Jim Guido's Blog

If you have  ever had one of those panicky moments right before you were about to address a group. Whether or not it’s two, 20 or 200 people, it’s easy to understand why people have trouble speaking in public.  Toastmasters offers 10 ways how you can control your butterflies and get more comfortable giving presentations:

1. Know your material. Pick a topic you are interested in. Know more about it than you include in your speech. Use humor, personal stories and conversational language – that way you won’t easily forget what to say.

2. Practice. Practice. Practice! Rehearse out loud with all equipment you plan on using. Revise as necessary. Work to control filler words; Practice, pause and breathe. Practice with a timer and allow time for the unexpected.

3. Know the audience. Greet some of the audience members as they arrive. It’s easier to speak to a group of friends than to strangers.

4. Know the room. Arrive early, walk around the speaking area and practice using the microphone and any visual aids.

5. Relax. Begin by addressing the audience. It buys you time and calms your nerves. Pause, smile and count to three before saying anything. (“One one-thousand, two one-thousand, three one-thousand. Pause. Begin.) Transform nervous energy into enthusiasm.

6. Visualize yourself giving your speech. Imagine yourself speaking, your voice loud, clear and confident. Visualize the audience clapping – it will boost your confidence.

7. Realize that people want you to succeed. Audiences want you to be interesting, stimulating, informative and entertaining. They’re rooting for you.

8. Don’t apologize for any nervousness or problem – the audience probably never noticed it.

9. Concentrate on the message – not the medium. Focus your attention away from your own anxieties and concentrate on your message and your audience.

10. Gain experience. Mainly, your speech should represent you — as an authority and as a person. Experience builds confidence, which is the key to effective speaking. A Toastmasters club can provide the experience you need in a safe and friendly environment.

Here are four texting tips from Twitter on how to maximize its technology and your use of SMS:

Fast Follow. Anyone in the U.S. can receive Tweets on their phone even if they haven’t signed up for Twitter. This is a simple way for people to get information they care about in real-time. For example, let’s say you want to get Tweets from New York City’s office of emergency management (@NotifyNYC). Just text ‘follow NotifyNYC’ to 40404 in the US.

Try it out the next time you see a Twitter @username at a restaurant or store, on a billboard or on TV, or if you hear one mentioned on the radio. If you want to appear in a user’s followers list or start to get followers, you’ll need to create a Twitter account. You can SMS by texting ‘signup’ to Twitter at 40404.

Fast Following without creating an account is currently available only in the U.S., but we’re working with carriers to bring it to other countries.

Set SMS alerts: From your computer, wherever you see a user on Twitter.com, you can hover over their name or avatar, and click on the phone icon that appears in the hovercard. Whenever they tweet, you’ll get it as an SMS message on your phone.

It’s just as easy to set alerts from your phone. Send ‘on [username]’ or ‘off [username]’ to 40404 in the U.S.

Tell Twitter to be quiet. Turn text messages on or off by sending ‘on’ or ‘off’ to Twitter. You can also go to our settings page if you want to turn off text message updates during a certain time period.

Keep up with the latest Tweet. If you text ‘Get [username]’, that user’s most recent Tweet will be sent to your phone, even if you don’t follow them. There are a bunch of other fun commands you can use with Twitter on your phone.

Tennis, Anyone? Do you have tennis balls just sitting around losing their bounce? Here are some creative ways to use them without ever setting foot on the court.

• Cut an X in a tennis ball and slip it over the end of an old broom handle. Rub the ball over scuff marks on your wood or hard surface floors, and voila…they’re gone…with no bending, stooping or scrubbing!
• Got a light bulb that broke off in the socket? Carefully clear away any remaining shards of glass, then gently push a tennis ball against the light socket and twist to remove the bulb’s embedded stem.
• Cut an X in a tennis ball and slip it over the head of a hammer. Now you’re less likely to ding up fragile or expensive wood.
• Cut a tennis ball in half and use one of the sides to open those stubborn jars.
• In the garage, hang a tennis ball on a string from the ceiling so that the ball touches the top left corner of your car’s windshield. Now you have a marker and know exactly how far to pull the car in every time!