Style and Comfort

I have been speaking in front of others for most of my life. And it has never been a comfortable feeling for me. Oh, sure, there are some days when it is easier than others. Over time I have learned a few tips and tricks that help me get through any talk. But there was a period of time, about seven years, where I did not do much speaking at all. It is only recently that I started speaking in front of groups again as I prepared presentations for user groups and conferences.

So, if you are on the fence about speaking, how do you make it easy for yourself?

Find Your Style

Chances are you have been attending talks of some kind. It could be at a conference, it could be in meetings at work, and it could be podcasts you watch. All of those experiences will make you think your talks have to follow that same format as everyone else. I am here to tell you that the worst possible thing you can do is try to put together a talk that is just like everyone else.

You need to do the exact opposite here. You need to be yourself.

That means finding your own voice, or if you prefer we can call it your own style. You can find lots of self-help references for delivering technical presentations but in the end you want to make sure that it is your voice and style that is coming out and not someone else’s.

If you always try to imitate and copy someone else, you will always find yourself coming up short in comparison, which will lead to a less than desirable result. I would love to be able to work a room like Buck Woody (blog | @buckwoody) but I know that I can never be Buck Woody, so I settle for my own style instead and that helps me get through the talk.

Find Your Comforts

In conjunction with finding your style I have found that it helps if you are talking about a subject that is familiar to you in some way. Speaking well really has a lot to do with comfort. I have seen technical talks where there have been no slides, only ad-hoc demo code to review, that have gone extremely well because the speaker is quite comfortable with the material and is presenting it in his own style. You do not always need fancy slide decks and supporting materials to make people leave thinking they just listened to a wonderful presentation.

When you are comfortable with the material, it can be easier for you to discover your natural style. Having supporting materials definitely helps, of course, but it really does depend on the talk.

For example, the first time I really had to prepare talks on demand was during my senior year in college. It was in a class titled ‘Public Speaking’ and the idea was to work on delivering talks and speeches. I did not start out well but I do recall the turning point in the class for me. It was two talks that I gave, back to back, that hammered home the point about finding style and comfort.

The first talk was on Magic Johnson and his sudden retirement from the NBA due to his contracting the HIV virus. With only a handful of notes and no supporting materials whatsoever I gave a ten minute talk about Magic, the NBA, my love for basketball and the Celtics, and how much I had come to respect a player for a rival team. The professor noted that the speech worked well for me because I was comfortable with the material, it was clear that it was a subject I had passion for, and my words were more than enough to get my point across.

The other talk was about my brother who was currently in the Army in a location near Iraq. He sent me a handful of slides for me to use in my talk and my talk itself would not have been as well presented without the aid of those slides. Seeing scenes from the desert at that time really had a powerful effect. Again, because I was comfortable talking about the material the presentation seemed effortless.

I often hear form people that they are afraid of speaking for one of two reasons. The first is that they are afraid of doing or saying something embarrassing. The second is that they are afraid they will not be able to answer any questions. The second reason is really the same as the first, because they are afraid of looking foolish if they cannot answer every possible question.

All I can tell you is that no one person knows everything and it is perfectly acceptable to not have an answer for a question. You should be able to converse about the subject material, which means you should be able to answer some questions. But trying to prepare yourself for every possible question is most likely not possible. And the more times you present the same talk, the more questions you get asked of you, which means you can work in some new material to help answer those questions during the talk, which leads to fewer questions at the end and more of a general chat or discussion, which should be an easier forum for you to work with.

Find Some Help

Where can you go to practice? If you are nervous about speaking in public then a good first stop might be a local Toastmasters group. If you are nervous about giving technical talks then you should look to present your ideas to coworkers (probably 4-5 friendly people) or a local user group (probably about 30 people that you may or may not already know). And the more times you give talks, the more comfortable you become with the idea of speaking, although the butterflies never fully disappear for most of us.