public speaking | The Accidental Communicator

Archive for the ‘public speaking’ Category

Stand Up Straight Young Man! (Public Speaking Tip)

Monday, September 22nd, 2008

Good Posture Helps Breathing And Allows You To Give A Great Speech

So when was the last time that you spent any time thinking about how you breath? I’m going to guess that it was sometime when you couldn’t get air – underwater, someone sitting on your chest, bag over your head, etc. Since you are reading these words, I’m going to guess that somehow you were able to get that next precious gasp of air and that you’ve probably not paid any attention to the whole breathing thing since then. However, maybe it’s time that you did…

We’ve all been in the audience when someone gives a speech for the first time. Generally, it doesn’t go very well. One big reason for the disappointing results is that they are generally quite nervous and end up talking VERY fast as they race to get it over and be allowed to sit down again. As you can probably guess, this is exactly the wrong way to deliver a speech and their breathing has a lot to do with it.

So what’s really going on here? Speakers don’t show up thinking “Hmm, I bet that if I talk really, really fast things will go well for me.” Instead, they are victims of their own bodies. It all starts with feeling nervous, this releases chemicals into your system that makes your heart start to beat faster. Your breath then follows suit by becoming shallow and fast. Because you are nervous, you start to bring oxygen only into the upper part of your lungs. This means that your body starts to react to not having enough oxygen despite your rapid breathing rate! Things start to go downhill after this as far as your muscles, nervous system, brain, and even your voice are concerned.

What’s a speaker to do? Being aware that everyone gets nervous when they are called upon to talk in public is the first step. The next is to consciously take control of your breath. If you spend some time thinking about how you are breathing, then you’ll be able to counteract the negative effects that poor breathing can cause.

How do I control my breathing? There are six steps that you need to think your way through. Your body is automatically doing the same thing; however, you need to take control and make sure that your body is working the way that YOU want it to work. Here’s your proper breathing checklist:

Check your posture – stand up straight!
Relax! (Head, neck, shoulders)
Nose – Yes, Mouth – No. Breath thorough your nose, not your mouth.
Breath deeply – fill your lungs all the way down to the bottom.
Exhale all the way – get all of that used air out of there.
Observe your breath – is it smooth and even, or short and ragged? Change it if needed.

How is your breathing when you give speeches? Have you ever thought about how you breath during a speech? Do you always seem to finish very quickly? What kind of feedback do people give you – does anyone tell you to slow down next time? Leave me a comment and let me know what you are thinking.

Tags: breath, breathing, posture, public speaking, tone, voice
Posted in public speaking | 2 Comments »

A Few Notes About Notes

Sunday, August 31st, 2008

How can you tell when you are going to be sitting though an absolutely terrible speech? There are a lot of ways, but one sure fire sign is when you see the presenter approaching the podium with a big handful of notes that seem to be exploding from whatever he/she has them barely contained in. As the speaker takes the next five minutes to find the start of their notes, everyone in the audience has a chance to sit and squirm because we all know what’s coming next – complete boredom! What’s interesting is that it’s often not the speaker’s fault, but rather the notes that they are using. If the job of every speaker is to connect with their audience, then notes sure seem to be a big brick wall that stands in the way of accomplishing that goal. Why is this?

Why do people who speak using notes have such a hard time connecting with their audience? The answer, it turns out, is actually pretty simple. When you are standing in front of a live audience and every so often you pause to look down at notes, this really screws up your brain. I mean think about it, there you are having this wonderful conversation with your audience when all of a sudden you stop the conversation, look down and start to read. Then you look back up and while your brain is trying to process what you’ve just read, your mouth opens up and tries to jump right back in where you had left off. If you look down frequently, you are almost certain to screw up your speech eventually.

Having said all of this, it may come as somewhat of a surprise to you that I’m going to tell you that I’m actually a big fan of speaker’s notes. Why you ask? I have seem too many speeches where the speaker was half way through and then for some unknown reason just lost it. If the speaker didn’t have notes, then there was this very long, painful, silence in which the speaker completely shut out the audience while he/she desperately tried to remember both where they were and what came next. Ouch! So I fully believe that every speaker should have a nice outline of their speech with them and lay it on the podium as a sort of insurance policy. If everything goes well, then hopefully the speaker will never have to refer to it. However, in case there is a perfect storm, then there is a lifeboat ready and waiting for the speaker.

Dr. Steve Reagles has a couple of suggestions: oral writing and oral practice (don’t laugh). When he talks about oral writing he’s really suggesting that you keep four points in mind:

Keep it simple: make it so that your audience can easily picture what you are talking about.
Tell ‘em What You’re Talking About: make sure that you tell your audience what your point is – don’t make them guess based on the material that you’ve presented.
Make It Memorable: Be sure to lay in rich details and interesting examples so that your audience can remember what you talked about.
Tie It Up!: Make sure that you have ideas that run throughout your entire speech that you can use to tie various sections together and to make a seamless whole.

