Public Speaking

[mennenia]

I'm thinking of doing my first blog post on public speaking, and @orta mentioned I could turn it into a series which is something I was considering anyway as the topic is vast and wide.

I still believe sharing issues / teaching concepts you come across in your day to day is one of the best ways of getting better yourself and learning more. One form of doing so is by talking about it. (Another is blogging. Though you can talk about blogging about your day to day 💥 )
Unfortunately many people tend to be scared of doing so. This has an impact much further than just not giving presentations. It can result in not speaking up in meetings, etc.

1) Getting comfortable with public speaking / benefits of doing so

@sarahscott told me that Glossophobia (fear of public speaking) is the number 1 phobia (still trying to track down the exact source though many mention it online also). I think this is a shame :(. If people don't feel like speaking at meetups, that's fine, but if it inhibits people from running meetings, or doing product demos etc, that's a bigger issue for someone's career.

Maybe some tips and tricks here on what it's like to speak in front of a crowd, what you can do to make it feel a bit better, and maybe the rest of the team can share some knowledge too as many of us tend to do this kind of thing.

2) Ways to speak / submitting CfPs / different opportunities for speaking

• Meetups
• In-house at your company (e.g. Artsy's lunch and learn)
• Conferences, and how to submit CfPs
• Lightning talks (I think are great practice! You have to keep it concise, it's short and sweet, so not a lot of strain on the speaker, and a great way to deliver one key message).

3) How to make great presentations

There are different approaches here of course, and @ashfurrow has already shared his.

Some styles:

• Introduction, content, conclusion that references introduction (circular style)
• Continuous story / narrative
• Say what you're going to say/do, say it / do it, say what you just said / did (I think this one is especially important with code and demos)

Personally what I start with is: "What do I want the audience to walk away with"? What is it that is useful to them, what do I want them to remember, what do I think will help them.

I'd like to draw on some examples of talks we've done, great TED talks, and how it's a combination of content, style/slides, and presentation. This TED talk is excellent.

Also, there are many statistics on how much people remember, as part of it is through sound, parts through vision, and so forth. There are times when you want to opt for no slides, key points, images only, or actual bullet points (although still, I would personally avoid them because your audience will end up trying to read the slide rather than listen)

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Would love thoughts and suggestions!

[mennenia]

Also, I've had so many friends who've turned down speaking opportunities because they thought they had nothing useful to say. We all have interesting experiences that are worth sharing! = another item I'd like to address.

[orta]

I think Tumblr does a weekly-ish super low barrier "talk about something for 5 minutes" meeting within the mobile practice https://speakerdeck.com/irace/ios-at-tumblr?slide=5 as a way breaking people in really lightly

FWIW - my first public speaking engagement was a peach kucha, which is why I did the CP version http://blog.cocoapods.org/Cocoa-Kucha/

[mennenia]

Cool! We had small tech talks in the iOS team at SK too. 5min on any topic is a great way of introducing people.

Also, one of my favourite quotes about speaking is: "The audience wants you to succeed". Often we think people will just laugh at us and point fingers, but it's usually the complete opposite.

Will mention a cocoa kucha as another option / place to speak at! Great format.

[ashfurrow]

There's also this, which I quite like: https://www.ted.com/talks/nancy_duarte_the_secret_structure_of_great_talks I'm trying to introduce this back-and-fourth shape in my writing, too.

[alloy]

Especially for first time speakers, speak about stuff you actually know.

If you have intimate experience with something, then you don’t need to be afraid of making any mistakes. You might learn some extra things from others with experience, or there might be those types that have questions that aren’t really questions (you know who you are), but as long as you know that the thing you’re saying actually works in a production app, then people want to hear from you.