I feel that I have been fairly lucky in life to be comfortable with public speaking. I feel that a lot of my strengths come from this comfort.  One thing I have been told I do well is make eye contact with everyone in the room and being fairly expressive.  However, sometimes I feel I am too expressive especially with my hands.  This is something I have been trying to work on recently and even in the presentation in Ireland I was focusing on my hand position. 

Another thing that I definitely do and am actively trying to work on is eliminating filler words.  I notice when I do it so I guess that is the first step to improvement but I use “um” several times during presentations.  In terms of actual speaking, I have noticed and been told that I upspeak during presentations. 

In terms of improvement, if I could improve on one thing I think it would be the use of filler words and slow down my talking.  This is something that is very noticeable in other people when they are presenting so I’m sure it is when I am too. 

As I mentioned, I was working on several of these skills in the presentation in Dublin.  I felt like it was a safer environment than most presentations I give so I was able to focus on these areas of improvement.  Additionally, my presentation there showed me how a presentation can be much more powerful when you have a synergy with team members.