After you have that taken care of, Dr. Reagles suggests that you practice, practice, practice. He makes the good point that it’s through practice that we are able to lift the words that we write in an outline up and turn them into a verbal performance.

Have you ever lost your way when you were giving a speech? What did you do – were you able to recover? Have you ever seen someone use too many notes? How did they take away from the speaker’s impact? Leave a comment and let me know what you think.

Tags: notes, speaker, public speaking, communication skills

Posted in communication skills, notes, public speaking, speaker | 1 Comment »

Top 9 Bad Habits Of Technical Presenters

Tuesday, August 19th, 2008

Perhaps you were looking for a top 10 list? I’ve spent some time thinking about all of the technical presentations that I’ve given in the past and I was only able to come up with a list of nine really, really bad things that I’ve done over and over again. Let’s take a look at the bad habits that technical presenters make and, as a bonus, we’ll see if we can find ways to stop doing them!

Technical Presenter Bad Habit #1: Reading Your Speech.
I don’t care how technical the material that you are talking about is, you need to connect with your audience during your presentation and you won’t be able to do this if you are tied to your notes, your slides, or even a script. Instead, practice, practice, practice. Once you really know your material, then you’ll be able to deliver it without notes. Steve Jobs over at Apple does this and that’s why he is so good!
Technical Presenter Bad Habit #2: Poor Eye Contact.
They say that the eyes are the windows to the soul. Well, you’ve got to be looking in those windows in order to be able to determine what is going on inside of your audience’s heads. Too many of us will spend an entire presentation looking at something, anything, else besides our audience. You need to consciously make an effort to make eye contact with your audience at least 90% of the time that you are speaking.
Technical Presenter Bad Habit #3: Dressing Badly.
As a speaker, you always want to be the best dressed person in the room. While you are speaking, your clothes will be speaking to the audience also. You want them to be saying that you are both successful and confidant. A good looking speaker gets the respect of the audience even before he/she opens their mouth. If you don’t feel confident selecting clothes, then get a friend or a salesperson to help you make the right decisions.
Technical Presenter Bad Habit #4: Bad Body Language.
While you are talking, your body may be having a conversation with your audience at the same time. If your hands are fumbling with a pen, coin, or a ring; or if you are pacing, swaying or other wise making movements that distract the audience from what you are saying, then you are sabotaging your own presentation. The best way to stop doing this is to practice in front of a mirror or videotape your practice. You just might be surprised at what you see!
Technical Presenter Bad Habit #5: Winging It.
If you feel that you know your material or your audience so well that a rehearsal is not needed, please print out the following words and place them on your desk where you can see them: “YOU’RE WRONG!” The first time that you give a presentation is the worst time that you give it. You just keep getting better each time you run through it. John Chambers, the CEO of Cisco, spends countless hours practicing every part of every presentation. If a big & important guy like him is willing to spend the time, then why wouldn’t you?
Technical Presenter Bad Habit #6: Being Too Stiff.
This bad habit is in a fight with bad habit #4. Although you don’t want your body parts to flap around and distract from what you are saying, you also don’t want to be a statue – this will also distract from what you’re saying. If you assume a frozen position, then that will result in a boring presentation for your audience.
Technical Presenter Bad Habit #7: Shooting Your Audience w/ Bullets.
I’ve got great news for you – chances are that your audience can read! This means that if you spend your presentation reading bullets that are listed on a slide that everyone in the audience can read for themselves, then you will have done everyone a disservice. Remember the slides are there to serve the speaker, not the other way around.
Technical Presenter Bad Habit #8: Going On, And On, And On.
Although you may love to hear yourself speak, studies show that you’ll start to use your audience after about 18 minutes or so. One of the golden rules of presentations is that an audience will never hold it against you if you wrap up early; however, they’ll blame you if you take too long. This all gets back to practicing your presentation before you give it – trim it ruthlessly!
Technical Presenter Bad Habit #9: Being Boring.
Your audience has other things that they could be doing instead of listening to you. You need to do something to grab their attention and make them care about what you are talking about. This means that you need to have a powerful opening that seizes their attention from the get go and a closing that wraps it all up.

There you go – a top 9 list of things that happen all to often when a technical presenter has bad habits. How many of this habits do you have? Have you ever been able to overcome a bad technical presentation bad habit? How did you do it? Leave a comment and let me know what has worked for you.

Tags: public speaking, training, speech, eye contact, body language

Posted in body language, eye contact, public speaking, speech, training | No Comments »

5 Ways To Deliver A Disastrous Presentation

Tuesday, August 5th, 2008

So you can find self-help info on how to deliver better presentations just about anywhere on the web (including this blog!); however, where can you find guidance on how to really deliver a disastrous presentation? Well fear not, that’s what we’ll cover today…

Monica is one of my friends who is a professional speaker by trade. She is very good at what she does which is to teach retail sales folks in the wireless industry how to sell more. She appears to be about nine feet tall when you meet her for the first time, has an enormous amount of blond hair, and speaks with a Texas drawl that makes it almost impossible to try to not picture her wearing a cowboy hat. Naturally I went to her to get answers to my questions about how to give a bad presentation.

