Overcoming presentation anxiety with a 3D printer?
Tags: conference, presentation, anxiety, teleprompter
Published: 2020-05-06 12:34:06

I have spoken on multiple conferences, user groups, tech days, and similar events. I know how to make a good presentation and how to emphasize the key points I want my audience to take away.

So what's the problem with my anxiety?

* The more experience with a specific topic I have, the more I see how many things there are yet to explore (Dunning–Kruger effect?). I fear of getting questions I can't answer. I fear people finding out I don't know everything.
* I expect people to have the same level of knowledge about a specific topic as I do. I understand that my experience might be slightly deeper, but only a bit. I tend to overestimate others and underestimate myself.
* I think what I want to share is already widely known. That I'm not bringing anything new and interesting.

And this always leads to anxiety whenever I am asked to go on stage. The feeling of all the people watching me, trusting me with their time, it's a lot to take in.

Lately, I've been asked to speak at a JS VidCon conference. As many conferences this year went virtual, JS VidCon wanted me to prerecord the session in advance and gave me a week to finalize everything before their crew was available for the recording. You would think that speaking to a webcam would be easier. You would think being in your home environment would help. You would think...

## Read like you talk

But I came up with a brilliant idea. In the past, whenever I was unhappy with my presentations it was mainly because I forgot a thing or two that I wanted to say. Pre-recording the presentation would allow me to prepare a good script and just read it. Yes, but not looking at a camera while doing that would look dull. So I spent a day researching the topic of building a teleprompter. The device that mirrors your speech onto glass in front of the camera so that you can read the text and look into the camera at the same time.

![Alt Text](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/i/y96cf7jhb53u6myufvoc.png)

There are millions of printable 3D parts available online, but a teleprompter for my Logitech C920 webcam. So I had to design it first, print it, and cut plexiglass to desired dimensions.

![Teleprompter model](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/i/z43unglaweac4kfxcm6o.png)

That I did, however, I printed it on my old 3D printer and experienced issues with every single print (article coming!), so I managed to assemble the teleprompter exactly 2 days after my presentation recording date :-)

![Alt Text](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/i/sxf8797eklp2q6q2hs2a.jpg)

Nevertheless, I am now prepared for improving the quality of my offline videos. And it's one of the first meaningful things I ever printed :-)

## How to solve the feeling of anxiety?

But it did not help me with the anxiety. The only thing that helps me every time is actually doing what I fear. Going on stage and talking to people. I learned from my experience that:

* People are very forgiving. If you are nervous, they won't judge you. If you're not a native English speaker, they won't pick on your language.
* The experience among people varies a lot. And people know that about themselves. It's good to start with the basics and reiterate the basic points to make sure you're on the same page with your audience. I welcome this as an attendee very much.
* You can never satisfy every single attendee. Some people will leave during your talk. This always puts me off track and I start feeling as if my presentation is not good enough. But 99.5% of your audience is still there and engaged in what you are saying.
* It's OK if you don't know an answer to a question from the audience. Nobody knows everything. If someone from the audience knows the answer and will come forward, you will get to learn something too.
* If your presentation helps at least one developer, it's a victory.

The feeling of finishing a presentation that people liked is awesome. It's definitely worth every single second spent on preparing and rehearsing the presentation.

Now, if you're interested, the mentioned presentation will be streamed on [JS VidCon](https://jsvidcon.com/events/ondrej-polesny/) on Thursday 7th May at 9:30 PM GMT. I am looking forward to seeing you and appreciate any feedback :-)