Public speaking and ‘Lampenfieber’

The German word "Lampenfieber" (English: spotlight fever) refers to the feeling of anxiety, nervousness, excitement, or a combination of the three before going on stage. Delivering a public talk, and addressing a bigger audience is not everybody's cup of tea. Me personally, I was more of an introverted techie in the early days of my career, but over time I learned to embrace public speaking as part of the job. You know, sort of?

"If you cannot get out of it, get into it!"?

During my time as cloud platform evangelist SAP I had the privilege to deliver multiple keynotes at developer conferences, but there's one that sticks out for me. It was the annual developer kick-off meeting (DKOM) of SAP, in a sports arena close to the headquarters early in 2018.

About 10 weeks earlier my manager had asked me if I'd present the platform on behalf of the team at the event. I had done it multiple times in the past, so I said yes - not knowing that the format had changed and that I just signed up for a 30-minute keynote slot at the main stage facing 7000+ of my colleagues!?

In general, European and German crowds are tougher than others. And your very own colleagues may be the toughest crowd of them all. Why? Half of them work on something completely different and have little knowledge of the topic, the other half works on the product and knows it inside out. So, what to present and how to make it relevant, interesting, or even valuable to both sides??

"Everything, but boring"?became my mantra, and over the holiday season, I assembled a short presentation featuring retro gaming titles like Super Mario Brothers, Pac-Man, and others. We even animated some of these slides, and I got some amazing graphics support from a great agency.?

Still, it was ~7000 people and a 25m (80 feet) wide stage. I recall Holger Mueller and me chatting backstage. And then they call out your name, and you step onto that stage. Was I nervous? You bet! Most people would be.

So, I decided to acknowledge it, embrace it, and use it to my advantage.

I walked on stage saying:

"Wow! Not sure if it shows, but I'm super excited to be here today and talk to all of you. Not only, because this is a ... frickin' big stage, .... but also because I get to talk about the most exciting thing there is @ SAP - the cloud platform."?

I was very lucky to have teamed up with our mobile dev lead Sami Lechner who delivered an infotaining IoT product demo with a cow on stage to start things off. Then I presented an overview of the platform, new additions, and milestones. I called out the different development teams by their self-assigned project names, not their official product team names when presenting their work and contributions to the platform.?

After all, I was representing the whole platform crew and they deserve all the credits. Time flew by and just when I started to feel somewhat comfortable it was already over. It was an amazing experience and I would not want to miss it. There may also have been some rick-rolling in the hand-out.?

So, for anyone facing 'Lampenfieber' or thinking about signing up for a public presentation. Do it. Know your audience, know your subject, do 2-3 rehearsals, and you're set. Remember that you know more about the topic than the average person in the room. Embrace it. Get into it!

?#publicspeaking #dkom #sap #cloud #platform

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