As you can well imagine, Monica was quite surprised when I asked her what I needed to know in order to give a bad presentation – “… but why would you EVER want to give a bad presentation. Who do you hate that much that you’d force them to sit through that?…” Once I explained that I was trying a bit of reverse psychology here and that if I understood what made up a bad presentation, then I’d know what to avoid she calmed down just a bit. She is from Texas you know so calm is always a relative thing with her.

If you really want to do a poor job of presenting, please consider this to be a checklist provided by Monica. If you’d like to do a good job of presenting, then don’t do any of these things!

Don’t Rehearse. What me worry? Why bother to practice – you know this stuff inside and out, you’ll just go up there and wing it and the crowd will love you because it will seem more natural and less rehearsed than all the other presenters. Yeah right. Look: actors and musicians practice, practice, practice in order to get good enough to perform. What makes you think that you can get away without rehearsing? No matter how silly you look while practicing, you’ll look much better when you go to do the real thing!
Don’t Tell The Audience Why They Are Sitting In Uncomfortable Chairs. When you take the stage, you have everyone’s attention. When you open your mouth to speak, you will start to lose them. Since you’d really like to keep as much attention as possible, you really should explain why you’re there. Don’t launch into your detailed presentation on how to optimize an Oracle 11g database using only a ball-point pen and a roll of aluminum foil until you connect with the audience by explaining why you’ve come to tell them this information.
Tell Them What You’re Going To Tell Them, Tell Them, And Then Tell Them What You Told Them. I’m not sure if this was ever a good idea; however, it has become a cornerstone of public speaking courses and books. Too bad it’s really bad advise. We live in an age of text messages, Blackberrys, and TIVO time shifters. Nobody has the time or the energy to sit through a presentation where the content is just being summarized and represented three times over. You always want to lead up to your closing – end with a bang not a whimper. If you are summarizing for your audience, then you’ll lose them. Instead tell them that the murder was done by Colonel Mustard in the library with the candlestick.
Use As Many Slides As Possible. No matter how you feel about PowerPoint you have to admit one thing: it’s made creating slides very easy to do. As with most things about PowerPoint, this can be a bad thing. Look, your presentation is all about you and what you have to say, it’s not about the slides. Every new slide that you show to your audience will cause them to take their attention away from you to look at the slide. You will then have to fight them to get their attention back. Slides should complement and enhance what you are saying. Try this: use one slide for every 5 minutes of your presentation.
Use Your Slide Deck As A Speech Outline. We’ve all seen this done: the presenter turns either 90 or 180 degrees from the audience and stares at the slides on the wall during the entire presentation. The audience spends it’s time thinking that they could just read the slides and not have to sit through this entire presentation since the presenter is just reading them to the audience. In a nutshell, this just shows that you didn’t take any time to prepare.

Monica told me that she could go on and on (and I believed her), but that these were the top 5 tips that she would provide to anyone who really wanted to do a bad job delivering a presentation. I’m not sure if she’s ever going to talk to me again, but at least I got the info that I had asked for.

So how many of these little gems have you seen in action? Anyone care to confess to actually doing any of them (I’ve done them all, just not all at the same time). If you did any of them, what made you stop doing it or why haven’t you stopped?

Tags: presentation tips, rehearse, public speaking, purpose, PowerPoint

Posted in PowerPoint, presentation tips, public speaking, purpose, rehearse | 5 Comments »

Arrgh! Isn’t There A Law Against Giving Bad Presentations?

Wednesday, July 30th, 2008

I probably need to apologize in advance for this rant — I’ve finally reached my breaking point.

I somehow got myself trapped in a presentation on changes to my 401k retirement program. I guess that I should start by admitting that I really can’t think of a much more boring topic to talk about in the first place even though I know that I should be really interested because, after all, it is my retirement. However, the person giving the presentation was beyond bad — they were just awful. To make matters worse, the presentation went on for over 1-1/2 hours. Well before the end I was wondering if I could sneak out the back door, but alas, it was not to be.

When I finally stumbled out of this colossal waste of time, I found myself wondering how I could avoid getting trapped in any such presentations in the future. Yes, I did for just a minute dream of a world in which presentation police would show up and arrest anyone who did a poor or careless job of presenting information. I was thinking that the charge would have to be something along the lines of “… intent to do bodily harm.”

Since we don’t live in that world, what do ALL presenters of complex information need to know (we’ll leave motivational speakers out of it for now)? At the end of the day I believe that there are two critical skills that all speakers must have: (1) the ability to understand and use how adults learn when constructing a speech, and (2) the ability to appeal to all types of learning methods during the same presentation.

The days of sitting in school and having a teacher talk at us are over. We get bombarded with way too much information every day. Ultimately, I believe that it’s the presenters responsibility to deliver information in a way that we can understand and remember it. So there you go, there are no presentation police, but if there were would you have an arrest record?

Tags: training, adult learning, public speaking, memory, retention

Posted in adult learning, memory, public speaking, retention, training | No Comments »