Day 18
September 20, 2018
Day 18
Public Speaking
One of the qualities of a Software crafter is communication and with that, the ability to speak publicly and present ideas and information
So today I’ve been preparing some powerpoint slides for my Lightning talk (Short talk <15 mins about any topic), this talk will be presented in one of the meeting rooms to anyone who wishes to turn up (It’s also being video-linked to the Bottighofen office) * gulp * .
The fear
I’ve done quite a lot of public speaking in the past but I do not like it! I find when you are up there presenting, it can be so daunting. Whenever you take a pause to think of what to say next, time seems to dilate and a small pause seems like a massive break. And if I loose my place I have a tendency to go blush and go red, but the way I tackle that is to practice beforehand in order to be confident in what I am saying.
Also… Just accept blushing. It’s just how some peoples faces work. The more you think about it, the more red you go, an infinite loop which leads to a stack overflow. The audience does not care if you are red as long as you don’t care.
The prep
It took me quite a long time to decide on a topic. i finally decided on presenting the context of my Master’s project - “The anthropogenic pharmaceutical induced disruption of aquatic lives’s endocrine system”. I chose this topic as in order to produce a good talk you must be confident in what you are presenting and be knowledgable so that the information just rolls off the tongue. As i spent a year on this project, i know it pretty well.
I have written 5 slides with just images, facts, figures and key points on them. This way, they act as prompts for me and the audience rather than everyone (inc. myself) reading off the slides.