I was prepared. I was confident. I wasn’t particularly nervous. I boarded that train and made way across London, the Teenage Cancer Trust offices where I donned my suit, to the location of the eyeforpharma Mobile Strategies 2011.

The crowd was a fair size, maybe 150 people, and the seat were arranged around tables in a very informal manner. Quite relaxed I was. Then I watched a couple of talks mostly presenting the uptake of mobile internet devices. Some do’s and don’ts — but all very much from a marketing perspective. And everything that was presented I was fully aware of, indeed, it was one of those situation where I could have expanded on those talks. That wouldn’t have been appropriate of course, they weren’t my talks, and besides, the presentations were at that level since that was the level the audience were prepared for.

What struck me as odd about this is that the people presenting were from companies that had a intent to sell their services to the audience members. An informative sales pitch. I guess that’s how it works in big business. I’m not judging it, I’m just observing it.

Then it was my turn to speak. I’d learnt to talk off by heart as per the tips I previously blogged about. But it didn’t go exactly as planned. It wasn’t bad by any means, but I ended up reading it out. They very thing I had intended to not do.

Why?

Because it was there. It was all there in front of me. I couldn’t not look at it, and by looking at it I read it out word for word. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t natural. It was a reading from an article I wrote.

By the way, the talk was about my experiences of technology through cancer. My experience of those times can still be seen here.

What went wrong?

The texts was too literal. Literally written on that page word for word. I should have had a list of points I wanted to cover. Then gone through each in turn repeating, from practice, the story I had to emphasise those points.

It would have been more natural. And likely it would have made more of an impact since I would have been speaking with the crowd rather than at them.

What went right?

How I felt, in myself, went right. I expected to be so much more nervous than I was. Public speaking is a fear. I overcame the fear by being prepared and confident in the message I had to deliver.

Although I have these criticisms, overall, I’m happy with how it went. It was a great experience and I’ve really learnt a lot from it. To the point that I hope I get another invite so I can make the necessary improvements.

In the mean time there are plenty of local tech groups and gatherings to practice at.