Ko's Twitter 'Rant' About #COH, #SaveCOH, and What the Community is Becoming...

[Arcana]

I actually used the whole BS IT thing in a presentation I gave in college once.
"I may not actually know a lot about Information Technology. But with a Bachelors of Science degree, I could BS IT as well as anyone."

Even after three and a half year of presentations, I till hate "public speaking".

I've been doing public presentations for almost twenty years now.  The truth is I get stage fright every single time.  But nowadays, its like how Johnny Rico describes a drop in Starship Troopers.  He gets the shakes when he's waiting in the pod, but once its fired from the ship the shakes stop.  If something happens on the way down, it will kill him instantly so that's not worth worrying about, and once he hits the ground his training takes over and he's fine.

I hate waiting for my turn.  Once I start talking, I'm fine.

Also, one thing I recommend to people who have to give presentations: Conference Presentation Judo.  Or for the reading-challenged: video.  Amusingly, I first starting giving serious professional presenatations back in 1996, two years before Mark Dominus claims he began.  By 2000, two years before he gave this presentation, I had figured out basically all those tricks, out of necessity.  Its interesting to me that it took me the same four to five years to learn the same things.  Makes me think that maybe we should be teaching this to people so they don't have to reinvent them.

[Zombie Man]

Also, one thing I recommend to people who have to give presentations: Conference Presentation Judo.  Or for the reading-challenged: video.

Step 1: Don't wear a too tight tank top to give a serious presentation.

[Taceus Jiwede]

I hate waiting for my turn.  Once I start talking, I'm fine.

That is the worst part the anticipation.  After you are up there a minute or two it's all gravy.  I have always used the trick for performing at least, to find someone I know in the audience and play to them.  Just look like you are doing it for everyone.

Step 1: Don't wear a too tight tank top to give a serious presentation.

I dunno, I get great results when I do this.  At least they said they were laughing with me.......

[Segev]

When giving presentations - which happened a lot in the last few years of college - I always tried to be the first one to speak. If I do well, I'm golden. People will remember a strong start to the presentations, and I might even get some kudos for being so well-prepared. It being seen as the "more responsible" thing to be ready sooner (and so many pushing for the end spot) only helps me further.

If I don't do so well, I have the excuse of having less time to polish than the guys who come later. By the time the presentations are done, too, everyone is likely to have forgotten my lackluster performance.

Either way, it's over with. While I don't hate speaking in public, it's nice to be able to sit back, relax, and watch the others without having preparation running around the back of my mind the whole time.


This rule changes if you're competing with the other speaker(s) for the approbation of the audience. In that case, try to go last. Not only will this give you the opportunity, if it's an open speaking session, to hear what the other guy(s) say and tailor your talk to redress anything that you think is a weakness of theirs or that you're not strong against with the current format, but more importantly, the last speaker is the one everybody remembers most while they're making their decision.

[JaguarX]

I've been doing public presentations for almost twenty years now.  The truth is I get stage fright every single time.  But nowadays, its like how Johnny Rico describes a drop in Starship Troopers.  He gets the shakes when he's waiting in the pod, but once its fired from the ship the shakes stop.  If something happens on the way down, it will kill him instantly so that's not worth worrying about, and once he hits the ground his training takes over and he's fine.

I hate waiting for my turn.  Once I start talking, I'm fine.

Also, one thing I recommend to people who have to give presentations: Conference Presentation Judo.  Or for the reading-challenged: video.  Amusingly, I first starting giving serious professional presenatations back in 1996, two years before Mark Dominus claims he began.  By 2000, two years before he gave this presentation, I had figured out basically all those tricks, out of necessity.  Its interesting to me that it took me the same four to five years to learn the same things.  Makes me think that maybe we should be teaching this to people so they don't have to reinvent them.

Been doing public presentations for about tens years sometimes on the driest subjects and having to find out how to ensure the class stays interested and not dying of bordem. At first and prior to getting into this job field, I despised public speaking, and even hated cameras and even hated just merely hearing recordings of my voice (hence only a dozen pics of me in existance and never messages on voice mail or back in the day answerign machines.) Eventually I kept at it and realized, I'm the subject matter expert, I know the stuff and all I'm doing is presenting the info there that was provided somewhere. Now it dont matter and there have been times where I had to give hour long presentations on something as mundane as summer safety at the drop of a moment. Especially when the original presenter gets stage fright and too unerved to go on.

