in a few minutes.” Having well mapped out material, I can check the time and usually cover it right then.
Presentation material is all about the speaker, but presentations are all about the audience (and time usually).
I agree with Mike D about the slides too. Though I like to put something up because then usually people wonder why I am standing in front of this huge screen with nothing on it. Usually pictures of me, so they can really admire me even in the back row.
By Matthew Oliphant on July 18, 2005 2:00 pm
Good luck man. I’ve actually got a post in the works on this very subject.
I’ll try and get that up (at To-Done) this week.
By Keith on July 18, 2005 2:15 pm
Ok, if anyone goes, please TRY and grab some video of Scrivs speaking.
I, a: want to see how well Scrivs does, but b: I want to see Scrivs speak. All I have ever seen is like 3 photos of him (while he was bald mind you)
By Bryan on July 18, 2005 3:26 pm
I remember being in a similar situation not to long ago - feeling unquilified to speak to a more experienced audience than myself. It can be rather intimidating. The trick for me was to not allow myself to think about what my audience may be thinking about me. Just focus on what I’m talking about and once I get going I get all wrapped up in that, gain some confidence, and forget about my initial conserns. Only a few years later, and I’m teaching a public speaking class with some students who have been speaking many more years than myself.
By Waylan on July 18, 2005 3:27 pm
Dude! You’re not qualified? What? We invited you . . .
You’ll do fine, just be glad that Zeldman won’t be in the audience, making faces at you. My rule:
Do not look at Zeldman
By DL Byron on July 18, 2005 4:01 pm
I think DL has the right idea. Scrivs, you know what you’re talking about man, you’ll be fine.
By Joe Clay on July 18, 2005 5:38 pm
I can’t help agreeing about the nude idea, would clown suits be more appropriate?
Leave the booze until afterwards and you’ll be just fine
By Adrian on July 18, 2005 8:55 pm
I’ve tried envisioning the audience in their underwear, and it was probably the least helpful thing I could have done since it resulted in me starting to laugh uncontrollably during the middle of a fairly important presentation. Now I usually pick a few friendly looking faces in the audience and stare at them in turn, for a few minutes each, until the presentation is done. It works a lot better, for me at least.
By Sara on July 18, 2005 11:35 pm
Good luck!
My advice is
1) wear a white shirt (it doesn’t show the sweat)
2) don’t hold anything in your hands if you can help it (the shaking becomes more noticable!)
3) don’t worry about the size of the audience - the bigger the audience, the less notice you have to take of them - you just look into the middle distance, not focussing on anyone, and you give the appearance of eye contact with everyone!
Personally, the smaller the audience, the more exposed I feel - the more intimate and personal it becomes. Give me 300 over 30 anytime!
Remember, they are there to judge your content (which will be great) not your delivery. And the better your content, the more comfortable you are with it, the better your delivery will naturally become anyway!
By Richard Leader on July 19, 2005 3:48 am
A great way to practice public speaking is at a local Toastmasters club.
I’m also not very good at public speaking or even speaking with strangers. But having recently joined a Toastmasters club in Germany, I have already learned a lot and lost some of my fears.
You can search for a local club at the Toastmasters international site.
Sorry for the shameless plug…
By Jean-Claude Siegrist on July 19, 2005 5:05 am
You wouldn’t have to picture me in my underwear.
By Colin D. Devroe on July 19, 2005 8:58 am
I can’t wait until the bootleg videos of this talk hit the net.
You’re totally right, though — public speaking is the inevitable next step in your business development. It’s an essential part of networking and reputation-building.
My advice: Be loose and make the audience your buddies. Talk to people beforehand. Then you’ll just be sharing info among friends, which is significantly easier than public speaking, and actually comes across better to the audience.
Besides, this is nothing compared to the Inman acceptance speech.
By James Archer on July 19, 2005 8:28 pm
Some good advice here. You really got me wishing I was there, but I guess the bootleg vids (and inevitable podcast versions) will have to make do when they show up a few days later. ;)
As a dedicated follower of fashion I’m afraid I can’t endorse the white shirt advice - dress to impress, the more dandy the better! You’ll just have to hope it’s not a sunny afternoon and the sweat patches are not too noticeable…
Once you get into the swing of the talk, you’ll probably find it easy to avoid talking yourself into a dead end street; in fact it’s more likely you’ll talk all day and all of the night (or till the end of the day anyway). Just be yourself (Mr Pleasant), don’t get starstruck or you’ll come across like a plastic man, and before you know it you’ll be taking questions before heading off into that waterloo sunset.
:)
By Matthew Pennell on July 20, 2005 3:08 am
I’d say that if there’s any time to get the 9rules swank off to the printers, now’s the time. You could pass around 9rules mugs, hats, mousepads, and win the crowd over. They’d be cheering for you even before you said a word. Seriously though, we’re all hoping you knock’em dead, break a leg and all that. Just look at it this way, you’re the one (with the help of others) that has built 9rules to what it is (and continues to develop into). If anything, you should feel at ease because in the eyes of the older businessmen, you’re the business-minded prodigy, and they’re there to learn from you.
By Nathan Smith on July 20, 2005 7:02 pm
Hey Scrivs - you’ll be jus’ fine! I was in a similar boat to you. I have spoken at evebts before, but generally to people who don’t know as much about the topic as me (the topic being accessibiliy). Speaking at SXSW wasn’t so bad, because it was a panel - safety in numbers. Howerver, @Media 2005 was another thing. I discovered the night before that there would be 360 in the audience. I’d not asked before how many because it would have scared me! Anyway, I was, to use the vernacular ’shitting bricks’, but within a couple of minutes of being there, and despite the people in the audience knowing as much as me (and in some cases, more), I settld down and was able to relax. The weird thing - the more people, the easier it is I found. You are not looking at faces, you are looking at a mass of dots. It would be too much to contemplate them naked. Oh, and I didn’t look at Jeffrey Z either. Because he had left the building at that point :-p Anyway, you’ll be fine!
By Ian Lloyd on July 21, 2005 3:28 am