You probably have something like a Wednesday afternoon education session at your place of work.

You probably have to present at it sometimes.

You probably do it pretty well. You may not feel that. You may be your own worst critic and see all the areas that need improvement. That is an important insight which you can use for constructive good rather than destructive evil.

Just by being a #FOAMed consumer you are already in a subset of your profession that is motivated to learn and improve your clinical work. It follows that you may well already be developing your teaching skills. In fact I am willing to bet that almost anyone reading this is above average in terms of their presentation skills.

Here’s the bad news; the average is poor. You want to be way above that average. You don’t get to be way above average without working at it. But how? I mean we don’t get our own personal Mr Miyagi to get us to “wax on’ and ‘wax off’ until our presentations are optimally polished.

Heres the good news. There is a FOAMed version of Mr Miyagi to help you with the wax. It is Ross Fisher, the presentation guy, @ffolliet, inventor of the P cubed concept and one of the nicest humans you may ever meet.

Ross talked at SMACC dub and will be at dasSMACC in Berlin. He is softly spoken, calm and collected. Unlike most people I like there would be little concern introducing him to my mum. In fact he is the sort of person you could trust to do surgery on your children!

Ross has his own Mr Miyagi; Garr Reynolds. Garr Reynolds is big time. You can buy his books and attend his workshops but it will cost you.

Ross is sharing what he has learned for free at http://www.prezentationskills.blogspot.com or ffolliet.com

I certainly can learn from Ross. When you listen to the two of us speak it is like chalk and cheese. If theres any waxing with me its “waxing lyrical”; barely contained enthusiasm coupled with pressure of speech.

Apparently my desire to improve this is a very important step.

If you want to be better at the next departmental education session, or if you have your eye on an educational role in the future, I recommend you have a look at what Ross has been doing. You will find all sorts of goodies over there including the TEDX talk (in videos), his own podcast (slicker than this one of course) and much more.