Use your phone or laptop camera to record yourself practicing.

And critique yourself... your timing, your enunciation, your projection, word choice, etc.

Ultimately, like most things, it's mostly a matter of doing it a bunch. So, do it a bunch.

Two things helped me out greatly with public speaking.

The first was when I was forced to take speech class in college in order to graduate. The biggest thing that helped me was to see fellow students who really stunk at speaking. It gave me greater confidence because I realized I was nowhere near the worst in my class.

The second thing that helped was working retail the majority of my life. Yes, it did make me extremely misanthropic, and it gave me a very low opinion on the general public. But, essentially that was my version of the "picturing them naked" tip. I realized I had nothing to fear from "them." So many people out there, many better educated than me, more successful, and all around better humans than I'll ever be. Yet, I am amazed at the great percentage of them that appear to barely know how to turn a doorknob. There are all the people I see day after day littering 3 feet away from a trashcan, stepping into traffic while they're looking into their phones, or pushing on a locked door to a dark store that has a "closed" sign hanging on it. After awhile, it made me realize I have nothing to be intimidated by the public.

Happy to see the theme here is the same as mine.

I recall nearly throwing up first time I spoke in front of ~20 people in a college class. On subject that I had cursory knowledge of and had "memorized". No, no just NO!

Knowing the topic to the point it's a conversation and/or explanation is the key. Being familiar with and having run through presentation several times is important too, but won't overcome telling a story you don't fully know yourself.

There's been a retreat from monster PowerPoint presentations, thank God, but if you are using an outline keep it brief and for the love do not talk to the screen, talk to the audience and reference the supporting materials without looking at them. You can motion in the general direction of screen, but if you have to read items back and use a laser pointer, you're talking to a mental hospital ward and they don't care anyway. Remember, you've got this all locked in your head and it's just visual support, not a text.

Steve Jobs and Tim Cook both subscribe to the rule of 3s for slides. No more than 3 key concepts in the whole presentation, and no more than three points per slide. Or something like that.

I watched an engineer present to one of my clients last week. He brought a presentation that was ~20 slides and must have had 10-15 lines per slide, some in two columns. He faced the screen the whole time he spoke. Given that I'm over 50 and my patience-bucket is nearing empty, I struggled not to jump up and just take over.

quote:

Originally posted by recoatlift:
Practice, practice, practice. Get in front of a mirror. Know your subject, visualize the audience, anticipate questions, know how to solve problems. Be truthful, don't bullshit anyone if you don't have the answer, make it known you will get an answer, realize all you have is your word.

This. And I would add to know your presentation, not just the subject. There are plenty of people that understand their subject, but can't communicate it. Know the flow and conceptual tie-backs to your presentation. When you practice, also refine the talk. If you find some thing difficult to say, awkward, or you momentarily forget what to say, that is a clue it needs to be re-worked. Viewgraphs and quick visual cues to keep you on schedule, and something to occupy the visual field of the audience, and should be little more.

For presentations that involve technical or complicated details, leave them out of the main talk, but have detailed viewgraphs available at the end of presentation that you can use if some one asks them.

FWIW, I routinely have to give technical talks with strict time requirements. I refine my presentation and practice to the point that I can give it to within 15 seconds of the time limit without looking at the clock. I use my iPhone timer during my presentation, and almost always hit the time limit dead on.

My first presentation as a newly minted PhD was at an international conference in Beijing, China. Due to the differences between Powerpoint versions in the US and China, all my slides showed my equations in what looked like upside-down Chinese characters. This was a disaster, since my slides were mostly equations. Good thing the pretty pictures came through, and I just had to improvise my way through it. Once my talk was done, the fist question I fielded was some guy I had never seen nor heard of stands up and announces that he did all the work and that I stole it. Fortunately for me, there were some senior people in the field that recognized the ambush and jumped to my defense. It doesn't get a lot worse than that.

>Know what your about to talk about
>know your audience

Almost forgot-if you have the luxury of speaking to an audience that has some people in it that you know, give serious thought to planting a question or two to get the discussion going in the Q&A session. That’s not a trick, and if you give legit questions that expand on the topic it’s still part of the presentation, and will lead to others speaking up.

