Public Speaking

In my job, I am often called upon to speak about technology and communication to a wide variety of people. Some are early-adopting technical experts and some are slow moving laggards. Most of the time, the audience I speak to contain equal numbers of these groups, plus everything in between.

Creating presentations that don't put the tech-heads to sleep or fly over everyone else can be challenging, but I think I do a pretty good job. I don't get very nervous in front of an audience and I enjoy the feeling of being on stage.

My problem is the speed of my delivery. Usually, I am an excellent judge of time. In fact, I never wear a watch but have the ability to tell you what time it is within a few minutes. However, when I get up on stage, or in front of an audience, I completely lose all track of time.

I have this big presentation that I've been preparing for a few weeks now. I timed it over and over again, practising at home, to about 40 minutes. Every time I tried it, I would come out to 39, 40 or 41 minutes.

Today, as I was getting prepared, there were a number of technical difficulties that arose right at the last minute, which got me a bit flustered. Nevertheless, I went through the presentation without too much hassle. People were nodding, I was hitting the tech savvy crowd with enough highlights while keeping the newbies online. When I was done, I had some time to look at the computer clock and noticed that I had finished after just 22 minutes. I was 18 minutes ahead of schedule!

18 minutes! Have you ever tried to stretch an audience for 18 minutes? Not to mention the 10 minutes I was going to leave for questions at the end.

I have to learn to pace myself better.