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Comment by wallflower | Hacker News Reader

If you truly want to practice your public speaking skills, one of the best ways to practice is to go to a non-technical public forum with an audience (a public lecture with Q&A - NOT a local government meeting) and try to say something (it helps if you have passion/conviction on what you are saying) in a concise yet convincing matter.

Toastmasters also rocks. I got my CTM years ago - advice is to find a club that is not affiliated with your workplace or anyone you really know (more freedom to fail without feeling self conscious)

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Oh God, please no. I mean, if you genuinely have something to relevant to contribute or share, then by all means. But please don't take up our time just so you can practice. There are better ways (Toastmasters, for instance) and we are trying to get stuff done in somewhat limited time.

Agreed, check out Toastmasters. They have schedules built around working 9-5ers and you'll get better feedback than public officials could possibly offer.

No need to waste anyone's time on the public dime so you can practice talking to people.

I applaud you for being involved in your local government. Editing the parent comment now.

The only things I ever care about tend to be complex issues that are very difficult to distill into concise terms without significant consideration. But then again it has been suggested somewhere on here before that actually talking lots (i.e. not being concise) is not such a bad thing when speaking because it keeps the listener engaged. Keeping the listener engaged here means, more precisely: preventing them from being distracted from the point you are making by hijacking their thoughts for a little while longer. Inversely, if you are concise in speech you run the risk of being overlooked like a joke that doesn’t have time to land. That happens to me a lot.

I'm pretty sure this is brilliant. Not 100% sure...but pretty sure.

I believe question askers have OK public speaking skills. Most just lack an awareness and respect for the audience around them.

I think awareness and respect for the fellow members of the audience are one part of public speaking skills.

One problem with toastmasters: sometimes you have to sit through nearly two hours of agonizingly bad speeches (either in content or delivery).

I decided it's not for me.

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