My method rules now.
1) never practice the day of. Bad juju. Puts my mind on worying more about what I know what I forgot wha tI overlooked etc.
2) Never see the audience see you sweat. Even if you make a mistake, keep rolling.
3) Know the target audience. No point in going in the structure of water molecules and the gritty of how these H2O moecules hydrates to a bunch of Infranty soldiers there just wanting to know how to keep their water drinkable.
4)KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE!!!
5) Always be prepared.
6) Make the subject relate to the audience. Nothing kills interest faster than droning on about a subject that the audience dont see how it applies or affects them.
7) Dont think about the task too hard, just do it.
8)Time management. Stick to the schedule, dont go over more than five and dont cut short more than five.
9) Answer the questions and dont be afraid to say I dont know if ya dont know it.
10) Dont say I dont know too often or else you'll look like a pogue.



Lot of times I end up on schedule last as it seems that apparently people hate going after me. Go figure.

[Arcana]

When giving presentations - which happened a lot in the last few years of college - I always tried to be the first one to speak. If I do well, I'm golden. People will remember a strong start to the presentations, and I might even get some kudos for being so well-prepared. It being seen as the "more responsible" thing to be ready sooner (and so many pushing for the end spot) only helps me further.

If I don't do so well, I have the excuse of having less time to polish than the guys who come later. By the time the presentations are done, too, everyone is likely to have forgotten my lackluster performance.

Either way, it's over with. While I don't hate speaking in public, it's nice to be able to sit back, relax, and watch the others without having preparation running around the back of my mind the whole time.


This rule changes if you're competing with the other speaker(s) for the approbation of the audience. In that case, try to go last. Not only will this give you the opportunity, if it's an open speaking session, to hear what the other guy(s) say and tailor your talk to redress anything that you think is a weakness of theirs or that you're not strong against with the current format, but more importantly, the last speaker is the one everybody remembers most while they're making their decision.

My favorite slot: just before lunch.  I can listen to the previous speakers and adjust my presentation to play off of them on the fly: people end up remembering what I said about what they said more than they remember what they said.  Its attention-theft, and I have no problem being a presentation ninja.  And I've found its better than last slot of the day because people are tired at the end of the day.  Some even sneak out and leave before the end.

My least favorite slot: just after lunch.  Zzzzzzzz...............  Unless you have a brass band or strippers (or both), you might as well talk about your favorite scene in Return of the Jedi.  No one will care what you have to say even if you're giving away the cure for cancer in your slides.  Unfortunately, I get this slot a lot, because people think I deal with it better than others.  Once I actually started a presentation with a picture of the Barbarian Brothers and ended with a picture of a bunch of bananas and the topic was firewall content inspection.  To this day everyone remembers the slides, and no one remembers what the topic original was.

Of course, if you want to move up to the pros, nothing beats the speaking slot *during* lunch.

[Arcana]

My method rules now.

I have a ton of rules, but my top recommended rules are:

1.  Always practice what you're going to say out loud.  Practice in your head is worthless.  Your ears must hear what you are trying to say.

2.  Never deliver a presentation by rote.  Practice is to give you a safety net so you have something to say.  Speak what you think, not what you've written.

3.  Slides are for augmentation.  If you can't deliver your presentation without them, your presentation is broken.

4.  Never do worthless things just because you think you need to.  Classic example: "I don't know if you guys can read this slide, but down here it says..."  Having a slide no one can read is a classic example of someone doing something because they think they are supposed to (have a slide with a ton of text on it) that is worthless.  If it doesn't help deliver the presentation, lose it.  If you want to give the audience a ton of text, send them a book after.

5.  Be yourself.  Unless you're an actor, in which case by definition being yourself means you like to pretend to be other people.  If you're not, trying to be more serious, more funny, more interesting, more anything than you really are is going to look stupid.  It never works.


