The art of public speaking
This article opens a series of articles - if it turns out that Habrakollegi will find it interesting, because the first rule of public speaking reads: tell people what they are interested in !
If you have not performed in public before or are afraid to do it - you will be under the cat. If you consider yourself an experienced speaker, you will be the second article in the series.
In today's article, I write about how to speak, and I write very little about the content of the report. If it becomes clear from the comments that it is necessary to tell more about the composition of the report (setting the task -> decision options -> selection process -> selected decision -> result) or about the basics of public speech (not “ekat”, not “poke”, not to speak through the word "t-skyt" and do not end phrases with abusive interjections) - I will tell you next time.
')
Historical note: on Habré on this topic there was already a small discussion a year ago .
The smallest group of people I had to speak to were three people (I don’t consider one-on-one negotiations), the largest is 800 people in the Sun Tech Days conference hall in Hyderabad, India.
This text is not a set of mandatory rules, it is a statement of my personal experience. What worked for me might work for you, what didn’t work for you could work too. I do not give universal advice, I will tell you how I myself do so that the audience is interested.
I spoke mainly to sysadmins, developers, technical experts and students of technical universities, as well as at scientific conferences. So, for similar situations my experience is applicable. If you are coming with a report to a conference of lawyers or sellers of cosmetics - use my advice with caution.
The second rule: know the interests of your listeners before you prepare a report.
The report should be well prepared. Ideal if you tell people about what you know well. And if you bought yesterday the text of the thesis, and tomorrow you have to report it to the hall of evil teachers? And you have to go to the client to tell how to use the admin panel of the new site, and you see this CMS for the second time in your life?
The only way out is if you know the subject as a whole poorly - study the interests of the listeners and talk about what is more important to them in this topic. For example, if you are afraid to talk about the new version of Solaris, because you do not know what is new in it, but you need to speak in front of the sysadmines, you can focus on what is important to them - for example, on administrative tools or where version migrated settings, compared with the old version.
The third rule: prepare good slides.
It is not necessary to make a report with slides, but most of the listeners are now waiting for the speaker to stand next to the projector, and it will be possible to look not only at his high forehead and good suit, but also at the illustration to the report. For the lecturers in the mini-skirt, the slides also play a distracting role: there is nothing to defend a diploma to stare at other people's knees all the time.
If you make a report with slides, make them conscientiously. Slides I want to devote a separate article. In short, the slides are good if:
The exception is slides with code at developer conferences: sometimes the code just needs to be shown, and the main thing should be highlighted in the code. However, the code should still be read from afar: delete any code that is not directly related to the case, and write the remaining 30th size.
Usually the speaker is not free to choose how long to speak to him. Diploma defense - 15-20 minutes, dissertation - 20-30, and the most convenient format at conferences - 20 minutes. A good speaker will always fit in the allotted time: this will show that he respects both the organizers, and the listeners, and other speakers.
For orientation: one full A4 sheet, printed in 12th size - approximately 5-7 minutes of the report (if you speak without pauses). One slide is not less than a minute (if you have a slide that you show for five seconds, remove it, no one will fully study it anyway).
An inexperienced speaker should rehearse his report at home (in the garage, in the bathroom, in the plane) at least twice, and the second time should be perfect. For an experienced person, one rehearsal is enough, or at least clicking slides from beginning to end with mental notes: “aha, here I’ll tell you what types of data there are,” “here I’ll tell you why we need pointers,” etc.
At any decent conference, speakers are asked in advance (on the day of the report or even on the previous day) to check that their flash drive, laptop and other equipment they need is compatible with the equipment provided by the conference organizers. In the case of a diploma defense, this will be a banal test that the cathedral projector normally connects to your laptop and shows a picture in the resolution you need.
Be sure to check that all the programs that you use during the report (xterm, exceed, Adobe Reader, OpenOffice Impress, etc.) show what you need in the desired resolution and without shifts on the screen. Even experienced speakers get into a mess when the most interesting part of the window is outside the screen.
