Recently I’ve been working on trying to become a better public speaker, which is always a project in evolution.  And I decided, that one of the better ways to improve would be to get explicit feedback, from some other excellent speakers.  So I asked a couple friends, who I admire as speakers and colleagues, to watch a couple of my talks and give me some explicit feedback.

It turns out that they liked the idea, and we all spent a few hours watching each other talk at conferences and sending each other feedback.  It’s a little daunting, knowing that a great speaker is sitting there, watching you, looking for every single mistake you make. Saying um.  Stumbling.  Examining your slides.  Your pacing.  Your narrative.

But it’s totally worth it.  It’s a great way to get better, and to learn tricks from other pros.  I can’t recommend it highly enough.  Here’s a version of the form we used ( speaker feedback form – web), to help guide the discussion.  It does require a little courage, but we will all become better speakers by going through this exercise.  And become better friends in the process.  Win-win.