Category Archives: Toastmasters

why do i speak as a programmer

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I was at Toastmasters officer training and someone in my group asked if being a DTM (Distinguished Toastmaster) has helped professionally. The trainer for our group doesn’t work in a field where she speaks so not really. I mentioned that it has helped me. I joined Toastmasters to get better at presenting technical content in a humorous and engaging way. I’m definitely better at that than when I started. I’m also more comfortable dealing with unexpected events while speaking.

But what really surprised me was the sharp decrease in the time it takes me to prepare for a presentation. That alone has helped me professionally. I had an opportunity to speak to between 100 and 200 people at the NY Java User Group. I joke that I was the “opening act” for Maurice Naftalin. People registered to hear him speak about Java. He wasn’t able to arrive at the start of the meeting so the group needed someone to speak for 30 minutes. On three days notice, I was able to do it and do a good job. (And I spent most of that three days doing other things.) That decreased preparation time is something that Toastmasters has helped me with!

The person with the question asked why I speak as a programmer. He commented that it makes sense for business analysts. But implied us programmers only talk to computers. So why speak do I as a programmer?

  • Teaching and mentoring – Whether it is a short training session and work or speaking at a conference, being a more effective speaker helps people learn better.
  • Audits – I work for a bank which means we have regular audits. Being able to explain what we do (without being nervous) is a useful skill.
  • Work presentations – Pitching an idea, design meetings, etc.
  • Writing – Scott and I have written three books and this blog. Yes, I know writing isn’t speaking. But some of the skills translate. Like organizing your material.
  • Networking – It’s useful when people google you that they find stuff :).

technical speaking – getting better over time

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I recently needed to find a video of myself speaking. This caused me to notice that I’ve gotten much better (and more comfortable) speaking since 2007.

2007 – Google Test Automation Conference

In 2007, I attended the Google Test Automation Conference. They had 5 minute lightning talks and I signed up. This mean that I “wrote” what I was going to say that day and wasn’t prepared. More importantly, at that point, I’d only spoken once or twice before in front of a large audience and only internally at work. I remember being scared and worried about going over time (if you went over, they threw stuff at you)

That said, I was substantially better in 2007 then I was in 2002! I remember having to give a presentation in 2003 or so at work. I memorized every word I was going to say!

What I noticed rewatching the video

  • I didn’t sound confident in the intro
  • I fiddled with my hands a lot at the beginning
  • Once I got into the tech content, I started looking around and gesturing more
  • I stuck to that podium like glue
  • I didn’t know to hold my fingers up when listing points yet

2009

In 2009, I joined Toastmasters. I realized I wanted to get better at engaging the audience. My focus was improving at “humorous technical content”. Because if you can make someone laugh, you get their attention!

2014

In 2014, I gave a presentation about Java to high school students and they were kind enough to record it. This time I was prepared. And more importantly, I had skills to draw from. In addition to Toastmasters, I had given many more presentations at work.

This time I noticed:

  • I looked at my laptop less
  • I moved around and engaged the audience more
  • I was able to make impromptu jokes
  • I looked more confident

2015

In 2015, I gave a 10 minute talk about Agile. Again, I was prepared. And again, I noticed many of the same skills. I was comfortable and able to make jokes. For this one, I was involving the audience, so I can really see how well I was adapting to what was going on around me.

(not sure what happened to the video)

handling mistakes in presenting

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Yesterday, I gave a presentation to about 30 teenagers about the upcoming FTC (FIRST Tech Challenge) transition from Robot-C to Java. I agreed to do it a week ago while on vacation. This meant I didn’t have any weekend days to actually write up the deck. I wound up doing it the night before. The concepts were fine, but I figured I’d have at least one mistake in the deck.

I proofread the deck in the morning and corrected some errors. But I still felt rushed and like I missed something. I wound up announcing at the beginning that I had two prizes for the first two students who found an error in the presentation. One kid did. (I had a redundant keyword in a method. It wasn’t wrong per se, in that the program still worked. It was non-standard and not what I wanted to show.) This student got a FIRST flashlight in exchange for his finding. Nobody else found an error.

I liked this technique, because I was that kid who saw errors when I was younger (and still do). I was left wondering what I should do with the info. Does the presenter want to know? Should I keep quiet? Will the presentation be given again? By stating that I wanted it brought up early on, there was no doubt. I think it also helped foster a culture of other questions during my presentation because I made it known that I wanted the audience to speak up when a doubt crossed their mind.

I’ve rarely use this technique at Toastmasters because most presentations are shorter and questions aren’t welcome. And when I’m giving a workshop for adults, I feel like they will speak up as needed. It went well though and I’m thinking I might try the “prize” idea again with adults in the future.

Last week, I met the CEO of Communication for Geeks at the NY SPIN where we were both giving 10 minute talks. While none of the above is specific to geeks, it is a nice coincidence that I had an interesting “communication” experience shortly thereafter.

Another interesting thing that happened was that this is the first time I spoke with an ASL interpreter. I only noticed two differences:

  1. The interpreter wanted to see the deck in advance to prepare. (Luckily she only wanted to see it 10 minutes before and not days in advance!)
  2. For the first few minutes, I was worried about talking too fast. I often speak faster than I should when presenting and was worried if I was going to fast for her. The answer was that I wasn’t. I quickly forgot about it. When asking afterwards, she said the pace was fine. I’m impressed with her buffering because she was always a few words (or more) behind where I was! Luckily, I do pause when speaking so there was time to catch up.