Team,I'm looking for suggestions for courses in public speaking. Why? Because I am cr@p at it.

There are many public speaking courses and associations ( e.g. toastmasters), and even more books on the topic.Your best bet would be to simply practice ( and toastmasters allows this practice), but what you really need to do is dream- visualise that you are presenting successfully. If you can see it, you can do it.

Pete,Without a doubt you'll find a lot of public speaking courses with Google. The only thing that really works: doing it. When I was in my early 20s I was shy and crap at public speaking. During the start of my career I did have 2 public speaking courses. But the only part that actually worked for me, was giving speeches and presentations in front of the group. It even helped a lot more doing it 'for real' at work. At the end of my 20s my ego grew out of control and I got overconfident (which will show as arrogance in presentations and speeches). You'll get better at speaking the more you do it...just not by a courses but by doing it (and experience in life/work).Cheers,http://dutchconsultant.baywords.com

PeteIn the absence of any real detail, I would suggest the following:- get yourself on a basic 2/3 day "effective presentation" course. If you can't get sponsorship, you can probably get something cheap / free from your local authority. Make sure the course uses video with feedback from someone who knows what they're talking about.- accept the feedback and do some more presentations etc, trying to obtain more feedback as you go along.- get a coach if you need all this done asap.Good luck

A friend suggested that a short course on stand up comedy is very effective in curing any fear of public speaking.Or join one of Neil Struass's PUA camps!+ you get to learn another valuable life skill

The more pain the more gain. I used to be shockingly bad at public speaking - shy, nervous, i used to feel physially sick and can actually remember being sick pre speach on a few occasions. The best medicine i can suggest is to keep doing it. I started my working life in a bank where i'd have to get up and do a 30 minute update every week to the rest of the department - i used to come up with a whole host of excuses to get out of it. The day I realised that avoidance was holding me back was the day I started to improve. By all means do a course, but make sure you continue to do it afterwards.