Make sure that the computer on which you are going to show the slides, reads what they are recorded on.
These rules seem obvious, but dozens of people (and myself) regularly felt uncomfortable in front of the audience because of such trifles.
The fourth rule: engage listeners in communication.
What to do if the interests of people in the hall are unknown? First, try to find out who should come from those who organize your presentation or the conference as a whole. Second: at the beginning of the report, ask the visitors what they are interested in.
Asking those present at the diploma defense that they are interested in your work is a brazen thing. There it is customary to tell what the supervisor advised. However, at a meeting of colleagues or in front of clients, this is quite natural: for example, in courses on UNIX, which I have been teaching since 1993, before starting a course I always ask each student what he (or she, alas, less often) expects from course, and how is going to apply this knowledge.
No matter what the listeners answer, there is no need to change the course or report radically, but taking into account interests and telling about one topic more than about another, if asked for this, a good tone. This is not necessary, and it is necessary to do so only if you know about the topic under discussion obviously more than you are going to tell. Otherwise - keep to the chosen line in the report and avoid unplanned deviations.
If you are asked questions that you cannot answer, go away from them, telling the facts you know about the topic, and if you cannot get away from the question, try to speculate out loud, involving listeners in the process of searching for an answer: “Is it possible to print from under Linux?” on HP LaserJet 1100? Let's think together. In modern GNU / Linux, CUPS is a printing subsystem, right? If it is CUPS, then you need a .ppd file to set up the printer, and therefore, you need to search for this file on the HP website or simply on the Internet. If there is a file, we can print to HP LJ 1100 from under Linux. ”
As a last resort, take an e-mail from the listener and promise to answer as soon as you know the answer to the question. Knowing all the speaker is not obliged, and to show goodwill and a desire to help - it is useful.
Regarding how and where to stand the speaker, written mountains of text and petabytes of video courses were shot. For those who for some reason have not yet seen - a brief squeeze:
Fifth rule: speak briefly, give specific examples from life
The report should be as short as possible: avoid “water” in what you are telling.
People like specific examples: when I tell you that the UNIX way is a lot of programs, each of which does only one thing, and is good, I immediately explain why it is convenient: for example, the grep program is equally good for log analysis files and to search for a file with the necessary piece of code in the src / directory.
The report should be a place for easy improvisation or jokes. If you know what the audience will listen to you - try to prepare examples close to them. For example, speaking to employees of the office of sales of building materials, you can safely joke on the topic of yesterday's hangover. For the clergy and students of the Philological Faculty, probably, other jokes will do.
The sixth rule: be emotional
People who listen to you should not fall asleep. You can not speak monotonously and sadly, you need to speak with an expression, like poetry in school to read. Talking about how to configure MS Exchange Server? It seems to you that this is magically cool - by pressing the three “Next” buttons to set up a corporate mail system (there should be an <irony /> tag)? Tell everyone how beautiful it is! Smile, raise your hands to the sky, raise your voice, ask the listeners: “is it true, is it so great ?!”
Emotionality is not hysterical, emotions should be condiment to the content of the report. Definitely, the report should have something that you like: to talk about a subject that is disgusting to you, you need only those who you want to cause hostility to the subject (or to you, if you hate cats, babies, young girls or what anybody else's favorite).
Dilute the report with jokes: one joke for five to ten minutes of the report is a good proportion. Jokes can be prepared in advance, and you can think of on the go, if you remember bash.org by heart and can remember something to the place. If the report didn’t go quite the way you had planned, and the prepared joke is out of place, leave it for the next time: inappropriate humor looks worn out and reinforces pity for the speaker.
The seventh rule: the speaker is the master of his time
Decide in advance whether you can be interrupted by questions during the report. If you do not have a high reputation among the audience, if you are afraid of losing your thoughts, if you are uncomfortable to move away from the topic of the report - at the beginning of the report ask all the questions to be recorded and asked at the end. This can be explained in different ways: from "I have no control over the freak and can not vouch for myself" to "today I want to tell you a lot of interesting things, and if we interrupt often, we may not be in time."
