November 20, 2016
Tiny follow-up to “public speaking tips”
Yesterday, you got a pretty long email from me about public speaking. I don’t want to clog up your inbox with long messages (especially if public speaking is not your thing) so today I’m going to keep it short:
My friend and javascript demigod Remy Sharp (@rem on Twitter) wrote in contribute two more tips:
Two tips I always share with new speakers asking for advice:
- Where you’d find yourself saying “ummm” just hold it in your head instead. The silence serves as a small break, and it’s always longer to you (the speaker) than the audience.
- If you talk allows for questions, always have a question of your own in the bag. This means, when you the speaker ask “does anyone have any questions” and there’s a sea of silence, you wait a good 30 seconds in your head, then say “OK, one question I get quite often is…X”, this way you’re warning the audience up to questions and they (hopefully) feel like their question may not be a silly one (compared to the “one you get often”).
Remy is a veteran of the speaker circuit and even runs the #ffconf javascript conference. So, suffice it to say he knows what he’s talking about and I completely agree with his advice.
Yours,
—J