Sunday, 4 September 2011

15 tips to better public speaking

Content is not king on stage, it's audience engagement...Here's 15 tips on behaviour, visuals &rehearsing:

Behaviour
  1. Make eye contact - look at individuals in the audience one at a time for about 5 seconds each to keep your mind set on talking to individuals.
  2. Lean forward and move around - 'ready position' will encourage you to move around and want  to talk to the audience.
  3. Use gestures and facial expressions - movement catches the eye, the more you move the more your watched.
  4. Vary your voice - your energy and excitement about the subject should be communicated through your voice.
  5. Drop non-words - 'ums' and 'ahs' chop up your message so pause for a few second to gather thoughts.  
  6. Dress for success - you're judged on what you wear, your hair, your jewelry. overdress when in doubt.
Slides & visuals
  1. Light on text / heavy on images - use images to illustrate and support point.
  2. Keep graphs simple - graphs should be 2-dimensional
  3. Use black blank slides - shifts attention back to you after a key point and communicates closure of a section.
  4. Go easy on transitions - no more than 2-3 different transitions and not every slide. Audience should hardley notice transitions as distract.
  5. Follow 10-20-30 rule - about 10 slides, lasting no more than 20 minutes, font size 30 or larger.
  6. Create a handout - if data-heavy, create handout that highlights the key findings so they can take away.
Practice & rehearsals
  1. Practice in front of people - practice first 3-4 times (but don't memorise as you loose meaning), read notes before speech then get tips and practice eye contact.
  2. Record your presentation - video or audio so know how come across: how look at people, whether leaving pauses, how hear voice, using hands, leaning forward. 
  3. Keep rehearsal shorter - on stage you add content, interact with audience, field questions etc so rehearsal will always be about 75% as long.

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