My father has always presented challenging opportunities with the banner “an opportunity to excel.” I would always wonder with motivation and perturbation while waiting to find out what warranted such an ominous title. Do our personal best practices in communication translate to all situations that we encounter or scale to an audience of any size? Speaking to one is not the same as ten, and ten is not the same as eighty. Presentation is not the same as teaching, but a well-delivered informative presentation may end with a non-trivial amount of time spent in instruction. How we prepare for challenges work to define our future opportunities.
While the prospect of public speaking has not caused me to lose sleep, communication opportunities taught me more about my shortcomings than strengths. I viewed the world of communication as one dominated by the presentation of information for persuasion. Two opportunities brought to me within a short period of time pushed me to seek a professional perspective. One was an audience close to one hundred conference attendees, and the other was teaching a ten-week class of approximately thirty adult students. Confessions of a Public Speaker was one selected of around a dozen books that I seriously considered.
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| Author: Scott BerkunPublisher: O’Reilly MediaEbook ISBN:978-0-596-80979-9 |
I have made my use case for this text, and will keep my review concise. These items are my shortlist for recommending this book:
- The perspective comes from an author is a full-on geek when it comes to public speaking. (He knows of what he speaks, and enjoys the occasion to do so.)
- In both abstraction and specifics, Mr. Berkun provides practical solutions for more urgent, immediate problems than I could have imagined on my own.
- How is the audience and situational coverage? For me, comprehensive.
- Scott provides tools and techniques rather than endless lists of tips.
- The book is easily searchable for helpful information when used as a reference.
This book is useful, entertaining, and professionally packaged. Yes, I more confidently speak a direct result of reading this. Whereas I did not have fear to mitigate from the chapter “The attack of the butterflies,” speaking publicly is an exciting opportunity rather than a task to be accomplished. If you have an opportunity to excel that needs some communication preparation, I submit this as a quality resource.
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