I have a hundred little rules.  Rules like "always prime the audience to care."  In other words, never explain something and then explain why that is interesting (unless you have a really good reason).  Instead, set up a problem or situation that everyone understands, and then explain your thing as a solution to that problem.  Then you don't have to explain why the thing you just spent several minutes talking about is something the audience should care about.  Make them want to care first, then explain second.  Don't explain first, then explain why they want to care second, unless you are really good at telling ghost stories or murder mysteries.

[eabrace]

Unless you have a brass band or strippers (or both),

I'd bring my lunch with me and get there early just to get a good seat.

[Taceus Jiwede]

Ahhh!! You beat me to it Earbrace!!!!!

[Twisted Toon]

I have a ton of rules, but my top recommended rules are:

1.  Always practice what you're going to say out loud.  Practice in your head is worthless.  Your ears must hear what you are trying to say.

2.  Never deliver a presentation by rote.  Practice is to give you a safety net so you have something to say.  Speak what you think, not what you've written.

I rarely actually practice giving a presentation. But, having written the paper, reviewed the paper, and put the power point together, I know the material that I'm going to be presenting. I have never read my presentation to the class either. I find that if I "prepare" too much before hand, I tend to screw up more.

3.  Slides are for augmentation.  If you can't deliver your presentation without them, your presentation is broken.

4.  Never do worthless things just because you think you need to.  Classic example: "I don't know if you guys can read this slide, but down here it says..."  Having a slide no one can read is a classic example of someone doing something because they think they are supposed to (have a slide with a ton of text on it) that is worthless.  If it doesn't help deliver the presentation, lose it.  If you want to give the audience a ton of text, send them a book after.

I wholeheartedly agree. Slides are there to get the bullet point into view, not the entire presentation. If I use a graphic background for the slides, they usually will have something to do with the subject matter, and are unobtrusive. I want the text to be what catches the eye. But, plain text on a white background is boring. Learned that from my Comm 101 instructor. 

5.  Be yourself.  Unless you're an actor, in which case by definition being yourself means you like to pretend to be other people.  If you're not, trying to be more serious, more funny, more interesting, more anything than you really are is going to look stupid.  It never works.

In my case, I act like a guy who isn't all that uncomfortable giving presentations. It seems to work well for me. 
Actually, I should rephrase that to, "I play the role of a guy who is comfortable giving presentations".
It's just an offshoot of Role-playing games. What would Jimmy the presenter do in this situation?
What would Kalidor, Warrior-Priest of Peoni, do in that situation?
What would Torven say if he was caught stealing a ruby from a wizards shop? (Answer: The ruby was just laying there. ok? <--- that actually happened.)

I have way too many voices in my head. 

I don't think I'd make it as an actor though. I value my privacy too much.

Fortunately for me, none of my jobs have required me to do any speechifying.

[Electric-Knight]

I could care less about CoH being shut down.

[Electric-Knight]

I've been doing public presentations for almost twenty years now.  The truth is I get stage fright every single time.  But nowadays, its like how Johnny Rico describes a drop in Starship Troopers.  He gets the shakes when he's waiting in the pod, but once its fired from the ship the shakes stop.  If something happens on the way down, it will kill him instantly so that's not worth worrying about, and once he hits the ground his training takes over and he's fine.

I hate waiting for my turn.  Once I start talking, I'm fine.

I've been performing on stages for most of my life and I'm the same.
I find the nerves and anxiety, in general, fascinating.
I always feel as though I get the jitters pre-show because of how much I care. If I wasn't feeling them, I'd begin to worry about that.

And, I agree so much, absolutely, about being prepared.

This is taking it somewhat farther and is much more about the performance aspect... but practicing for perfection and then absolutely letting go in performance is a huge aspect for myself.
I thought that the movie Black Swan portrayed this beautifully.

Anyway... yeah, I somewhat recently was launching a brand new musical project that was extremely near and dear to me (it was material I'd been longing to perform and expose to people for so long and struggled so hard to get to that point). And when the first really big show (not with Ed Sullivan, sadly) came up, I was more nervous than I normally get before a show (and that is somewhat scary).
However, as always, as soon as I hit the stage, got my equipment ready and looked out there... all nerves were gone and I was alive.

Okay, I'm gettin' carried away now... that feeling of performing on stage is the most intoxicating (and purifying) experience for me.
!!!

[Cobra Man]

I couldn't care less about CoH being shut down.

