As a designer, I have been asked to speak in front of my company about 3 principles we are trying to follow to create a better product experience.
I am confident that I have captured what we are doing, but my problem is that I tend to get really nervous, and go really fast through a talk — this one happens to be in front of about 500 people…which totally scares me
I wrote down some of the points I want to hit, and I figured I would print it out. That way I can force myself to pause, quickly scan for the point if I need to, and keep going.
Is this a good idea? Do you have any advice? Here are my notes:
Friendliness Slide
Friendliness makes things seem easier
Typographic voice, no calculators
Evolving warm palette, feel at home
Simplicity Slide
Practice, practice, practice. Especially useful if you can do it in front of somebody, but if not, hey, do it in front of your cat. Mentally rehearse it also.
It’s OK to be nervous. Most people are nervous before a speech. Don’t compound the problem by being upset about being nervous.
Be passionate. Get into your topic. Convince yourself it’s the most important thing in the world. Convey this to your audience. Passion hides nervousness.
Keep your slides lean and simple. Nobody goes to an auditorium to read slides. They want to hear you talk. You are the presentation, not the slides.
Illustrate your points with metaphor, example, and humor.
Gesture (in Vincent Bugliosi’s words) “with the energy of a bocce ball player in a Naples piazza”. This conveys passion.
And for God’s sake, face the audience, not the projector screen.
I just suffered through a week of presentations at work from people who flouted all six of these precepts. God, it sucked. The bar in public speaking in most (all?) professions is pretty low. Get excited about your topic and clear it.
I know some people who have taken prescribed anxiety medication for a few days before the presentation. I hear it takes the edge off and is not as necessary for subsequent presentations.
Be prepared. Notes, outline, manuscript, whichever you’re most comfortable with.
A group in front of you is just like a person in front of you. Think of how you would present your info to just a guy sitting at your desk.
Don’t try to imagine them naked or in their undies, that’s just distracting.
If you have to cough and catch your breath right away, do it. The quick breathing will go away and no one will remember if that sounded like nerves or not. If you need to clear your throat later, do it (but turn away from the mic).
Unless this is some sort of Q&A free-for-all, you are in control. Not that guy in the third row. Not the guy you think knows more about the subject. Not the woman with the oddly reflective earrings. YOU.
Go to the toilet a few minutes before. One last thing to worry about.
You might bring a glass of water or something with you. It gives you something to do while you collect your thoughts.
Could you plant someone in the audience to signal you to calm/slow down? I also speed up when I’m nervous…but I can force myself to slow down if I realize it is happening.
Maybe since you’re in a college of your peers (I mean that in the European sense) – you might remind yourself that every single one of your peers goes through this every week if not every day.
Nobody cares! Get the info out there, and care the shit out of that info, and fall back on your training if you get lost.
No decent person cares if someone appears nervous – if anything, it makes he or she more relaxed.
My own two cents? Don’t worry about picking a buddy from the audience to calm you down. Know your shit, know how you’re going to say it (more or less) and have some fun. It’s your day! I wouldn’t advise some of the pills if you don’t know what they do, but go ahead and grab a drink or some of those demon evil benzo kill your life pills (that’s a joke, kid – lot’s of people think that’s a bad thing, but you’ll have to figure it out). Have a few shots, if you want, but maybe better – socialize with some friends beforehand and get some moral support.
A good cover is to make your presentation short and follow with a Q&A session. If that would make it easier for you.
Just talk like you’re trying to explain something to somebody. Not like you’re talking to a full house. Each of those people are individuals and human. And maybe they don’t want to be there either.
And milk the under-dog thing, maybe, and with humor. “Um, I’ve never given a presentation to a large crowd before, so please forgive me if I faint/drop the mike/stutter/piss myself…”
“feel free to stop me if you have a question. PLEASE.”
Practice! Practice in front of a video camera if you can. Many things that feel natural in terms of posture, voice, etc. just look terrible to an audience. For example, point at the camera with your index finger. It looks aggressive as hell!
A trick I was taught to avoid the inevitable "Ummm"s is to make complete pauses. Consciously decide to not make any sounds with your mouth until you have formed your next complete sentence in your head. I was shocked at how much better it sounded when I paused instead of "Ummm"ed.
When you first look out and see the crowd of people staring back at you, a good trick to shake off the nerves is to imagine that you are standing there naked. If that doesn’t help, actually remove all your clothes. Don’t worry, for years on end everyone will talk about how memorable your speech was.
Humor is good. Especially self-deprecating humor. I have a tendency to clutter my speech sometimes, and when I think this is going to happen, I tell people to stop me if I start sounding crazy. The laughs I get in response always make me feel a little better.
Practicing transitions is good too. I find moving between slides to be a little unnerving, because there’s that weird moment when you’re not talking and there’s always that fear you don’t know what’s coming next. That’s why practicing is so important. When you rehearse what you’re going to say, try to anticipate the next slide building segues into your “script”.
If you’re just midly anxious, I wouldn’t take any drugs (except for caffeine. Caffeine always makes me more “presentable.”) You need to learn how to harness that nervous energy and use it to your advantage.
All good suggestions, so I won’t parrot any of them.
I changed jobs and went from expert to trainer without any training background. So, like you, I was extremely nervous. It took a long time to get used to speaking in front of people. In fact, it took 2 or 3 years before I realized that I wasn’t stressing about it at all any more.
And look at it this way…since almost everyone hates public speaking, most of your audience is going to be thinking ‘God, I’m glad it’s not me up there!’
These CANNOT be the suggestions that people are saying “these are great suggestions” to. This person is talking about speaking in front of a group of people, not going into live gun fire with no cover. I absolutely can’t believe someone has asked for advice on something as simple as this and rather than giving them useful help you’re simply saying “drugs”. Jesus…
I’ve had to do a series of talks recently on the topic of living and working with mental health conditions, something that is for me quite easy to talk about but ultimately is quite personal and remains a bit of a taboo subject. My main tips (and I’m keeping this really simple):
Talk slower than you think you need to. Whatever speed you want to talk at, deliberately go slower than it. There is no possible way you will talk too slowly if you’re nervous, but it’s easy to talk to quickly.
Don’t be afraid to pause or refer to your notes, and don’t punctuate these with umms and errs. If you’re illustrating something in the presentation with your hands it’s particularly useful to talk and then pause so people can reflect, gives you time also to breathe before moving on.
Talk to the audience one person at a time. If you see a massive sea of faces it’ll feel hard to do it, but if you just remember it’s a group of individuals and do that by looking at them one at a time it’ll be fine (take about five to ten seconds with each person and move your gaze around the room randomly).
Be okay with the fact that not every person will enjoy your talk, but remember that on the whole people want to hear what you say and want you to succeed. This isn’t school where people are desperate for you to fail so they can start laughing at you - those days are over and are never coming back.
I taught presentation skills at a large company for a couple of years. Most of the advice above is very good. The key to comfort is confidence, and the key to confidence is knowing what the hell you are talking about. So practice, and make sure you understand your material about two levels deeper than what your slides are going to say.
One thing I disagree with (besides medication): Do not attempt to use humor. A lot people suggest this but it usually doesn’t work. If you are really good at it, it can help but almost nobody is good at it. Professional comedians make it look easy, but it’s not. Telling a joke that doesn’t go over will put off balance for the rest of the presentation. I have only told one joke as part of a presentation in many years, and it went over really well because it was an inside joke for this specific audience and they loved it. But I knew my audience really well and I was very comfortable to start with.
By the way, IMHO it’s easier to present to a large group than a small one. A large group is more impersonal; it feels more like you’re talking to a room. Presenting to 5 people is much harder than 500.
