Today’s weather might be grey but I’m in a good mood. Today I’m not taking my usual journey up the Northern Line to Old Street, instead I’m on the train in the opposite direction down to Brighton to attend the Slide & Stage one day workshop with Aral Balken.
A few years ago I made a similar journey down to attend another workshop also by Aral, that time it was on iOS development and it was a time when I was looking to get more into app and mobile development. The iOS workshop itself was great with an even amount of theory and practical exercises and plenty of takeaways to ensure that if I wanted to continue to keep learning I had what was required.
This time the talk is less technology focused. In fact, the talk is entirely technology absent (unless of course Aral breaks out Powerpoint and teaches us how to create transitions between slides�.. unlikely I’d say).
Today’s workshop is all about becoming a better speaker, whether that be in front of your work colleagues or in front of a conference audience.
It’s not that I want to become a speaker, I’ve had opportunities to speak in front of audiences on a few occasions in the past. Instead I’m looking to become a better speaker.
With that in mind I thought I’d write a few things that I was keen to get out of today’s session and look back at the end of the day to see if what I thought made a better speaker is in fact on the right track.
- Preparation: How to write and frame your talk (beginning, middle, end)
- Story telling: Get some tips and tricks on what makes a better and more compelling story
- Stage Presence: Most great speakers look great before they utter their first few words, and the same goes for speakers lacking confidence.
- Speaking Rhythm: While story telling is focused on the actual story, I’m keen to learn how that is best delivered.
- Power point – how do you make those slide transition things.
Not really with number 5.
There’s going to be 50 people as part of the day so I’m not really sure how it’s going to run as I imagine there will be some very confident people looking to tweak some of their current skills and some beginners who have never spoken before in their life.
I’m somewhere lost in the middle, so lets see how it all goes.
Oh, and I’m also really looking forward to catching up with 2 time award winning Laura Kalbag as well as visit Paul and Andy at the ClearLeft studio.