Take advantage of the opportunity to work with speaking consultant, Mr. Paul Casella (Iowa, USA) at this year’s EAU Congress to improve your presentation style and delivery skills. Mr. Casella performs the same kind of training for many years now during the EAU Congresses and his sessions were very successful! The one-on-one, half hour sessions are free of charge and available to all speakers and congress delegates. Practice the talk you will give at the meeting, or work on your general speaking and teaching skills. Sign-up at the Speaker Service Centre in Milan or pre-register as of January 2008. The Presentation Training Centre will be open at congress days from 09.00 till 18.00 (Saturday till 12.00).

Some reactions of urologists after the 22^nd Annual EAU Congress in Berlin 2007

There is just one word - amazing.
During the last years, I have had the pleasure to chair a few sessions with several speakers involved. I have always tried to have a session with Mr Casella and so far have all speakers improved in their performance after such a session.

This workshop has really be great, helpful and useful for me.

I thought Paul Casella was excellent. He was very personable and video taping was a good idea. He made some very useful suggestions which I used for my presentation at the meeting. I would recommend him to any colleagues.

I thought this was a very useful session. I have always avoided these in the past but got a lot of good tips.

I thoroughly enjoyed this session and found it most useful to my presentation. Paul was highly professional and courteous. He went through my presentation a number of times and even video taped me and played back the tape to highlight my good points and parts I needed to improve. He is a dedicated man who enjoyed his job and is full of enthusiasm. Some of my friends also went to book in with Paul and found it most useful. I believe he is a great asset to the EAU meeting and I am most grateful to you for the opportunity of undergoing training with Paul.

The only thing that I can say is that the session was magnificent.

It was perfect, please repeat in the next EAU, thanks for the opportunity.

I think attending a workshop like this is an individual decision. I know that one of my co-presenters was so unnerved last year, that he choose not to attend again. I don't think that this was because Paul was the slightest aggressive or over critical, but some people are just put off by a trial run.
On the whole the workshop is most useful, not necessarily to improve an individuals presentation though some of the tips are helpful, others perhaps not. Giving a presentation is a very individual thing and people are unlikely to change. What it does do, however, is to ensure that slides are gone through, that other presenters know what is being said, and the session chairman can have some influence on the content, and more importantly, the timing of each presentation. The evidence that this is having an impact is the exemplary timing which I certainly observed where no session over ran, nor did any speakers that I saw appear to have to rush.
It may be that the clock on the speakers monitor had just as much impact though when I spoke it showed no time left as I started!
If you were to ask me whether I thought the workshop should be retained I would on balance say yes, though it did seem to me to be perceptibly quieter this year. Maybe presenters are voting with their feet!

First of all I enjoyed the workshop very much. Mr Casella is a good and enthusiastic "teacher". Moreover he had good tricks and advices for me. Of course half an hour is far too short for an in depth training.
I suppose the proof of the pudding is in the eating and the score after my presentation should speak for itself.
If I had to give a rating for this workshop I would give it a 9 on a scale of 10.
So my advice: continue to provide this excellent workshop.