Public speaking and me and you and Lisa

I found out about Lisa Braithwaite's Speak Schmeak blog and this post:
What if your worst public speaking fear comes true? through Business Communication Headline News.

Preparing to share some of it with you, I discovered I have not addressed public speaking on this blog. so it is definitely time to break the ice.

Lisa has allowed me to share her remarks with you in order to provide my added comments. The headings below are Lisa's. The block-quotes are hers also. My thoughts are added after her comments.

Lisa titled her post: What if your worst public speaking fear comes true?

I used to teach public speaking skills to people who would become interpretors in courtrooms and elsewhere. I posed that question to them at the beginning of the course. Someone would always say, I am afraid I will have a heart attack and die.

So I would tell them that very rarely this does happen--to experienced speakers whose time has come. I ask how realistic this fear is: "Not very likely." So we are able to put this aside and move on.

You're afraid of losing your place

Bring notes! Put them to the side so you don't use them as a crutch. If you forget what you were going to say, take a moment to look at the notes and move on.

You are not reading from a typed speech, are you? Use notes only, as Lisa suggests.

Or make a key-word outline of your remarks on a 3x5 card. Keep it in your hand, then you can step away from the podium and speak extemporaneously* without going to far off base. A quick glance at a card in your palm draws no special attention.

I prepare I set of cards and number them in the upper right corner. I can carry them with me around the room, or just pick them up a couple at a time.

You're afraid your computer will freeze up or your PowerPoint will fail

Have a plan B. Have a backup laptop, a backup disk of your presentation, a flip chart, or be prepared to present without technology (this is how we all did it back in the day). Read this interview for an example of how plan B (and almost plan C) was put into action.

It is always wise to plan for how you will manage without computer aid.

I once turned up for a presentation where the hosts had promised a laptop would be there, but they forgot they might need an extension cord. While the host ran off to an office supply store at 7 p.m., I gave my presentation without the technology.

I also collect physical objects that will serve to make my point. I have a small triangular board that I use whenever talking about the communication triad: Audience-Purpose-Message.

I'll post more on this tomorrow...

* Dictionary.com - extemporaneous
...2. previously planned but delivered with the help of few or no notes: extemporaneous lectures.

Plain Language Wizard on blog tour

Here is the Plain Language Wizard, all set for her blog tour.

Well, this is it. Today is the start of my blog tour with an interview by Jennifer N. Sawday.

I'm honored to be invited to such terrific blogs, like Anastasia Pryanikova's Lawsagna, and Terry Kaufman's Your English Success. See the whole list on my itinerary at http://plainlanguage.com/tour

And, if I have not mentioned it, my contest ends July 28. If you haven't got your entry in, now is the time. http://plainlanguagelegalwriting.com/contest

Business Communication

Business Communication Headline News provides news about communication for instructors of business communication. It is a companion to three college texts on business communication.

I have find it very helpful, and at the moment I have ten items sitting in my blog feed waiting for me to have the time to read them carefully. To clean up my feed, I am sharing these items with you. I think you will find this site very interesting.

Business English Grammar Lessons These lessons will be useful to anyone teaching business English. Read the original story here If the above link is broken, view our cached copy instead.

10 Icebreakers for Meetings Divide the meeting participants into groups of four or five people by having them number off. (You do this because people generally begin a meeting by sitting with the people they already know best.) Read the original story here If the above link is broken, view our cached copy instead.

Create Effective Charts with PowerPoint Graphs (called charts in PowerPoint) are an important part of many presentations, especially ones with financial data. In this tip, I include the basics for creating a readable, effective graph. Read the original story here If the above link is broken, view our cached copy instead.

How to Commmunicate about Change Richmond.com One of the perennial issues in many organizations is how to communicate about change. It’s a problem that appears with such regularity that "change communication" (and "change management" for that matter) has become a cliché. Because, after all–let’s say it together–the only constant is change. Read the original story here If the above link is broken, view our [...]

The 8 Intelligence Types: Which Type Are You? Do you think IQ tests provide the best indication of intelligence? You may be surprised to know that some scientists don’t think so. As a matter of fact, one scientist came up with a new theory about intelligence more than twenty years ago. Dr. Howard Gardner of Harvard University proposed that people were much more [...]

Test Yourself: Body Language and Persuasion Facial expressions can be good predictors of what the person you are persuading is thinking, but it requires fairly significant study. Body language and facial expressions when combined offer an even better picture of how your message is being received. Many people believe that they are good interpreters of body language and facial expressions, [...]

Ten Commandments of Blog and Wiki Etiquette Fueled in large part by the usercentric Web 2.0 trend, the Internet has evolved considerably as a communications platform, offering people innovative means for keeping in touch and sharing knowledge instantly with others across the Blogs and wikis, which enable folks to broadcast their thoughts to the Web at large and to collaborate on documents, [...]

Business Writing for Idioms There’s a kind of idiom that can cause problems. This kind of idiom means “the characteristic ways in which a language says things.” Every language on the planet has its own ways of saying certain things; when transferred to other languages, these “ways of saying things” sound downright weird. In English, for instance, we [...]

The Lazy Person’s Guide to Online Competitive Research Discovering who is linking to a site and clicking to read the associated commentary is a great competitive research technique . . . Read the original story here If the above link is broken, view our cached copy instead.

Research from McKinsey Reveals the Importance Organizations Place on Change Communication Research from McKinsey reveals that clear and creative leadership communication around company objectives is a fundamental component for successful organizational change. Read the original story here If the above link is broken, view our cached copy instead.