Blogathon ATX August 2010

Blogathon was created as a great opportunity to blog in a communal environment.

But I'm using it to write a speech instead of actually blogging.

What I discovered, however, is that bloggers also make good public speakers (or at least givers of advice on public speaking...more on that in a minute).

A little bit about Blogathon: they've divided the separate rooms at Conjunctured into functional rooms. There's the Techathon room, where people like Jeremy (@jeremya) and Erick (@txhoudini) were giving technical advice. Then there's Writeathon room where people were actually blogging, and finally the Talkathon room.

I went into the Talkathon room to ask Tom Myer (@myerman) advice on how to give an interesting, relevant speech.

While I expected Tom to give me some good advice, I didn't expect what I got instead...awesome advice from two other people as well, Dara (@dquack) and Jennifer (@jenztweets).

A little about the Talkathon room: it's where bloggers talk. Well, they also held a couple of stimulating roundtable discussions about blogging issues while livestreaming to the Internet. It was a free-for-all of ideas, passionate discussions, and laughter.

I went in and asked Tom some questions, thinking that everybody else was absorbed in their blogging activities. Little did I know they listening in.

Dara, a college professor at Texas State University in San Marcos, immediately offered some advice. Tom and Dara then played off each other, and then Jennifer joined in with an additional angle.

I've summarized the four "wisdom of the crowd" golden nuggets I received from Tom, Dara and Jennifer:

1. Don't bore your audience. That's the number one sin of public speaking, especially if you're presenting after lunch and you're behind a podium.
2. As an antidote to boring your audience, you've got to immediately "click" with the crowd. Do some pre-presentation research on your audience. Talk to two or three people before your presentation and get their stories, goals and desires. When you give your talk, speak to them, and use them as examples.
3. Talking about examples, use case studies to validate your points. If you're giving practical advice, especially if you're speaking to a younger audience (I'm presenting to college students) give them examples they can relate to that is immediately actionable by them.
4. Finally, keep your presentation to three points, and leave 15 minutes for Q&A.

Bloggers can dispense any types of advice (you can find a blog about every subject under the sun), and I just discovered they can help you become a better public speaker.