
Hack Your Speaking Skills - ziadbc
http://www.acm.org/ubiquity/volume_10/v10i4_yaffe.html
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jmtame
Tips for hacking your speaking skills:

1) Most importantly, practice it out loud. Do it about 20 times and you'll be
comfortable enough to deliver it with only glances at note cards. 90% of being
nervous comes from not knowing what you're going to do or say.

2) Second most important, make it relevant to your audience. Have you ever
tried to carry on a conversation with someone you knew wasn't interested in
what you had to say? It's the only thing that to this day still makes me
nervous. I've given network neutrality speeches to college students in liberal
arts programs, and the thing that works here is heavy use of metaphors. I had
the single most attractive girl from class walk up to me at a bar later that
week and she told me that she told all her friends how serious network
neutrality is. I was baffled.

3) There are actually a set of rules you can follow, giving presentations can
be seen as more of a science now (even the part about making your
presentations entertaining is written in there). Take a class in school, or
two. You really need to learn how to get up in front of large crowds and talk
confidently about something. Don't let fear be your reason not to do it.

~~~
patio11
_the single most attractive girl from class_

Apropos of nothing, I started doing competitive forensics in 8th grade to get
over a speech impediment and generic social anxiety, and continued doing it
through college. It worked like a charm.

I never considered using the same techniques for, e.g., chatting up young
ladies until about this year. Works like a charm. _Effity_ I wish I had
realized that ten years ago. (Some of the techniques, anyhow. The whole play-
to-crush ethos, not so much. Eye contact? Sounding confident of what you are
saying? Intently listening and coming back to things you've both said later in
the conversation for emphasis? They work great.)

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ojbyrne
I'm a big fan of toastmasters (it gets mentioned towards the bottom). First
they get you to deal with nervousness. Then they train you. It's amazingly
painless. All with an organization that very much resembles open-source, UGC,
etc.

~~~
jmtame
The ONE thing I never liked was the corny part where they did joke of the day.
It's not funny when you're there trying to give a joke. It's like asking
someone to tickle you.

Other than that, Toastmasters is really good. Don't need it if your school
gives classes, but it never hurts.

By the way, I can vouch for Owen's speaking abilities =)

~~~
ojbyrne
Owen blushes and is curious of where you saw me. Given the geography, I'm
guessing Reflections/Projections. I was weak then!

Coincidentally I did joke of the day for the first time last week and mostly
concur with your opinion.

Probably the best speaking experience I gained was when I stood up in front of
57 students twice a week for a full semester. With the power of life or death
(aka A-F) comes responsiblity.

~~~
jmtame
Yep, R|P. It was a good talk from what I remember, although they conveniently
make videos of those that you can watch again later.

~~~
ojbyrne
Also I should mention, since it's been part of the whole toastmasters
motivation and stuff, and since everyone here seems to enjoy me talking about
digg, I'm giving a _keynote_ at dpc (Dutch PHP Conference) in June entitled
"Digg: The First Two Years": <http://www.phpconference.nl/>

It should be pretty good, because I'm totally beyond the control of Digg PR.
Though I will try to be fair and balanced about what actually was a great
experience.

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petercooper
Bizarre article. I'm British and in analyzing my speaking recently discovered
I um and ah a lot and have been trying to conquer it. I hear it a lot in
speakers over here too, as much as in American speakers. Not sure about all
this British vs American forming words "on the lips" or "in the throat"
malarkey..

~~~
HeyLaughingBoy
It's a generalization, but he's on to something. I've heard it described as
Americans having "lazy lips." We do tend to slur our words, and we're so used
to it, that it sounds normal.

For example, most Americans leave out the "a" in orange, so it sounds like
we're saying "ornge." Another example would be that I tend to say the word
hospital as "hos-pit-al" which sounds strange to a lot of other Midwesterners
who are used to the "hos-pittle" pronunciation.

But having said that, it seems like stretch to say that it affects the speech
patterns he's talking about.

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omarchowdhury
If you _know_ the content you are going to talk about, and _believe_ in it...
public speaking becomes that much easier.

~~~
jamesbritt
I've given talks on things I thought were of technical interest, but then
realized that my heart was not really in it.

World of difference from when I'm stoked about something.

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tjmc
The experience of teaching improved my public speaking significantly. I think
most people hate public speaking because the initial experiences they have are
for short periods of time when they're nervous and full of adrenaline.

That adrenaline surge burns off pretty fast though. Physiologically you just
can't sustain it and (at worst) within about 15-20 minutes you relax. When you
teach a class that may be several hours or days long, that means you're
relaxed for the vast majority of the time. I think that experience conditioned
me to be more relaxed for public speaking in general.

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compay
"First, put the fingers of one hand on your throat when you speak. If you can
feel your vocal cords vibrating, then you are definitely a throat speaker."

This is utter gibberish. Your vocal cords vibrate when you articulate voiced
consonants and vowels. It doesn't matter what language or dialect you speak,
it's a fundamental element of all human speech.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiced_consonant>

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biohacker42
I've been speaking publicly since I was little kid. And at university my CS
program required exactly one theater class, not any theater class but... you
guessed it, public speaking.

There are a lot of great ways to learn how to be a good public speaker and
everyone should try to improve, however I have never heard of this throat vs
mouth thing.

I am not saying it's not true, I've never tried it. All I am saying is, there
is a plethora of resources on public speaking and this is just one of them. If
it doesn't work for you, don't get discouraged.

Another possible explanation for British vs American speaking might be
cultural.

I am not sure about British school but in a lot of European schools, oral
exams are just as much part of the daily curriculum as pop quizzes are in
American.

Add to that a difference is how positively or negative a culture views "aahs"
and "uhhms", and that can explain a lot.

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TrevorJ
This article seems to boil down to the idea that you need to enunciate
clearly. I find some of the explanations of throat speaking VS. Mouth speaking
to be suspect. The sound originates in the vocal chords and is shaped by the
mouth no matter how you speak.

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siong1987
A really nice read. But, I really have no experience on public speaking at
all. But, I am sure that this is one of the skills that every programmer
needs.

Only programmer who can express his idea properly can be considered as good
programmer.

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sketerpot
The big problem for me had always been speaking anxiety. I was terrified to
get up in front of people and talk. And then, suddenly, I was not. I have no
idea how to induce this change in others, but I assure you that it made a far
bigger improvement in my speaking style than any change in intonation.

If you want to do what the article says, just listen to someone British for a
while and then try reading some words aloud, enunciating carefully. Try to be
as "accentless" as possible, whatever what may mean in your area. This becomes
habit after a little while.

~~~
ojbyrne
It's entirely about experience, and the threshold for each person is
different. And as experience goes, there's always new challenges. You might
not be nervous now, but I bet if you got put in front of a large enough crowd
(think Obama-sized) it would come back. But even then it's about experience,
you learn to make it work for you.

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jgfoot
The article seems to be saying that you can improve your speaking by moving
your lips more. Although a lot of people could stand to speak more slowly,
this advice will really only take you so far. Rehearsing and using hand
gestures freely will take you farther.

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csbartus
we don't even know the meaning of our words, we are just using patterns and
popular memes to express ourselves. first we should reflect on the meaning of
words, then the speaking itself will become poetry.

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Silentio
As for "aahs" and "uhhms," these happen to be Obama's worst verbal tick.

