presenting

Even though I have taken the MBA communications class, I still don't feel comfortable speaking in front of an audience. I don't speak in front of groups generally at work and it has been a while since I have taken that class. Of course, I didn't expect that taking that one class would instantly make me comfortable speaking in front of people. In my communications class, I did notice that some people just seem more comfortable speaking in front of an audience than others. Giving the 2 presentations in front of our class did refresh some of the public speaking skills that I learned such as engaging the audience by asking questions and paying attention to body language and trying to maintain eye contact.

A lot of the success of speaking in front of audience comes from a comfortability factor. While it is not easy to make yourself comfortable if you are not naturally comfortable, I suppose the more you do it, the less difficult it is. Also, being more prepared should help a speaker become more comfortable as well. Although, it is also possible, in a sense, to be too prepared as that makes the presentation sound too rehearsed, which can be dry.

Other tips that I found (tonight, after I did both my presentations) are to speak with conviction, address the person in the audience who is the farthest away from you, maintain sincere eye contact for 3 seconds and make eye contact with a few different people during the presentation. Do not mumble, do not read from notes extensively or read from slides. Make sure to vary the tone of your voice and use humor where appropriate. I only have 1 year left in my MBA program (yay!), but I most likely will be speaking in front of a class again before I'm done. I hope and expect that my skills in public speaking will continue to improve.