CS Major + Public Speaking Class + Linux == Kyral Feeling Like An Idiot

**bailout** · September 9th, 2005

Originally Posted by Kyral

Okay, I'm taking Intro To Public Speaking at my college. We had to give an oral presentation on whatever. Naturally I chose Linux. What occured is nothing short of a disaster to the ego.

I'm a CS Major. Now I'm good at talking to computers, and people through the Internet. But in front of people, I'm ****. My control over my ADHD fails as I concentrate on speaking slowly and not rambling. So my hands are all over, playing with my keys, that kinda thing. I went last, and guess what. Everyone else had these fancy Powerpoint things. Now, me using Linux and OpenOffice, I wasn't sure that Impress would play nice with PowerPoint. So instead of taking a chance, I played the safe route and made this little pdf here that I knew would display on any machine. So you can guess how I felt going into this thing.

It gets worse. Now I didn't go too technical. I only had to use the word "kernel" once. But again I talked too fast and wound up finishing before the limit. What is worse is that the class gave me the look that non-computer geeks use when you go over their heads. Yah, that look. No one asked questions except the professor.

It gets even worse. I had to tape it so that I could do a self-assessment. Yah...
So if anyone knows how to convert a VHS into an AVI or the like, tell me and I will put it somewhere for you all to laugh at me.

Oh well. Next time is a demo. LiveCD to the rescue!

You could always use the technique a friend of mine used when he had to give a talk on Einstein's theory of relativity to a non-interested audience. He advertised it as an illustrated lecture and after a few minutes of speaking, paused to display the first "illustration", which was a scan of a picture from a porn mag (this was before the internet). He obviously stopped speaking while the pic was up and just allowed the audience (all male btw) to appreciate the pic and then turned it off and went on with the lecture. Every five minutes or so he would stop to show another "illustration" from the same magazine.

It was very effective at making his audience pay attention and he had made no prior claims that the illustrations would be related to the lecture just that the talk would be illustated.

Obviously in these more politically correct times you would have to be more careful with your choice of images but you could use funny pics instead just to wake people up. If they find your speach completely boring they will at least enjoy the slides. People have a very short attention span especcially if they don't have a particular interest in the subject. Breaking up a lecture in this or a similar way with unrelated non-serious content can work really well at keeping them awake.

**matthew** · September 9th, 2005

As someone accustomed to public speaking I can say this is a skill that is learned and generally difficult for most people at first. From experience I would agree with several others above who said you probably did better than you think you did. We are all our own worst critic (well, usually anyway). Watching the video will help you considerably if you can stand it...even after speaking thousands of times to groups from 10 to 3000+ I still can't stand to watch myself or listen to myself, I find it very difficult. I still do it occasionally, though, because I discover things that help refine and improve my presentations, my style and mannerisms.

My advice: try to keep a sense of humor and give yourself a bit of a break when you watch--try not to be overly critical. Also, be humble in accepting helpful comments and do your best to slough off mean, rude, or unhelpful ones.