So not everyone can be a brilliant speaker
like Damian Conway, but you can at least apply yourself
to the standard of not sucking.
Here are some ideas not on how to be a good speaker, but just
how not to suck.
- Turn off your screensaver.
- Do you have
any idea how annoying it is when the overhead flickers
on and off every minute?! It is a really brilliant
way to distract your audience. And it will also distract you
as you have to wake up your laptop every minute.
- Use a large font size.
-
If you are presenting a subject to nerds, then chances are a large
portion of them have sucky eyesight, so just bump the font
size up a couple of points, please.
On the plus, this means you will have less crap on each slide,
therefore making your slides better anyway.
- Look at the audience, not the overhead screen
-
Eye contact is nice, back contact less so. Don't look around at the
screen to work out what you are talking about. Most laptops let you have
it show what is on the screen, so if you must cheat, look at the laptop
screen, not the overhead screen.
- Don't mumble to yourself
- If you realise some problem or something during your presentation, don't
mumble about it to yourself. Just move on -- the audience probably won't notice
it anway.
- Stick to your allotted time
- If you are given a 20 minute speaking slot, speak for no more than 20 minutes.
Otherwise you run the risk of the next speaker hating you for taking up their
time, or the audience hating you because they want to get morning tea.
(Note: You may be able to get away with this if you are a really good speaker,
and enthrall the audience, but not if you are just an ordinary speaker.)
P.S: I'm not saying I'm a good speaker, I'm ordinary at best, but I do
try best not to suck.
