At today's session on "Step Up Your Speaking: Be an Eloquent Woman" for Washington Women in Public Relations , I fielded lots of questions--the idea was for the audience to bring their questions about public speaking, and they brought 'em. referenced some past posts on the blog during the session, so here's a handy set of links to help you explore more of what we discussed: Speaking up in meetings came up a lot today, and handling the extemporaneous parts of a meeting--the discussion or Q&A session after your presentation--was of particular concern. I I always recommend

I'm planning to ask the audience what they want to learn about public speaking at the Washington Women in Public Relations workshop I'm leading later this month. I always think it's important to plan your opening thoroughly--scripting it, even if the rest of your talk is extemporaneous, just to be sure you take advantage of the heightened attention you'll receive. But we started that conversation on Facebook, and two of the questions concerned getting started in a speech--not surprising, as this is the moment when you'll have the highest audience attention, and you'll sense the pressure.

I took the Amazon Kindle out for a test-drive in a real speaking engagement last month, when I moderated the annual media roundtable--a panel of three reporters--for Washington Women in Public Relations . While the moderation requires extemporaneous speaking, the panel introductions did require a text--and gave me a good test opportunity . Here's what I learned about what you should expect when using this new device in a live setting, from preparatory steps to actual use: Readability was excellent. I experimented before the session with the six type sizes, and found