Public speaking anxiety
Apr. 24th, 2014 10:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
izardMy work involves speaking at conferences and delivering technical trainings. I read a lot about how people deal with anxiety related to public speaking, but never experienced any problems myself.
Until this week, when I had an unusual [for me] public speaking experience. When I present at a conference, for engineers at a customer site or internally, I am facing either several ppl in the room, or few dozens in a bigger audience, or (very rarely) - presenting from a stage to several hundreds. But any way I see everyone and it helps a lot. Also very often some part of the audience (normally up to 20 ppl) is attending over audio bridge.
This time it was different - I was presenting a series of long technical talks to an audience of almost 400 engineers, and it was 100% virtual. I was sitting alone in a small conference room, using only a phone and a web sharing app. I don't know why I felt the difference between presenting to 20 ppl on a bridge and to 400. In a non-virtual setting, I don't feel that an audience size matters. So I admit I felt anxious, and unfortunately it had affected the presentation quality. Should I start using tips for reducing pubic speaking nervousness described in so many articles and books?
Until this week, when I had an unusual [for me] public speaking experience. When I present at a conference, for engineers at a customer site or internally, I am facing either several ppl in the room, or few dozens in a bigger audience, or (very rarely) - presenting from a stage to several hundreds. But any way I see everyone and it helps a lot. Also very often some part of the audience (normally up to 20 ppl) is attending over audio bridge.
This time it was different - I was presenting a series of long technical talks to an audience of almost 400 engineers, and it was 100% virtual. I was sitting alone in a small conference room, using only a phone and a web sharing app. I don't know why I felt the difference between presenting to 20 ppl on a bridge and to 400. In a non-virtual setting, I don't feel that an audience size matters. So I admit I felt anxious, and unfortunately it had affected the presentation quality. Should I start using tips for reducing pubic speaking nervousness described in so many articles and books?
