We go with Jerry as he goes back to basics, does 5 min stands, perfects them, goes a bit longer, gets to 20 minutes eventually and eventually goes for longer and longer stints. We see him bomb and stall, we see him hold his notes in his hand and use them as crib sheets. We see comedians stress with animation that you never EVER start with new material. Jerry works his ass off as he builds and builds and runs from club to club eventually doing as many gigs as he can in one night. His jokes change and get better over time, though they really are the same punchline, the delivery changes based on a live crowd.

All this reminds me of talks I do and how every talk is a chance to perfect your presentation, throw in something small and new, how different crowds will interact differently and you have to be ready for it all. I’ve gone from giving a talk in front of 600 people, to doing one in front of 11 the next day, to a few dozen the next. Each and every talk is worthwhile and makes the next one better. I accept as many offers as I can to do talks, paid and free if my schedule can fit with them.

I used to be an introvert, severely shy, never wanting to put my head and body into the public glare. I can now, without much butterflies stand in front of a crowd with or without notes or even prep and feel confident enough. That wasn’t the case when I started doing this though. Over time I learned what works with crowds, what doesn’t, when to move on from a point or dig deeper, all based on the feel of a crowd. It rang home when watching Seinfeld making himself better by just getting out there and doing it.

I’ve chatted to some people about public talking before and I guess my advice is, get up and speak. Do what Jerry does, 5 minutes, then 10 minutes and many times until you get that feel for the crowd. If it makes you feel better, you will suck the first few times but you will get better each time too. So why not bang through those first few times? The sooner you do them… Toastmasters and those clubs are great too. But. Comedians don’t perform for comedians, they need real crowds and so do you. Those clubs are good starts but you want out in the real public. The ratio too of time speaking to the crowd directly should be way way higher than looking at your notes or slides. How else can you get the feel of a crowd?

With my line of work though, the gold for me is questions, I absolutely, positively love it when people ask questions. I’m pretty disappointed if none are asked as I feel I’ve not made the crowd comfortable enough to ask or haven’t made their brains jump enough to shoot up a hand. While many questions will be repeated per talk, you’ll always get new ones, these are proper challenges, can you answer them on your feet? Will they make you think and re-evaluate a viewpoint? Hopefully.

And yes, smaller crowds, I try out new material or sometimes I’ll write something that’s been on my mind for a while and stick it on some paper 10 minutes beforehand and see how I go. Did that for the Press Ombudsman talk. For Open Coffee Galway, I decided (5 mins beforehand) to talk about how I do business, I didn’t know where I was going to end up with that talk but it was fun. Hope the crowd didn’t mind the experiment.

You have to get up and speak, you have to realise that it’s about iterating what you do. Do the circuits. The documentary shows super comedian Jerry go from being terrified in front of a small crowd to swaggering a few months later in front of a massive crowd and feeling on control. Lastly, be absolutely grateful to the crowd, be it two people or two hundred, if they’re paying or not, they’re your training partner really, without them you’re a gym bunny taking on a world boxing champion.

The Best Connected blog connects the community, Enterprise Ireland clients, Multinational companies with each other and with the Public Sector and 3rd Level education

Gig of the Summer in Cork, Villagers, Grizzly Bear, Midlake and Camera Obscura.

Love the fact that the White House press secretary is on Twitter.

Nice food offers from Milano.

This is beautiful and sad. Old couple uses free listings to meet people to stop being lonely.

Nice intro guide to link building.

Seinfeld takes no shit from Larry King

Love this app, very handy. Perhaps urban legend but Mary Robinson apparently carried a copy of the the Bunreacht around with her all the time. For the budding Marys, now it’s an app. (May not guarantee you become president one day) One thing I’d like though is for it to be copy and pastable. Edit: I just had fat fingers, copy and paste works. Rocking!

I like this, guy in Court in Ireland suffers claustrophobia, Judge moves court outside.

Co-Working club Limerick is kicking off.

Cybercom are looking for a Communities Manager. Nice job that.

Loving it. See the visitors list to the White House.

Bing gets a truck load of traffic from … Google.

Fantastic piece on Gander, small town in Newfoundland that had 40+ planes land there on 9/11 when all planes got grounded. 6k people land in a town that holds 10k people. Lovely story of people looking after others.

Kid Cudi – Pursuit Of Happiness

Alan on Seachtain Na Gaeilge

Philip Glass doing a solo show in Dublin on June 22nd.

New blog: Conor Culkin.

Foxes in Fiction, free album.

Love these bookmarks.

Facebook Pages, good for local businesses, see?

This is one of the best business blogs around. Showing off your product does NOT need to be like a brochure.

Good to see some people can tell Steve Jobs where he can shove it.

Social media campaigns to be regulated in the UK?

Can’t pay attention anymore? Reclaim it.

Jack Bauer Interrogates socky

Mumford and Sons – Cave

A polytician is like polystyrene because….

New blog: Pick my brains.

Jeff Jarvis calls bullshit on TED.

Mediagazer is a news aggregator.

Social media: Vital in the newsroom.

Want to submit a project to the next exhibition in the Science Gallery? Biorhythm wants hackers.

Google Public data looks fantastic.

Jónsi – Go Do

Jónsi – Go Do from Jónsi on Vimeo.

Also, Ghost Estates as Gaeilge:

“Eastáit na Si” or “Fairy Estates” is, of course, open to misinterpretation in today’s sexually-oriented parlance, but is an elegant Gaelicisation of this modern landmark feature and can be linked to the longstanding regard in which the Irish have held the “little people” or those from an “domhan eile”.

How economics underlies every aspect of the Google business model, blog post from Geary.

Enterprise Boards could be going, via EI comment?

Played with this app on Saturday, use iPhone to survey a crowd. Crowdscanner.

The top ad music of 2009.

Check out what Penguin Books have planned for the iPad.

Using your network to get innovating.

Using Google Analytics to get better stats for your Facebook Page.

Little

Emily O’Reilly not exactly a fan of social networks and the fact that they can’t be trusted sources but it’s not all bad, a previous speech from her shows she does think they have some value and are a good utility for engaging with the populace and promoting the work of Ombudsmen.

And on the idea of trusted sources. Hoax call to a radio station and the press tell the world about Gordon Brown’s tangerine scream.

Excellent post by JP on sharing, privacy and changing cultures.

One step beyond, Google phones can autotranslate documents you point them at.

Nice video of Freelance Whales, live.

Via An Cathach, great ad for Nolan’s Cheddar.