I recently had the chance to sit down in a small setting with Josh Constine, to learn about how to be a better public speaker and better moderator. I wrote notes voraciously, and wanted to share them with you:

• you sound slower than you think when you’re speaking, but still try to speak a bit slower

  • the slower you speak, the less filler words you use
  • you sound more dignified
  • your brain can keep up with the words you’re saying

• use dynamic tone

  • emphasize words that matter
  • take pauses at end of sentences

• “finish your sentence” - make sure you come to the end of your sentence

• ask questions with a finite ending

  • keeps speaker on edge

  • put the context at the start of the question

    | “Web3 is growing big… how do you get speaking gigs?”

    instead of

    | “how do you get speaking gigs? now that web3 is blowing up, there are more opportunities to find talks”

• never answer for your panelist - if they don’t answer right away, let them have the time / give them the space to think

  • it’s not on you as the moderator, to rescue the speaker

• as a speaker, keep the answer hard and specific to the question

  • do not dilute the speaker’s question
  • formulating good answers take time

• small gestures on stage are actually really distracting → try and stay motionless

  • a little bit of gesture / posture change as a moderator is ok, but fidgeting is really noticeable

• when you ask tough questions, be sure to ask in an empathetic tone

  • helps break down walls

• as a panelist, have 3 points you want to keep going back to

  • prepare beforehand of what these three points will be - have a strategy
  • if you don’t know the answer to a question asked, you can lead back to these 3 points
  • 3 points is easy for an audience to remember

• if you’re being interviewed - prepare the interviewer with points you want to talk about

  • helps shape the direction of the conversation

• if you need a prompt / interview helper, do not use your phone

  • better to have an analog prompt (piece of paper, notebook, index card, etc) to help with answering question

| 💡 interviewer pro-tip - read the last few tweets of the person you’re interviewing! It will help you be relatable, also might be able to tie into the talk

• listen to previous works / talks of the interviewee → you can tie it into your questioning, and allows for deeper conversations / questions
  • It doesn’t have to be the whole thing, just a small snippet
• pre-write your jokes, even if they’re not funny
  • the audience will relax because bad jokes are still good jokes
• prep calls are counter productive
  • vibe doesn’t carry over to the interview
  • audience wasn’t there, so if you refer to something from the prep call, audience wont understand the context
  • email threads »» phone calls
• recommendation: have 2-3x more questions than needed
  • you will have flexibility and no stress of filling the time
  • have list of questions ordered by themes
    • allows for organic flow of conversation
• don’t give exact questions to speakers beforehand because they’ll write canned / PR friendly answers
  • instead give topics and subtopics you expect to touch on
• you can get people to talk about “thorny” or hard topics by asking them three times
• feel free to use “critics have said ____ how do you respond” or “people on twitter have said _____, what do you think?” to ask hard/edgy questions
• always know your next questions → no dead time on stage as the interviewer
• if you have a large number of speakers

  • start lightening round of questions to get speakers talking / riff

    • this also hooks in the listeners / audience

    | “Give a quick 10 second intro and then answer what’s your favorite DAO right now?”

  • later you can ask to share a little bit more about their background and to answer a question at the same time

  • personal and biographical questions help audience relate

• get to the meat and potatoes of the talk in the beginning of the talk to be sure to give enough time for deep conversations and answers
• don’t be afraid to shut down long winded speakers
  • this is your duty as a moderator to the audience
  • redirect to another person if they’re talking too much or back to a topic if they’re off topic
• end panels with something future facing - “what’s next?”
• do recaps - Josh likes to do recaps at the ends of talks
  • takes notes mid talk quickly (using analog means) to do recap for later
  • helps keep audience’s memory fresh of what was covered
  • very impressive skill to speaker bookers
  • moderator or speaker, you should do this
    • josh literally will do this as a speaker by grabbing the mic and announcing things to recap
• a good question ordering as a moderator
  1. speed round
  2. personal/autobiographical question
  3. tactical question
  4. challenging question if needed
  5. future looking question
  6. recap
• twitter spaces - talks do better with closed speaker loops and then allowing external listeners to ask questions
• breaking open shy speakers by giving them an easy question to start with

Q and A: 🔗

• it took Josh 4 years to start getting paid

  • how bad do they need you?
  • as a reminder, you have a lot more leverage last minute for getting paid
  • typically you want them to throw out the first number

• looking for gigs → you can probably get paid if a conference has paid tickets and sponsorships

• find your core piece of credibility - “i made this and that’s why you want me to speak”

  • assemble your references / sources and have them easily available for people to find

• the hardest speakers to find right now are keynote speakers

  • find a topic you care about and turn it into a 20 minute presentation
  • conferences want keynote speakers

• when do you feel like you have mastery / competency to talk publicly about a subject?

  | 💪 “Fake it till you make it”

• how to get competency about a subject to publicly speak about it, quickly

  • get an advisor network to give advice, future insights, and to ask what are the current heated topics / debates in the field
    • get experts to tell you their insights
    • read a few blog posts
  • formulate a new opinion after absorbing all this information

• good keynotes have stats, lenses, and insights about a topic

It was a really engaging discussion, and I’m excited to share these notes with you. Thank you Josh for taking time out of your busy schedule to talk to us!

Bonus Video 🔗

Me cheering for you when you get your first public speaking gig. I’m proud of you!