Ask HN: Any success with Toastmasters?
I'm looking into ways to get better at public speaking and have heard great things about Toastmasters. Has anyone here had success with their program as a way to prep for conferences and tech talks?
Granted, she was both highly motivated to improve and extremely talented, but after seeing the complete transformation she underwent through Toastmasters, I became a believer in Toastmasters.
I think Toastmasters is perceived by most as a conclave of dorky awkward people who like to give boring speeches in front of a captive audience. It may or may not be that, but my experience with her and others, is that it is also quite effective in imparting valuable communications skills.
I think many view boys that earn their Eagle Scout rank in the same way -- they are square, uncool, dorks, doing things that nobody cares about -- anachronisms. But, in the long run, the life skills they get are priceless.
My experience has been that that there are many technical prodigies in any industry. However, the population of technically competent people that are highly effective communicators is quite small. Being at ease when communicating in the large, or in the small, gives one a huge leg up in competing with their peers.
My personal opinion is that it would be hard to go wrong giving Toastmasters a shot.
You'll have to invest time to see results, there is no shortcut to become a better speaker. That's also the only reason I stopped, I couldn't afford to spend the time to have a reasonable improvement.
Quality of clubs varies somewhat in my experience and you have to spend some time to find a good club.
To put this into perspective: My education was in Germany and public speaking is not part of our curriculum, neither school nor university. Also debates in the form they are done in the U.S. are completely unknown here. Toastmasters really fills a gap in that respect. If you grew up in the U.S. Toastmaster (at least how it's done in Germany) might be a bit boring for you.
My company took a new approach and was making good progress with our product when the Open Software Foundation decided that industry standards in the area were needed. This posed an existential threat to our existence since no one else was doing what we were doing in our unique way. Instead of working as the software architect behind our design, I was thrust into role of software evangelist and had to speak persuasively in front of huge audiences (hundreds) and even participate in panel debates defending my designs against every imaginable critique from IBM, HP, Dec, Apollo, etc. They had deep talent, outside consultants (Carnegie Melon Univ professors, etc.), and they were all trying to take down my company.
Naturally, the most important way for a software person to be successful is to know your craft and be able to make software, but once you start to rise through the ranks you and your endeavors will greatly benefit from the ability to give a good technical presentation.
I had the good fortune of teaching a few courses in grad school and this led to an opportunity to do some internal training on new software methodologies in my first real job. I worked on doing it well, and this eventually resulted in me being sent to Sweden, England, and Germany to speak about the company's software to our own engineers and customers. All of this prepared me for what I had to do for my own company's success years later.
Suggestions for getting comfortable with public speaking: start out easy (magic shows for your nieces and nephews), avoid Power Point (at first) and learn to think on your feet in front of an audience at a white board, work with material you know, and watch videos of excellent presentations in your field from conferences (there are so many on the internet now).
My recommendation is to try out a few different clubs to find one that suits you.