Presenting is the new public speaking

Speeches seem to be "the dinosaurs of communication" these days, rarely seen (if at all) at weddings, funerals and the local Toastmaster club. We have become so captivated by the wonders of the digital world, with its speed and brevity, that most people’s public speaking skills have unfortunately gone rusty.

Nobody expects you to speak on important occasions nowadays, and certainly your boss won’t be asking you to make a speech anytime soon. Instead you are asked to make a presentation.

Packaging a speech opportunity into short presentations may get the whole affair to sound more professional, less scary and to-the-point. But let us not forget that a presentation is actually a new form of a public speech. There is no technology or presenting gimmick that will make your presentation worthy if you get out there without having prepared it… as a speech. If your PowerPoint fails you and your presentation is somehow lost, you need to be capable of presenting your message without losing face.

So we are not living in an age where speeches are used as a powerful tool of communication. No need to get nostalgic over that. But as an educated audience, with a universal need to learn and communicate, we at least have the right to expect presenters at conferences to prepare their presentations as if they are authentic public speaking occasions. This means that presenters really should write their speeches down, summarise them, rehearse and possibly ask someone (e.g.. a Public speaking coach) to give them honest feedback on the delivery, content, pronunciation of tricky words, body language and the like.

Once you get in the habit of carefully preparing your presentations, you can start to focus on other things.  Instead of worrying about your breathing or sweaty palms you can even use anecdotes to get people to laugh or inspire people with something you say. But if you conform yourself with presenting the usual recycled presentation slides what you will get is an audience that, at best, likes your slides but has come out of your presentation in the same state of mind as when they came in. What a missed opportunity!