Search Engine Tigers

For those who don’t know, I’m the current VP of PR for my local Toastmasters club in Manassas. As a member of the club I get a monthly magazine called “ToastMaster” (not very imaginative, but it states it’s intended audience quite well). In the edition that I received today there was a reprint of a BusinessWeek story entitled “YouTube Your Way to Better Speaking“, which is a nice article talking about how you can improve your public speaking and presentation skills through watching ‘experts’ speaking on YouTube.

Having recently seen a video of myself speaking a few months ago (no, I’m not dropping a link to it here), I’d also advocate taping and watching yourself. You’ll notice mannerisms and ways of speaking that you can then attempt to correct. For example, I noticed a couple of things about my presentation style. Firstly, I kept looking down and to the left, which was where the presentation was located, not really my fault, as the built-in screen on the lectern wasn’t working, so we had to use a laptop to the side. Secondly, I noticed that during the presentation I was waving my hands around a little too much, but I did think that I used gestures well in most places.

So there you have it, YouTube is not just for McGruff the Crime Dog putting mentos and diet coke into an industrial blender while a Brazilian goalkeeper acts as though hit by a sniper rifle when brushed on his cheek, it’s also good for self improvement.

1. Speaking at SMX-London | Local and In-house Search Engine Marketing topics said...
   12:25 pm - October 25th, 2007

   [...] Just in case you were wondering why I was talking about working on your presenting style the other day, it’s because I’m going to be speaking in London on November 16th at the [...]