1. We say about 12,000 words a day. Unless you are in solitary confinement, or in a psycho ward, you say most of those words to other people, And you do it mostly at work, often trying to convince other people to do things you feel are important.  Most of the time you open your mouth you are a kind of public speaker. Yet most of us are ignorant of how our brains process speech, what separates a convincing person from a boring one, and what brain science has to say about listening and learning. We’re all speakers and we all benefit if we improve.
2. Good public speaking drives better thinking.  Speaking, and writing, is a forcing function for your thoughts. An opinion only in your mind seems perfect, but only when you write it or explain the argument to someone else that the details and nuances you overlooked become real. To speak about something forces you to think about it more clearly, which is good for you.
3. I’ve learned more from public speaking than almost anything else I’ve done.  By traveling around the world to lecture, I’ve met more interesting people, heard more interesting opinions, and been forced to rethink more thoughts than nearly any other activity. Speaking is a forcing function for many of the good things people say they want from life: dealing with fear, understanding themselves, making connections and learning new things.
4. Ideas do not sell themselves. From Edison, to Einstein, to Steve Jobs, if you have ideas, you will be speaking about them to others to convince them of their value.  It’s an unavoidable and essential part of the job of getting your ideas to the world. If you haven’t studied presenting, you are betraying your ideas as pitching and presentations are the lens through which your ideas will be judged. The best skill creatives, entrepreneurs and inventors need to learn is how to talk about their work to people who know nothing about their work.
5. We are teaching and learning all the time.  Speaking is often the means for sharing what we know with friends, children, students or even co-workers. By getting better at speaking we amplify not only our ability to share what we know, but our capacity to help people teaching us do it effectively.
6. We learn best by making mistakes, and in the book I make many of them for you.  I found most books on public speaking really boring, since they leave all the good stuff out. Namely what goes wrong, what happens back stage or between gigs, and that’s the focus of my book. It’s a narrative driven book, largely telling the stories of things going wrong, what I learned and how I got improved.  You get the benefit of all my embarrassments.
7. Funny, inspiring, business books are rare.  I fought hard to get the word Confessions in the title, since that gave me license as a writer to be completely honest, and share the same kind of perspective I’d share if I were out to a few beers with some friends who wanted to know all the big secrets. I worked very hard to make it a fun, fast paced, provocative read – unlike many books, this is one you’re likely to finish and enjoy it all the way through. The Wall Street Journal and Slashdot among other reviews, agree with the big upsides of the choice I made.

Scott Berkun titles this blog post "Why You Need A Publlc Speaking Book." I've seen a lot of traffic on the net about his new book, Confessions of a Public Speaker and think I need to pick up a copy. I really like his emphasis on Point 2, good speaking drives better thinking, and Point 4, you speak to convince others of the value of your ideas." In Toastmasters, I think we tend to overemphasize the technical and showy aspects of speechmaking and underemphasize our argument and content.

This Forbes article suggests that introverts make better leaders by playing to their strengths, rather than fighting them--and cites a lot of speaking skills to bolster its point:

By using a "think first, talk later" approach, introverts give themselves time to ponder, while appearing measured and thoughtful; this also gives subordinates a chance to contribute and can keep leaders from making mistakes by jumping in too fast.

They ask questions and take an in-depth approach to conversations, yielding more learning and understanding.

They appear calm, usually through anticipating issues, practicing what to say, and getting themselves in the right frame of mind before communicating.

The Eloquent Woman tipped me off to another article about introverts, speaking, and leadership styles. It's easy to think of the introverted style as being a handicap, so it's nice to see a catalog of the ways that introversion can be an asset. Click through for the whole post from The Eloquent Woman and for the original article from Forbes,

In this clip, after introducing the idea that the system has suffered a heart attack, he goes on to round off the point with a 3-part list - and it's worth remembering that his PhD was in economics, not medicine (or rhetoric):

CABLE: This was an enormous shock to the system - a big economic heart attack - so it's not surprising that a lot of damage has been done ...

[1] ... we've got a patient that's in intensive care,

[2] it's been rescued from a disastrous heart attack

[3] but it still needs the monetary steroids.

Here's a British blogger who's found in an impromptu speech a brilliant metaphor that makes a complex topic vivid and immediate: the speaker forgets the complex, specialized language of economics and uses the language that most of us speak. Found via @OliviaMitchell at Twitter.

Next time you prepare your presentation,make it more personal, include a story involving you.

"It used to be that women thought they had to check their personalities at the door. But the more you need to hide, the less fulfilled you'll be. We need to bring more of ourselves into that door, into our workspace, so we feel more at home. " Charlene Li (Co-author of Groundswell, thought leader on emerging technologies)

Why Personality matters?

When people start talking about what happens to them, they become real. You can identify and you feel connected, closer. I am not speaking about disclosing your private life and secret garden, but moving from strictly professional to "more of YOU" into your professional life.

A great post from Marion Chapsal's blog. She's directed it to women speakers, but I think there's something here for all of us. Go to the whole post for some great presentations that take the argument further and show that you really can make a difference.