Tuesday Tips - Preparing to talk.

Hello so welcome to my second Tuesday Tips. How to prepare to talk about your work.

Have you ever been asked to talk about your work?

Dose the thought of talking about your work to a room of strangers terrify you. Like most creatives out there we are happy to show our work to the world but showing the person behind the work can feel a bit scary. Most of us spend huge amount of time working alone. So talking to a room full of strangers can be daunting. Maybe some of you comfortable with this stituation.

I was asked to take part in a Pecha Kucha night. The idea comes from Japan. Find out more on their website. http://www.pechakucha.org/

Basically you tell your story 20 slides in 20 seconds per slide.

My top tips

1. Brainstorm on paper all your ideas. I realised my common thread to my story was about my work was travel. How my creative work took me places around the world.

2. Think of a good tile for your story.  Mine was "Journey to the forest" as I currently live near a forest in Sweden. A huge contrast to the urban living I have experienced in my life so far.

3. Organise your images make great slides that people will enjoy looking at for 20 seconds. Don't use to much text as this distracts people listening to your dialogue.

4. I found headings for each slide and paragraph helpful as prompts throughout my talk. I had this on printed out on paper as a guide.

5: Set the timer for 20 seconds and read out aloud your text. Keeping it simple and not to wordy

6.Practice practice practice...

7. When talking don't panic. If your too quick just pause look at your slide.  If you forget something just carry on and use humour it helps. Remember no one is here to judge you. There here to have a great time so have a great time too.

Image from @muffalmhult

For me this was a really big deal to do this. I felt great afterwards pushing myself to take part. It was also good to pause think about all the things I have managed to do with my creative work. Sometimes a creatives we focus  on making more and more work and don't stop to pause and reflect on our achievements.

I hope there are some useful tips here.