Improve Your Public Speaking Skills

I'm not someone who naturally loves to go up on a stage and speak in public - and that's an understatement. One of my main challenges in 2012 was to deliver a talk for TEDx Delft Salon - and to my surprise, nobody ate me alive or ridiculed me.

When recently I came across Jenny Blake's brilliant article with 8 Ways to Practice and Improve your Public Speaking Skills, I found myself nodding along as I read.

In fact, I found so much value in Jenny's article that I revisited her list of 8 ways here, and gave them an academic twist. Here is my academic view on her list:

1. Download a free recording app on your phone. When you practice a presentation, record it. Not only will you get used to the cameras at conferences (sessions often are made available as a webinar or for members of the association that organized the conference). If you listen to your recording, pay special attention to your pauses. You need to understand that the pauses in your sentences give the listener the possibility to digest what he/she just heard.

2. Take three ujayii breaths before starting. Abdominal breathing for stress-reduction: we've discussed this topic previously, and this technique is my single most powerful too for centering before a stressful moment.

3. Make it a challenge for yourself to bring more awareness to your speech in every day interactions. Practice makes perfect - breathe from your abdomen, release the tension in your throat and practice continuously on speaking in a calm, composed way.

4. Give yourself a rating on scale of 1-5 after every class you teach (or training, or meeting you present at). Bonus: write a blog post or diary entry to reflect on how your (conference) presentation went. Also, if a recording is available, watch it in a non-judgmental way to see how you can improve.

5. Pretend you are speaking to a non-native English speaker or a five year old. The five year old might not apply to conferences, but keep in mind that you, and only you are the real expert in your field. Take enough time to introduce your topic, and avoid unnecessary jargon.

6. Channel/observe a speaker or teacher you really respect. At a conference, do not only pay attention to the contents of the speakers, but also to the way they have structured their presentation, how they talk and how they respond to questions.

7. Probably most important: ASK FOR FEEDBACK – often! If possible, have a trial run of a presentation with your supervisor, or for a small group of peer PhD students. They can help you improve before your real gig.

8. Clench and release a muscle several times before going up to speak. Jenny introduced this method to boost adrenaline and stop shaking. Along the same lines: practice powerposes!

How do you improve your public speaking skills? Share you experiences in the comments section!

Performing for TEDx Delft Salon

And so the day has come that I gathered all  my courage and gave it my best shot!

The whole journey started almost 10 months ago, when I got an invitation to come and discuss the possibility for a TEDx Delft Salon talk on concrete. I expected that somewhere along the way I'd be kicked out for not being good enough (imposter alert!), but that never happened and I ended up taking my concrete story to the stage...

To start preparing for the performance, I wanted to wipe out all my previous conference presentations, and go back to the roots of my interest in concrete. I reframed the main question: Why is concrete an interesting and versatile building material?

When I started preparing my TEDx talk, I received great guidelines written by Rob Speekenbrink (TEDx Delft founder) and while initially I wondered if all of that is necessary, I learned along the way how important these bits and pieces of advice are.

Now let me go into detail on some of the points that are entirely different from giving a research lecture at a conference:

1. You're a performer

You're in there as a performer, with an audience that wants to learn from you but also wants to be entertained. Initially, I thought if I'd just talk a bit about concrete, that would do. But then I realized I needed to try and make a more lively story, by adding personal anecdotes and using analogies (I used cake throughout my talk).
Initially, I found this idea terrifying. But then, I thought that, if I could climb the stage of a local theater at the age of 17 with a saxophone and a few poems by Pablo Neruda in my head to give an entire performance, speaking about my material of choice for 15 minutes wouldn't be too hard...

2. Listen and learn

This advice does count for conferences as well - but here I mean it even more literally: what kind of story structure do you like best? How do others use slides as a simple visual support? Our focus here is on the techniques others use to convey their message. I've been watching so many TED(x) talks over the past months to learn from others how to deliver a great talk.

3. Write it out

Usually I improvise on the spot and use my slides as a starting point. For this talk, I was asked to write out my story verbatim. I wrote, and rewrote and wrote the last version 10 days ago. Leaving blanks in the text also helped me to define resting points in the story.

4. Have yourself recorded

Although I've been recorded for conferences, lecturing from a lectern, being out there on a stage feels very different. I was recorded on my 3rd trial, and I hated everything about myself in there: my constant blabbering, my gestures and how I pull up my eyebrows. Being aware of these stress-induced actions helped me to focus on my gestures.

5. It takes time

A minute of public speaking takes an hour of preparation. My 15 minutes of TEDx Delft Salon took 55 hours of preparation, just to give you an idea.

6. Don't forget to enjoy

Right before delivering my talk, I looked at the room and told myself: "Well, all these people have come here because they're interesting in the free lunch and your story. Isn't that really cool?" So instead of holding my breath and trying to get it over with, I tried to enjoy the experience (can't say I really succeeded, but at least I tried to enjoy it)

Powerposing to boost your conference presence

I recently feel very inspired by an article and a TED talk that I came across.

The article gives advice on how you can succeed at conferences as an introvert. As an introvert myself, going to a conference can feel like a daunting task, but I recognize myself very much in Brooke's story.

Similarly, I tend to give myself a virtual kick in the mind when I head out into a crowd of unknown, awfully smart people who might discover a flaw in my work. I tell myself to keep my shoulders low and my chin up. Little did I know that actually altering your posture might have a positive influence on your performance. Therefore, I feel eager to share Amy Cuddy's TED talk. She advices us, not to just "fake it until you make it", but to actually "fake it until you become it".



Do you have a way to push yourself out of your comfort zone during conferences?