Dr Nic's 'How to stop killing people with your public speeches'
Date: 2011-11-16 22:56:59

I recently came across a really cool blog post by Dr Nic titled 'http://drnicwilliams.com/2011/11/11/how-to-stop-killing-people-with-your-public-speeches/[How to stop killing people with your public speeches]' where he talks about the importance of practicing our presentations so that they actually make an impact on our audience.

Towards the end of the post he suggests joining http://www.toastmasters.org/[Toastmasters] as a useful first step for getting used to speaking to a group of people and as an added bonus you get feedback after each speech you give.

When I finished university in 2005 the one thing that I feared above all else was speaking in front of a group of people.

At the time I was an avid reader of http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/07/failing-with-toastmasters/[Steve Pavlina's blog] and in one of his posts he recommended Toastmasters as a way of overcoming the fear.

I attended Toastmasters sessions every fortnight for about 18 months in 2006/2007, getting through 7 of the 10 speeches, before I decided to go off and learn open mic standup comedy, but that's another story.

It's a really safe environment to practice in because it doesn't matter if you make mistakes and the other people are there to help you improve.

Apart from getting comfortable speaking to a group, the main thing I learnt from Toastmasters is that it's much more fun doing a speech if you can see that the audience is engaged.

In order for that to happen that meant that *I needed to write a speech which I found fun to deliver*, an approach which can be applied to any presentation that we give.

In my case this means that there has to be some sort of humour in the talk but I imagine this may be different for other people.

A couple of years ago while I was preparing for a presentation I was going to give to the http://www.markhneedham.com/blog/2009/06/30/f-what-ive-learnt-so-far/[Sydney ALT .NET user group], http://erik.doernenburg.com/[Erik Doernenburg] suggested to me that the talk would be more interesting if I *put a personal spin on it and told it as a story*.

I found that it was actually much more interesting to prepare the talk once I took this approach and it was easier to present since I was framing the talk as being about my experience rather than (implicitly) claiming to be an expert of some sort.

When I started at Toastmasters I used to write out my whole talk word for word but now I tend to have a rough outline in my head which leaves some room to ad lib depending on how it's going.

I now feel really comfortable in front of a group of people so I'd certainly second Dr Nic in recommending Toastmasters as an excellent way of overcoming any fears of public speaking and honing the skill.

== Useful resources

When I was a trainer at http://www.markhneedham.com/blog/category/thoughtworks-university-2/[ThoughtWorks University] presentations http://www.learninggeneralist.com/[Sumeet] recommended the following books which I think are worth reading:

* http://www.amazon.co.uk/Presentation-Secrets-Steve-Jobs-ebook/dp/B002Z8IWMS/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1321481053&sr=1-1[The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs - How to be Insanely Great in Front of Any Audience]
* http://www.amazon.co.uk/Naked-Presenter-Delivering-Presentations-ebook/dp/B004A8ZYZE/ref=tmm_kin_title_0?ie=UTF8&m=A3TVV12T0I6NSM&qid=1321481001&sr=8-1[The Naked Presenter - Delivering Powerful Presentations With or Without Slides]
* http://www.amazon.co.uk/Brain-Rules-Principles-Surviving-ebook/dp/B0041KLCH0/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1321481025&sr=1-1[Brain Rules - 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School]