Today Red Hat celebrated another learning day and I have dedicated it to improve my communication skills by joining two courses about public speaking.

The first one is titled Speaking Confidently and Effectively and it’s focused on the audience. First of all you should identify the target audience, and then their needs, in order to prepare a good presentation.

The second course is titled Managing Your Anxiety While Presenting and it’s more focused on the presenter. Managing anxiety before and during the presentation is key, so the course explains some tricks to manage it. These tricks can be summarized in a mantra or acronym, so that you can remember it during the presentation. Mine is BAGE (Breathe deeply, Redirect the attention of the Audience, Use broad Gestures to slow down your rate of speaking, Enjoy the present).

If you are interested in public speaking, I highly recommend both courses.