In order not to go beyond the time limit, be sure to ask one of the organizers to keep track of the time and give you a signal ten and five minutes before the end. At many conferences for this purpose, a timer is set before the speaker, which shows how much time is left before the end of the report. At the very least, a smartphone or a watch set in front of you will come down, but so that it can be seen from where you walk during a report.
It is possible and simpler: if sometimes you look at your watch to check if you haven't started talking, no one will be offended, although they may think that you are late for the train.
A good tone is to leave at the end of the report about five minutes for questions; if you told something interesting to the audience, and it is not in China, they will ask you questions. In China and some other Asian countries, it is not accepted to ask questions in public, and you can inform the hall that after the report you will drink tea in a cafe around the corner, and if someone wants to clarify something, you will be happy to do it over a cup of tea .
Eighth rule: keep your composure and sense of humor
Who likes when everyone laughs at him? Therefore, getting into a ridiculous situation during a public speech, treat her detachedly, with humor, laugh yourself. Stumbled and broke a chair on stage? It does not matter, remember the "damn it" from the "Diamond Hand" or some close to the audience and you an anecdote to the topic.
The main thing - in all respect the measure. If you came out in a dirty suit and had to shake yourself off on the stage, the whole report should not be nervously removed from the blaze of dust particles; if you put a stain on a tie before the performance and there is no time to rub it off - behave as if there is no stain. Ironically over the entire report on this issue absolutely no need - in the end, if the report is interesting, everyone looks you in the mouth or in the eyes, and not on a tie.
The end is the crown. At the end of the report, it is nice to hear a cheerful conclusion (“therefore my graduation thesis is the first step towards a doctoral dissertation”, “as you can see, the project can actually bring our company an income of 493,000 rubles a year”) or a logical conclusion (“agree , every developer will be happy to use such a powerful tool as dtrace ").
A good tone is to bring on the penultimate slide the sources of your inspiration (list of references) and / or those books and websites that you advise the audience to read, and on the last - a way to contact you (all of a sudden someone will need to clarify what the book was called which you casually mentioned on the third from the end of the slide). Leaving your mobile phone is not necessary - just an e-mail.
The report can not be read on paper. If you want to give the impression of an energetic and successful speaker, read the report from memory. To look into the cheat sheet two or three times in half an hour is not a sin, to read the entire report on a piece of paper is a disaster! The crib should look decent (a pack of two A4 sheets in my hand, I think, looks neutral, and a piece of paper clamped in a cam is suspicious).
And now, patient reader, you can vote for the article - and thus hint to the author whether he should prepare the following articles - about how to get out of difficult situations during the reports, about how to make slides, and about how make a summary and cover letter if you want to work in a western company.
UPD: thanks golodnyj for noticing the size of the font on the slides: the correct minimum size, which is normally visible in the hall - not 14, as I wrote at first, but 30. In my presentations it happened before 24, but in such cases I didn’t like myself this. Better to stick to the 30th pt.
If you have not performed in public before or are afraid to do it - you will be under the cat. If you consider yourself an experienced speaker, you will be the second article in the series.
In today's article, I write about how to speak, and I write very little about the content of the report. If it becomes clear from the comments that it is necessary to tell more about the composition of the report (setting the task -> decision options -> selection process -> selected decision -> result) or about the basics of public speech (not “ekat”, not “poke”, not to speak through the word "t-skyt" and do not end phrases with abusive interjections) - I will tell you next time.
')
Historical note: on Habré on this topic there was already a small discussion a year ago .
The smallest group of people I had to speak to were three people (I don’t consider one-on-one negotiations), the largest is 800 people in the Sun Tech Days conference hall in Hyderabad, India.
This text is not a set of mandatory rules, it is a statement of my personal experience. What worked for me might work for you, what didn’t work for you could work too. I do not give universal advice, I will tell you how I myself do so that the audience is interested.
