Um, I’m not, like, sure what to, errr call this post, y’know.

I’m not as fixated on removing fillers as a lot of organisations. My experience is that a lot of not-very-talented presentation trainers tend to pick on obvious things like this because it looks like they’re spotting something significant. As I’ve said in earlier posts, often they aren’t – because the filler can be helpful to the audience… it gives them time to assimilate what they’ve been told and stops the feeling of overload created by presenters who are speaking too fluently and too quickly.

That said, there are times when fillers certainly get on your nerves. I don’t like video-ing my training clients because very (very!) often having a camera in the room changes how they behave and I get a great recording of things they don’t normally do. It has its place too, of course.

More subtely, however, is a cute new little app I’ve discovered called Um Sum, by foxypixels (http://www.foxypixels.com/). All it is – quite literally – is a set of filler words and phrases with a count, so that you set the timer going and just tap the filler word you hear every time you hear it. At the end of the presentation you’re working on you just stop the timer and – hey presto! – you have a count of all the different fillers and how bad they are.

Of course that’s the easy part. All that does is tell you what you need to work on. The hard part is being able to help people change that sort of behaviour. But it’s a start. (Of course, if you want to actually do something about the problem, you know who to email, right? :) )

My hope for this app is that it gets into the hands of skilled presenters and those who support, train and coach them. My fear for it is that it is grabbed by the ‘filler Nazis’ who seem to represent the poor-to-mediocre end of the spectrum of such people (and who are often found in Toastmasters! ;) ).