Feeling of speaking

A look at what it feels like to be on the other side of the stage at a web conference.

I work for a large successful web design agency helping make decisions about what work we take on and how we do it, all in the name of quality.

A perk of my job is the opportunity to go to web conferences. I get a lot out of going to a conference. I usually feel inspired and motivated to bring back changes and new ideas. I always meet at least one very interesting talented person, who enriches my professional life in some way.

The experience of being on the other side of the stage is something that I never really thought about; how these speakers feel talking to hundreds of people, how they prepare, what is going through their minds before, during and after their talk.

Until recently.

On the 3rd of May this year I sent an email. A few weeks later I received the reply:

Hi Ollie,

Great proposal. You are confirmed as an Elevator Pitch speaker at Reasons to be Creative.

Cheers,

John

Confirmed to be joining 19 other “elevator pitchers” to speak in front of 900+ people about something. Anything. As long as it’s inspiring and motivating.

This was Reasons to be Creative 2013 — http://reasons.to/

This was big.

This was fantastic to me. I've done a few speaking events before, which have been relatively small scale, but this was different. This was big. It was time to look at what I had just got myself into.

The elevator pitches are delivered by 20 new up and coming speakers. It’s an amazing opportunity to experience speaking on a large scale.

Each person gets three minutes to do their talk. Not roughly three minutes; not three minutes but if you go over don’t worry; three minutes. Dead on.

The person on after you is being set up whilst you speak. During your talk, you get a 10 second warning of your time running out. This signals the next speaker to make their way towards the stage. At 3 minutes exactly your microphone and your slides are turned off, and the next person starts.

So you have no choice. If you go over three minutes, you lose the time.

…how naive…

There were four rehearsals leading up to the day. I could only make three, but even still, my gut reaction was that three rehearsals was overkill, and really not needed.

Oh how naive I was.

Each pitcher had to do 3 things:

1 — Keep quiet backstage

2 — Talk for no more than 3 minutes

3 — Unplug and carry your laptop off the stage when you are done.

But the tech crew had ten times more things to get right on the day.

The rehearsals were for us to get used to speaking at the venue, and get our talks to three minutes. But they were far more important in making sure each speaker could get out and back again; that everyone’s machine was set up correctly; that microphones worked; that lighting was good; and far more behind the scenes.

The team organised it all with almost military precision, and brilliantly.

Mild panic…

My first rehearsal showed me my talk was too long. No problem I thought, I`ll just speed up a little bit. That night I tweaked, removed slides, changed prompts, practiced in the hotel, and all was good.

Second rehearsal, and it was still way over. Mild panic started to set in. We were doing the real thing the next day, and had only one more rehearsal.

Another night of tweaking, and that was it. No more time to make changes.

Wednesday morning and we had our final rehearsal. I was eighteenth in the line up and hearing the brilliant job everyone else was doing of coming in at three minutes was making me a little nervous.

My turn at the last rehearsal, and it went perfectly. All I had to do for the real thing was — exactly the same.

Half an hour later, and this was it. The room was full. The lights were on, and the first speaker was introduced to a lively applause.

My hands were sweating…

My heart started to beat a little harder. I had 54 minutes to wait until I was on. That was a long 54 minutes.

We were all sat backstage on plastic chairs, in the dark, in a row in numerical order, following rule 1 to the letter — keep quiet backstage.

My hands were sweating. I checked my laptop and slides about 700 times. I ran over my talk in my head again and again, sipped water, checked my display connector, made sure my phone was off, made sure my pockets were empty, checked my slides again, ran over my talk again… I had that horrible feeling that something would go wrong.

…the last conscious decision I made.

53 minutes and 50 seconds later, I was stood at the side of the stage, watching the end of a talk about a 3d printed model of Han Solo trapped in Carbonite. I was proper nervous now. Heart was beating, mouth was dry, and hands were sweatier than ever.

Then the signal. I was on.

I walked up to my machine, looked out at the crowd, and introduced myself.

I think that was the last conscious decision I made. The rest of the talk seemed to flow as if it had been a recording, out of my direct control. Those rehearsals had clearly worked.

I couldn’t actually see many of the audience, as the lights shining down on the stage were so bright. I felt like I was talking to no-one.

Maybe if I could have seen 900+ faces staring at me things wouldn't have gone as smoothly.

Nothing went wrong.

I managed to get a couple of laughs which was reassuring, and got my talk pretty much dead on the three minute mark.

…just 180 seconds…

A round of applause roared as adrenaline carried me back to my allocated seat backstage with a smile on my face.

It was three minutes; just 180 seconds. But it was a massive personal challenge, and achievement.

The whole process of applying, of thinking up something I wanted to talk about, of getting the content ready, making the slides, practicing, editing, travelling to the venue, rehearsing, seeing how the professionals do it, meeting some very clever people, the feeling it was all a dream, the trying to control nerves, feeling scared, being immensely proud, the tiredness, the motivation to do well, the sense of achievement…

…is what it felt like to me being on the other side of the stage. And I cannot wait to do it again.