Fixed that for you

[Twisted Toon]

Fixed that for you

I think he had said it correctly. He could actually care less, which means that he actually cared that CoH was shut down.

[Arcana]

I could care less about CoH being shut down.

I could care a whole lot less.

[Cobra Man]

I think he had said it correctly. He could actually care less, which means that he actually cared that CoH was shut down.

It's an inside joke TT - at my expense I hasten to add, although I'm having a chuckle at it

[antarcticaa]

One of these days I'm actually going to pick up that bass guitar I have sitting in my basement and learn how to play it.  Reading and playing music I can do just fine, but it's a matter of the mechanics of getting fingers to do what they need to do to get the right notes.

Pick that bass up!  It's so much fun.  Just learn the notes on the neck and if you know chords from playing guitar you'll be playing sooo quickly.  Takes time to get those fills and runs but it's so worth it.  I'm a chick bassist in a praise band, a really good one, and bassists simply not only provide that much needed bottom line and rhythm, we secretly control the group.  Yes, don't tell the lead guitarist or vocalist, but when they start off too slow it's bass woman to the rescue, bringing that tempo up.  (One of these days I want to get the t-shirt that says "Yes. I'm a woman.  Yes, I play bass.  Any questions?")

Best thing about the bass?  I only have to tune 4 strings, compared to my hammered dulcimer, which has 88!

[Twisted Toon]

It's an inside joke TT - at my expense I hasten to add, although I'm having a chuckle at it

Hard to tell with a text based medium. 

[Illusionss]

First day of Speech class, they told us: rehearse your speech. It's a lot longer than you think it is, so time yourself and run through it, then make adjust ments etc.

This was good advice, and allowed me to actually give a five minute speech when the instructor was asking for a 5 minute speech.

NO ONE ELSE did this. So, instead of a five minute speech, they gave twenty+ minute speeches and HAHAHAHA. And did they learn by doing this once, and then thinking "Dang, that could have been a lot shorter!"? No, all semester and in every other class I had to speak in, I saw the same prolongation of agony by people who simply refused to rehearse. Oh well! lol....

[Arcana]

First day of Speech class, they told us: rehearse your speech. It's a lot longer than you think it is, so time yourself and run through it, then make adjust ments etc.

This was good advice, and allowed me to actually give a five minute speech when the instructor was asking for a 5 minute speech.

NO ONE ELSE did this. So, instead of a five minute speech, they gave twenty+ minute speeches and HAHAHAHA. And did they learn by doing this once, and then thinking "Dang, that could have been a lot shorter!"? No, all semester and in every other class I had to speak in, I saw the same prolongation of agony by people who simply refused to rehearse. Oh well! lol....

People stubbornly, almost religiously believe that if they basically think about their speech in their heads that's good enough.

There is a fundamental difference between thinking it and hearing it, even when its your own speech.  You see this all the time in many arenas.  People will describe a problem to you and then immediately figure out the answer.  Thinking about it failed, but just the act of speaking the problem aloud engaged a completely different part of their brains - the part related to communication rather than musing, and more importantly both the part related to speaking and the part related to listening.  Research pretty conclusively states that our brains are not as integrated as we think they are: consciousness itself is a deception on the part of the parts of the brain.  People with certain brain injuries, particularly to the corpus callosum, often show clear evidence that personality and cognitive traits are localized.  What we hear is processed differently than what we speak and what we think.

Auditory rehearsal engages thinking, speaking, and listening simultaneously.  Its using more of the brain to process your presentation.  We learn from an early age to be critical of the information we hear.  We are less critical of the information we think.  When we think a presentation, its like singing a song in your head: you always sound fantastic.  But when we speak it out loud to ourselves, the critical part of the brain we normally use to dissect what other people tell us is turned loose on our own speech.  It can often find errors, mistakes, omissions, and just plain goofiness in our presentations our internal thoughts can't.  We only know what it will sound like if we listen to it: there is no way to simulate that with internal thought short of years of practice, and even then.

I would bet deaf people encounter a similar situation between thinking a thought and signing a thought in front of a mirror or in their field of vision.  The part of their brain normally looking for "gotchas" when other people communicate with them has a better chance finding mistakes in their own signing than their own internal thinking, because that's where they have the most practice at it.