Chongo has got it. Know your material. And just keep doing it. I've done it so much, it doesn't bother me a bit. But I know what i'm going to say very thoroughly. Not as a script, but the substance.

Don't be afraid to cut lose a little. Don't be a stiff.

A group at work was trained by a professional company that trains people for public speaking.
They emphasized, among other things:
1. Record yourself speaking to be sure you avoid filling “empty air” with umms and the like. This was extremely useful.
2. Use notes, but not verbatim text, so it is more natural.
3. As noted above, if you use PowerPoint be sure that the text is large and readable with only a few points. Don’t read the PowerPoint slides to the audience.
4. Tell them what you’re going to say, say it, then tell them what you told them.
5. Your audience will only take away a small fraction of what you said, make sure it’s the message you want them to remember.

The whole thing can seem too mechanical and superficial, but for non-technical presentations it helps a lot. My sister had to start giving presentations for her job, and she had tremendous anxiety about it. She went to the same course (Dexter Communications) and nailed it. Never bothered her again.

Obviously, know your material.

I select a person on each side of the room and one in the front that I look at. I rotate around them as I speak.

I'll have a self depreciating comment early they can laugh at.

No advice - just a funny story:

I hate public speaking when I'm standing up. I can sit at a table with all the world leaders and talk just fine.. Anyway, was a consultant looking for billable hours and they gave me a training job at an Air Force Base (Charleston I think). Me and another person (who was in charge) had to spend a day giving presentations/training. I had a couple of subjects to teach. First presentation I was sweating so heavily that a lady/airman/airwoman ? in the front row actually handed me a paper towel during my talk :-)

After that broke the ice - I did better.
I still get nervous, I guess I just don't do it often enough to get past the nerves...

Avoid using a lectern/podium. Move about, it frees up and your talk becomes more conversational vs lecture.

Also, avoid Powerpoint at all costs!

-Know your topic better than anyone in the audience.

-Speak with and project confidence.

-Don’t care about what anyone in the audience thinks about you or your presentation.

-Although I don’t speak in front of large crowds, my top viewed video is over 167k views. When I do post YouTube videos and I imagine myself talking to someone I don’t know and who knows nothing about the subject.

-I don’t follow a script but I do rehearse what I’m going to say and what I’m going to cover a few times.

Tony.

Question for those of you who present material on a regular basis. How many of you have been called upon out of the blue to stand up and add content to someone else's presentation, or speak to a topic that wasn't covered in a someone else's presentation, for which you do have a working knowledge, but did not prepare to speak on?

I've had this happen to me more times than I can count and have begun to enjoy the challenge. It is however a bit daunting when you have to stand up and figure out on your way to the center of the stage what you're going to say.

quote:

Originally posted by Southflorida-law:
Also, avoid Powerpoint at all costs!

Often, a speakers host will not only require PP but require a review of the presentation in advance to check for accuracy, grammar, style, and offensive material.

I HATE public speaking. Thankfully, I'm so non-PC that I'm never asked to do it twice.

quote:

Don’t read the PowerPoint slides to the audience.

This used to bug the hell out of me at conferences! Someone droning on reading a display I finished reading 25 seconds ago.
I want info and I already know how to read so talk about what needs to be conveyed and move on.

For goodness sake, don't speak too fast! Take your time, speak clearly, and let there be some space between words. Give yourself enough time to think through what you're saying, to avoid inserting "um", "er", etc. A short blank space is preferable to those hesitation sounds (folks just assume you are looking for the perfect way to express your thoughts).

Nothing will help more than just doing it, and often.

flashguy

Use the audience

Ask them questions to progress the presentation

Each question is part of the topic/presentation. You quickly know who’s interested and who doesn’t want to be there. Continue to use those that are there to learn, call out those that don’t with a directed question so they know you paying attention to participation

I weekly do exactly this

Use the room, walk around. Don’t be stoic and inflexible to your speaking area