
8 Steps Two CS majors Took to Becoming Powerful Speakers - ciscoriordan
http://bases.stanford.edu/2010/04/07/8-steps-two-cs-majors-took-to-becoming-powerful-speakers/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+stanfordbases+%28StanfordBASES%29&utm_content=Google+Reader
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ciscoriordan
Copy and paste job since it's down:

from Business Association of Stanford Entrepreneurial Students (BASES) by
wesleyleung

As two guys who love to code, we have noticed a not-too-exciting stereotype
floating around our fields of study: CS majors are poor speakers who have
traded their interpersonal relationship and communication skills for technical
expertise. This label is unfortunate because on the whole, CS majors truly do
indeed publicly speak worse than those in other fuzzier fields. To break out
of this stereotype and reach our full potentials, we decided yesterday to
participate in some Speaker Training 101 to improve our public speaking
skills, because, to be blunt, CS Majors who speak well do better than CS
majors who don’t speak well.

Here are some useful tips we took away from the training:

1\. Silence is powerful.

It might sound ironic, but the most powerful speakers are those who can employ
pauses in their words. During short bouts of mental hiccups, everyone will
want to fill gaps in their speech with the two most spoken words in the
English language. Yeah, that’s right: “Umm…” or “err…” Avoid these. Be
conscious of your umms and errs. See if you can catch yourself in the act and
replace them with some thoughtful, contemplative silence. You’ll be surprised.

2\. Use your hands.

Using your hands to emphasize key points or to articulate what you need to say
is extremely effective. Don’t let them hang limp at your sides, hiding
uselessly in your pockets, or tucked away behind the podium. You have them for
a reason. Be lively and energetic!

3\. Don’t touch the podium!

People may not think about this at all, but their natural instinct is to grab
whatever is in front of them while they are speaking. On-stage, people will
psychologically want to seek some sort of security. Remember that stand-up
comedian who kept fiddling with his microphone? Or maybe that nervous speaker
who appeared to be humping the podium. Neither took tip #3 into account. Be
confident, poised, and keep your hands off the podium!

4\. Listen to your introducer.

As the main event, everyone will naturally have their attention on you. Show
some courtesy and give your introducer your undivided attention. The audience
will naturally follow you. When the introducer gives you the stage, don’t just
start speaking and talk over him. Ease your way into your speech and set the
pace for your audience. It can be as simple as “Thank you [name] for
introducing me tonight…”

5\. Interact with the audience.

Reality check: who are you speaking to? Your audience. They are here to learn
from you, so it’s best to know your audience and involve them in your speech.
For example, this can be accomplished by doing simple tasks such as asking
questions — “raise your hand if…” Follow tip #5, and you’ll keep the audience
refreshed and engaged.

6\. Pull yourself out of a tailspin.

During the speaker training, I choked up during my improv and forgot the name
of an organization I was supposed to describe. After five seconds of misery,
the name came back to me and I made my recovery by graciously and humorously
accepting the fact I made my mistake. Surprisingly, the audience felt that
this contributed to the power of the speech. Apparently some speakers even
plan out things to fail during their speech so they could similarly pull
themselves out of a tailspin. This tactic is supposed to connect the audience
to the speaker and create this bond because the speaker becomes more human,
down-to-earth, and on the same plane as the audience.

7\. Don’t hold back your energy.

For unknown reasons, many equate speaking with less energy to increased
technical expertise. That actually doesn’t make you look more sophisticated,
that just makes you look like a poor speaker. Release that energy and don’t
hold back! Capture your audience’s attention with all the power you have to
make your speech more effective.

8\. Critique yourself and have others critique you.

This may seem self-explanatory, but when you are practicing your speech, take
turns with others to point out positives and negatives in your speech. When
addressing your own negatives, see if your audience agrees with you.
Surprisingly, audiences may not notice a lot of your mistakes. What feels like
hours of mess-ups on your part are actually unnoticeable seconds for your
audience. Keep running drills immediately afterward to incorporate the
constructive criticism.

Our public speaking is nowhere near perfect, but we recognize it as a valuable
skill to have and hope to improve in it quickly. Try out these small tips, and
you’ll be surprised at the difference it’ll make. Most of the world fears
public speaking more than death. Master these tips and you will absolutely
amaze. It’s the first step to being able to throw an event that will make a
2nd year Stanford GSB student jealous. Ambitious? No problem.

~~~
sjf
That's all good advice, but I don't think it gets to the heart of most
speakers' problem, which is simply fear. Clutching the podium, speaking too
quickly, blanking - these are all side effects of nervousness. I don't think
the solution is as simple as 'stop doing that', controlling unconscious
behaviour under pressure is difficult.

Unfortunately I don't know the secret to great public speaking, but I suspect
no. 8, practice and critique, should actually be top of the list. It is the
only thing I've found which helps.

------
mmorris
If you're interested in becoming a better speaker you should check out a local
chapter of Toast Masters. Despite the name, it's more about speeches than
about toasts.

<http://www.toastmasters.org/>

~~~
dpritchett
I just joined the local chapter at my office in hopes of hedging my technical
skills with a better set of social / presentation skills.

The cost to join was about $60 up front and another $30-40 for each six months
thereafter.

I have enjoyed all three meetings I've attended thus far. Speaking makes me
nervous, so I figure working through it will be good for me.

------
cpg
HN'd?

    
    
       "Error establishing a database connection"
    

How do you say slashdotted for HN? :)

~~~
strooltz
yeah - it's down for me as well. anyone have a mirror??

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swombat
Powerful speakers? Like, 200W each?

Recognised speakers, perhaps? Famous? Effective? I know it's just a quibble,
but it really seems to me that "Powerful" is not the adjective you want here.

That said, I can't read the article, since the site is down, so who knows,
maybe Powerful is a really clever pun that I'm not getting.