I spoke mainly to sysadmins, developers, technical experts and students of technical universities, as well as at scientific conferences. So, for similar situations my experience is applicable. If you are coming with a report to a conference of lawyers or sellers of cosmetics - use my advice with caution.
Training
The second rule: know the interests of your listeners before you prepare a report.
The report should be well prepared. Ideal if you tell people about what you know well. And if you bought yesterday the text of the thesis, and tomorrow you have to report it to the hall of evil teachers? And you have to go to the client to tell how to use the admin panel of the new site, and you see this CMS for the second time in your life?
The only way out is if you know the subject as a whole poorly - study the interests of the listeners and talk about what is more important to them in this topic. For example, if you are afraid to talk about the new version of Solaris, because you do not know what is new in it, but you need to speak in front of the sysadmines, you can focus on what is important to them - for example, on administrative tools or where version migrated settings, compared with the old version.
The third rule: prepare good slides.
It is not necessary to make a report with slides, but most of the listeners are now waiting for the speaker to stand next to the projector, and it will be possible to look not only at his high forehead and good suit, but also at the illustration to the report. For the lecturers in the mini-skirt, the slides also play a distracting role: there is nothing to defend a diploma to stare at other people's knees all the time.
If you make a report with slides, make them conscientiously. Slides I want to devote a separate article. In short, the slides are good if:
- on the slides - that helps people understand the essence of the matter. The report is not a comic, having a slide for each phrase is a bust
- slides are well read from any row in the hall. Font less than the 30th, few see
- A standard slide is 5-7 lines of text, no more. Better is five: a headline, a thought, and three thoughts
- on each slide a clearly visible graphic element is desirable: a scheme, a photograph, a drawing. A slide with text without graphics looks like a hint to the speaker.
The exception is slides with code at developer conferences: sometimes the code just needs to be shown, and the main thing should be highlighted in the code. However, the code should still be read from afar: delete any code that is not directly related to the case, and write the remaining 30th size.
Time report
Usually the speaker is not free to choose how long to speak to him. Diploma defense - 15-20 minutes, dissertation - 20-30, and the most convenient format at conferences - 20 minutes. A good speaker will always fit in the allotted time: this will show that he respects both the organizers, and the listeners, and other speakers.
For orientation: one full A4 sheet, printed in 12th size - approximately 5-7 minutes of the report (if you speak without pauses). One slide is not less than a minute (if you have a slide that you show for five seconds, remove it, no one will fully study it anyway).
Rehearsal report
An inexperienced speaker should rehearse his report at home (in the garage, in the bathroom, in the plane) at least twice, and the second time should be perfect. For an experienced person, one rehearsal is enough, or at least clicking slides from beginning to end with mental notes: “aha, here I’ll tell you what types of data there are,” “here I’ll tell you why we need pointers,” etc.
Check equipment before the report
At any decent conference, speakers are asked in advance (on the day of the report or even on the previous day) to check that their flash drive, laptop and other equipment they need is compatible with the equipment provided by the conference organizers. In the case of a diploma defense, this will be a banal test that the cathedral projector normally connects to your laptop and shows a picture in the resolution you need.
Be sure to check that all the programs that you use during the report (xterm, exceed, Adobe Reader, OpenOffice Impress, etc.) show what you need in the desired resolution and without shifts on the screen. Even experienced speakers get into a mess when the most interesting part of the window is outside the screen.
Make sure that the computer on which you are going to show the slides, reads what they are recorded on.
These rules seem obvious, but dozens of people (and myself) regularly felt uncomfortable in front of the audience because of such trifles.
Begin report
The fourth rule: engage listeners in communication.
What to do if the interests of people in the hall are unknown? First, try to find out who should come from those who organize your presentation or the conference as a whole. Second: at the beginning of the report, ask the visitors what they are interested in.
