The introvert is a personality type that draws energy from the outside inward. According to
standard personality testing assessments most people are introverts and no group is more
introverted than technical professionals. Introverts are congenitally programmed to recoil from
the prospect of public speaking with fear and loathing yet making presentations to expert and
non-expert audiences is an inescapable requirement for career advancement in any technical
field. Presentation coach Richard Tierney rides to the rescue of fellow introverts in the IT
and engineering sectors with The Introverted Presenter his fail-safe guide to delivering
competent presentations no matter how unsuited by nature you might be to the performing arts.
This short book lays out the complete process guaranteed to raise you from a debilitating state
of terror and aversion to a comfortable place of clarity calm and competence perhaps even
brilliance if you can train yourself to convert the free energy of your fear into controlled
performance. Tierney repeatedly warns his introvert readers that they risk presentation fiasco
if they skip skimp or change the order of any of the ten steps he prescribes for thoroughly
and efficiently preparing their presentations. The surefire sequence of steps for The
Introverted Presenter begins with defining your presentation s audience and objective. The next
step is to write the script of your speech in stages constructing it on the basis of proven
structural rules cognitive laws and dramatic tricks. Then you incrementally refine and
tighten your script by delivering it iteratively first in front of a mirror and then in front
of increasingly critical test audiences progressing from your cat to your boss. When you have
a well-constructed and sound-tested script in hand and only then you may create some slides to
graft into your script in support of your opening action call and your concluding takeaways
which you commit to memory. Your slides should be limited to the smallest number possible (even
zero) and the fewest possible words.
