Public speaking, a tip

I had the opportunity to speak at a graduation ceremony for Belhaven University in Houston Texas last night. As I prepared for the presentation I put together my thoughts in a wordprocessing document. I tweaked it and refined my presentation, adding thoughts and inserting facts and stories until I felt it was truly going to be a message that would communicate to the graduating seniors. (Yes I know that no one remembers these speeches but still felt a responsibility to do my best.)

I have presented in many venues in the past, having been a pastor, so speaking in front of an audience was not going to be the major concern, but I did want to be able to use a manuscript and still have a degree of freedom in communicating with the audience. In the past, when I've worked from a manuscript, I have sounded a little wooden; I wanted to avoid that if at all possible. As I woke up one morning I had a serendipitous thought: what about using a Teleprompter app on my iPad to solve the stiffness in presenting from a manuscript?  I quickly researched what was available on the iTunes store and found several possible apps that would work. I read the reviews and settled on PromptSmart. It was a paid app but it allowed me to import my document from a variety of sources and the ability to edit the document within the Teleprompter app itself.  It even had a voice recognition option.

The app installed easily and uploading my manuscript was smooth.  Initially, because I was a little paranoid, I sat the app for the scrolling mode based on how fast a person generally speaks. I tested that several times, tweaking the text and then adjusting the timing to fit my particular style of presentation. Editing the text was easy, as was adjusting the font and font size.  The auto scrolling worked well but I was still concerned because if I didn't pause it when/if I deviated from the manuscript, as I often do, it would continue to scroll no matter what. Then I had a thought,why not try the option within the app that allowed it to recognize my voice and advance the text based off of voice recognition? So I tried it. It worked great!! I tested it several times to make sure everything would go smoothly, making more adjustments to the text as I went over the material, again very easily done.

Now it was time to make the graduation speech to those gathered for the graduation.  I have to say I was a little nervous about relying on this technology, but PromptSmart performed well above my expectations.  Because it was recognizing my speech I was able to deviate from the script and it just waited patiently for me to get back to where I was in the prepared manuscript.  I could pause as long as I wanted to, I could add phrases or thoughts without any problem, and then come right back into the manuscript right where I left off without any problems.

This really is a great tool for anyone who does public speaking; this would work for pastors who preach from manuscripts, this would work for anyone giving a speech in the classroom or anyone who is giving a prepared speech in any arena.  I know there are other app options available, both in iTunes and on Google Play.  I strongly recommend that you consider downloading and giving a teleprompter app a try. I think you'll be impressed. I know I was.