Asking those present at the diploma defense that they are interested in your work is a brazen thing. There it is customary to tell what the supervisor advised. However, at a meeting of colleagues or in front of clients, this is quite natural: for example, in courses on UNIX, which I have been teaching since 1993, before starting a course I always ask each student what he (or she, alas, less often) expects from course, and how is going to apply this knowledge.
No matter what the listeners answer, there is no need to change the course or report radically, but taking into account interests and telling about one topic more than about another, if asked for this, a good tone. This is not necessary, and it is necessary to do so only if you know about the topic under discussion obviously more than you are going to tell. Otherwise - keep to the chosen line in the report and avoid unplanned deviations.
If you are asked questions that you cannot answer, go away from them, telling the facts you know about the topic, and if you cannot get away from the question, try to speculate out loud, involving listeners in the process of searching for an answer: “Is it possible to print from under Linux?” on HP LaserJet 1100? Let's think together. In modern GNU / Linux, CUPS is a printing subsystem, right? If it is CUPS, then you need a .ppd file to set up the printer, and therefore, you need to search for this file on the HP website or simply on the Internet. If there is a file, we can print to HP LJ 1100 from under Linux. ”
As a last resort, take an e-mail from the listener and promise to answer as soon as you know the answer to the question. Knowing all the speaker is not obliged, and to show goodwill and a desire to help - it is useful.
Speaker pose
Regarding how and where to stand the speaker, written mountains of text and petabytes of video courses were shot. For those who for some reason have not yet seen - a brief squeeze:
- stand in an open posture, avoid crossing your arms across your chest, abdomen, and genitals;
- Move freely through the space that is allocated to you in front of the audience (stage, part of the hall); avoid immobility;
- look into the hall, the best thing is to choose a person you like in the hall and look at him as if you are telling your report to him personally; it is better to choose several such people, and periodically look from one to the other; Avoid constant looking sideways, to the floor, to the ceiling. Thought, looked out the window or to the side? This is normal, but there’s no need to lose contact with the audience’s eyes: return your gaze to the hall;
- never, you hear - never read slides. I myself sometimes made this mistake, because if the slides are done well, there is always a temptation to see what to say next. The slide is not a prompter, this is an illustration of what you are telling. Read slides - Moveton. Try to tell a report from memory. You will not tell your friend about a friendly booze, peeping into a notebook? So the report should flow out of you yourself, without hesitation and peeping. Believe me: the speaker who reads the slides looks miserable from the audience and evokes sympathy at best, and disgust at worst;
- gesticulate - in Russia the hall will approve of moderate gesticulation. Of course, I mean decent gestures. However, if you want to risk becoming youtube hero for an hour, you can show something indecent at a crowded conference. The scandal will be remembered by many, your name - without warranty. Many people remember the name of the TV presenter who accidentally raised the middle finger while pronouncing the name of the US president? No, and the fact was remembered.
Actually report
Fifth rule: speak briefly, give specific examples from life
The report should be as short as possible: avoid “water” in what you are telling.
People like specific examples: when I tell you that the UNIX way is a lot of programs, each of which does only one thing, and is good, I immediately explain why it is convenient: for example, the grep program is equally good for log analysis files and to search for a file with the necessary piece of code in the src / directory.
The report should be a place for easy improvisation or jokes. If you know what the audience will listen to you - try to prepare examples close to them. For example, speaking to employees of the office of sales of building materials, you can safely joke on the topic of yesterday's hangover. For the clergy and students of the Philological Faculty, probably, other jokes will do.
The sixth rule: be emotional
People who listen to you should not fall asleep. You can not speak monotonously and sadly, you need to speak with an expression, like poetry in school to read. Talking about how to configure MS Exchange Server? It seems to you that this is magically cool - by pressing the three “Next” buttons to set up a corporate mail system (there should be an <irony /> tag)? Tell everyone how beautiful it is! Smile, raise your hands to the sky, raise your voice, ask the listeners: “is it true, is it so great ?!”
