- My first big speaking engagement was a disaster.
It was the AIJ national business conference,
and I was 28 years old.
I had my speech and images ready and felt pretty cocky.
Before heading out onto the stage, one of the organizers
said, "Sorry, we're running long.
"Instead of 30 minutes, you have 15."
On stage I kept watching the clock count down
and tried to edit my speech as I went.
The end result was a lecture that made absolutely no sense.
I think I was cutting sentences in half.
After that, I made it my mission
to never fail again at a speaking engagement.
First, everyone is nervous in front of an audience.
I've seen the most successful designers backstage
freaked out and then totally smooth once they walk out.
The way I found to handle this
is to recognize that the audience wants you to succeed.
They're not like spectators at a Roman gladiator fight.
20% will think you were great, 5% won't,
and the rest are probably thinking
about picking up milk on the way home.
Second, be prepared.
Find out how long you have for your presentation
and write everything down, even the ad lib comments.
Then practice.
It may seem silly to be reading
your presentation script out loud,
but speaking it always takes longer than you think it will.
And it helps to be comfortable with the information.
Get your images together far in advance
and make sure they are the best quality
to be enlarged on the screen.
I use Keynote to organize my lecture slides.
If it looks soft or low res on your monitor,
it will look worse blown up.
I also put my images on a black background.
This disappears as a white background
shows every piece of dirt on the screen.
Once you're out on the stage, take a breath and relax.
Slow down.
It may seem awkward,
but we all speed up when we're nervous.
I also do my best to not hug the podium.
If you've practiced enough,
you should be able to move away from it
and speak directly to the audience.
You can always step back to it and turn the page
or look at your notes on the screen.
The basic rules about any presentation still apply.
Don't read the text on the screen, summarize,
and talk about the work with stories
or your personal point of view.
The least successful presenters are the ones
that point to an image of an apple and say,
"Then I made a red apple,"
as if the audience couldn't see it.
If there is time for a question and answer period,
address the person who asked the question
and then continue to the rest of the audience,
so it doesn't seem like you're having
a personal conversation with one person only.
And if someone asks you something you don't know,
or don't want to answer, it's perfectly okay
to say, "Gee, I don't know,"
or answer another entirely different question like
that's a good question.
It reminds me of the time a client asked me
to design a new logo.
And finally, always, always thank
the organizers and the audience.