Presenting is such an important skill. I can't sleep, so here are some thoughts on how to become a solid public speaker if you don't get to attend TechStars or YC.
Qualifications: I usually have people tell me I'm a natural at speaking after I give a talk on something. When I was in high school, I took an argument class and later a public speaking class. During half of my presentations I'd become so flustered I'd tell the teacher I couldn't keep going and I'd sit down. I wanted to be good, but yes--I was that bad.
As with all things that we suck at, it helps to get it handled. The key to becoming great at presenting is to do a lot of it. In college I took every communications course I could find--this helped. I also joined a local Toastmasters group. This was really helpful. Toastmasters exists to help you become a better leader and communicator. This group cured me of "umms" and "ahhs" during speaking (they would drop a marble into a pan every time it happened).
In ROTC we learned the military way of giving briefings. No it has nothing to do with powerpoint (contrary to popular belief). We learned to change tonality, step away from the safe lectern, and to use a certain format for our talks. The format basically stated: tell the audience what you're going to tell them, tell them, tell them what you told them. I recommend reading a short book on public speaking for some theoretical information to get the same background.
In summary, you can get better at public speaking. Practice is the key. Join toastmasters for a good opportunity. Read a book and try out some of the tricks you're reading about there. When you're ready--go to meetup.com and find some groups to give a talk to. You'll be a dynamite speaker in no time.
Completely agree that practise is key. Three tips for getting practise:
1. Give lightning talks. These are sessions at conferences where people are encouraged to give 5 minute talks. The audience love them because it forces speakers to get straight to the point, and if a talk sucks you only have to wait a few minutes before the next one. They are a fantastic way for new speakers to get some experience in front of a crowd.
2. Go to BarCamps. London has an excellent BarCamp scene (events have been hosted at Yahoo!, BT, Google, GCap, EBay, the Guardian and IBM) Nd events generally pull 150 people, each of whom is encouraged to speak. This guarantees a friendly, supportive audience since everyone else is presenting as well. You can also talk about any topic you like. I've presented at all 7 London BarCamps and it's definitely helped me with my public speaking skills.
3. Any talk you give, make sure you have practises it out loud at least once with enough time to fix the bits that don't work. Under your breath doesn't cut it in my experience. My rule of thumb these days is a minimum of 10 hours preparation for every 1 hour on stage, and the run throughs are a big part of that.
I gave a talk at Ignite Phoenix last year. It was essentially a stripped down version of a talk I gave at MountainWest RubyConf earlier.
I took my original material, intended for a 30 minute talk, and got it down to five minutes. Part of that was easy; I dropped the demos. But there was still a fair amount left over. Ruthless selection and repeated practice enabled me to convey the essential points in the alloted time.
Since then I figure that one should first prepare a terse version of a talk to figure out what can be omitted, and work backwards, making sure that anything added earns its place. Better a punchy short talk than a meandering lecture.
Conferences would do us all a favor by just insisting that all talks be no longer than 20 minutes.
Qualifications: I usually have people tell me I'm a natural at speaking after I give a talk on something. When I was in high school, I took an argument class and later a public speaking class. During half of my presentations I'd become so flustered I'd tell the teacher I couldn't keep going and I'd sit down. I wanted to be good, but yes--I was that bad.
As with all things that we suck at, it helps to get it handled. The key to becoming great at presenting is to do a lot of it. In college I took every communications course I could find--this helped. I also joined a local Toastmasters group. This was really helpful. Toastmasters exists to help you become a better leader and communicator. This group cured me of "umms" and "ahhs" during speaking (they would drop a marble into a pan every time it happened).
In ROTC we learned the military way of giving briefings. No it has nothing to do with powerpoint (contrary to popular belief). We learned to change tonality, step away from the safe lectern, and to use a certain format for our talks. The format basically stated: tell the audience what you're going to tell them, tell them, tell them what you told them. I recommend reading a short book on public speaking for some theoretical information to get the same background.
In summary, you can get better at public speaking. Practice is the key. Join toastmasters for a good opportunity. Read a book and try out some of the tricks you're reading about there. When you're ready--go to meetup.com and find some groups to give a talk to. You'll be a dynamite speaker in no time.