Emotionality is not hysterical, emotions should be condiment to the content of the report. Definitely, the report should have something that you like: to talk about a subject that is disgusting to you, you need only those who you want to cause hostility to the subject (or to you, if you hate cats, babies, young girls or what anybody else's favorite).
Dilute the report with jokes: one joke for five to ten minutes of the report is a good proportion. Jokes can be prepared in advance, and you can think of on the go, if you remember bash.org by heart and can remember something to the place. If the report didn’t go quite the way you had planned, and the prepared joke is out of place, leave it for the next time: inappropriate humor looks worn out and reinforces pity for the speaker.
Questions during the report
The seventh rule: the speaker is the master of his time
Decide in advance whether you can be interrupted by questions during the report. If you do not have a high reputation among the audience, if you are afraid of losing your thoughts, if you are uncomfortable to move away from the topic of the report - at the beginning of the report ask all the questions to be recorded and asked at the end. This can be explained in different ways: from "I have no control over the freak and can not vouch for myself" to "today I want to tell you a lot of interesting things, and if we interrupt often, we may not be in time."
In order not to go beyond the time limit, be sure to ask one of the organizers to keep track of the time and give you a signal ten and five minutes before the end. At many conferences for this purpose, a timer is set before the speaker, which shows how much time is left before the end of the report. At the very least, a smartphone or a watch set in front of you will come down, but so that it can be seen from where you walk during a report.
It is possible and simpler: if sometimes you look at your watch to check if you haven't started talking, no one will be offended, although they may think that you are late for the train.
A good tone is to leave at the end of the report about five minutes for questions; if you told something interesting to the audience, and it is not in China, they will ask you questions. In China and some other Asian countries, it is not accepted to ask questions in public, and you can inform the hall that after the report you will drink tea in a cafe around the corner, and if someone wants to clarify something, you will be happy to do it over a cup of tea .
Eighth rule: keep your composure and sense of humor
Who likes when everyone laughs at him? Therefore, getting into a ridiculous situation during a public speech, treat her detachedly, with humor, laugh yourself. Stumbled and broke a chair on stage? It does not matter, remember the "damn it" from the "Diamond Hand" or some close to the audience and you an anecdote to the topic.
The main thing - in all respect the measure. If you came out in a dirty suit and had to shake yourself off on the stage, the whole report should not be nervously removed from the blaze of dust particles; if you put a stain on a tie before the performance and there is no time to rub it off - behave as if there is no stain. Ironically over the entire report on this issue absolutely no need - in the end, if the report is interesting, everyone looks you in the mouth or in the eyes, and not on a tie.
Report Completion
The end is the crown. At the end of the report, it is nice to hear a cheerful conclusion (“therefore my graduation thesis is the first step towards a doctoral dissertation”, “as you can see, the project can actually bring our company an income of 493,000 rubles a year”) or a logical conclusion (“agree , every developer will be happy to use such a powerful tool as dtrace ").
A good tone is to bring on the penultimate slide the sources of your inspiration (list of references) and / or those books and websites that you advise the audience to read, and on the last - a way to contact you (all of a sudden someone will need to clarify what the book was called which you casually mentioned on the third from the end of the slide). Leaving your mobile phone is not necessary - just an e-mail.
Important detail
The report can not be read on paper. If you want to give the impression of an energetic and successful speaker, read the report from memory. To look into the cheat sheet two or three times in half an hour is not a sin, to read the entire report on a piece of paper is a disaster! The crib should look decent (a pack of two A4 sheets in my hand, I think, looks neutral, and a piece of paper clamped in a cam is suspicious).
And now, patient reader, you can vote for the article - and thus hint to the author whether he should prepare the following articles - about how to get out of difficult situations during the reports, about how to make slides, and about how make a summary and cover letter if you want to work in a western company.
UPD: thanks golodnyj for noticing the size of the font on the slides: the correct minimum size, which is normally visible in the hall - not 14, as I wrote at first, but 30. In my presentations it happened before 24, but in such cases I didn’t like myself this. Better to stick to the 30th pt.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/141922/
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