Publicly Speaking

When I arrive at a venue to deliver a talk, I usually find myself rearranging the furniture. I am often met with objections and/or surprise. Yet, the way most rooms are set up are NOT conducive to delivering a good presentation. No matter how good a presenter you are, if the audience can hardly hear you or see you, it's going to be a challenge to connect.

Most rooms are set up all wrong.

Nuff said!

I'd arrived early to hear the previous speaker. I thought it was a good idea to get a feel for the audience, know what they'd heard and generally get 'in the mood'.

Big mistake!

Well, normally, it might not be a mistake. It's sensible advice that most professional speakers give out. It's just that the speaker before me was so BORING that he zapped all my energy. As I observed the audience chatting, playing with their phones or PCs, sleeping and staring into space, I started to get annoyed with them. I felt they were not being respectful to the speaker.

Almost 100 aspiring champions - or otherwise curious - Toastmasters gathered at the PolyU last Saturday to hear Donald Yee.

Donald Yee. This is a man that almost needs no introduction. If you are a TM in HK, you heard about him before you heard him speak. And unlike a lot of what is lauded in HK, Donald doesn't disappoint.

I just delivered a session on designing visual slides for presentations.

Part of my job is to undo some of the participants' previous learning. People learn some funny things. I've heard it all:

- never start a sentence with a preposition
- use lots of animation to gain attention
- pretend your audience is naked

So, at the end of my session, one participant - a very senior manager - told us what she'd learned in regard to slide presentations:

I make it a rule to read everything Seth Godin writes and a lot of what he recommends. Here's a new ebook he's compiled.

Lots of great ideas for speeches. Enjoy.

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We were privileged to have Lance Miller stop by Hong Kong this past Monday. On his way back from a convention in Shenzhen, Lance delivered a workshop entitled 'Find your Voice' to over 100 Toastmasters at Polytechnic University.

One point struck me. Where other speakers talk about 'passion', Lance talks about 'Life Force'. He describes it in this way: