We had about 500 people in the webcast today about the new book, Confessions of a Public Speaker – as promised here are all of the questions asked in the chat room during the talk, with answers and some snarky commentary.

Slides from the talk here (3MB PDF). Actual webcast here (youtube).

Here are all the questions I pulled from the chat room transcript.

Q: When you started out, did you enjoy speaking in public?

A: Definitely No. Don’t know many who would say yes. I did it because I had ideas, and worked as a leader on projects, and speaking was essential to helping those ideas and projects survive. I started to enjoy it only once I realized how much I sucked at it – then I worked to get better at it, and learned how little it took to do better than most people, and to find the challenge of it interesting. As I said in the webcast, and the book, the bar is quite low. Most people are really bad at doing this. Putting effort in shows easily.

Q: (Mary Treseler) what is your next book about?

A: That’s easy, how not to answer questions from your editor while doing a webcast 🙂

Q: Do you think there are big differences between face to face public speaking and online public speaking (like today’s)?

A: The core things of rhythm, being interesting, and practice are the same.