Speakers Edge Blog Post
Tell Your Story
· I was not one of those individuals that automatically had twenty different topic ideas enter my head. At first I did the proverbial Google search “informative speech topics” and received list upon list of mundane, one-word topic suggestions. Next, I checked national and International news sources. Then, after wading through the multitude of links, I managed to stumbled across this great website sponsored by TED (Technology Entertainment and Design). TED is owned by the private non-profit Sapling Foundation, and was formed to disseminate "ideas worth spreading" through a global set of conferences, where noteworthy people speak about their novel ideas. I watched video after video, and was fascinated by these formative speakers’ delivery and ground breaking commentaries. After being inspired by the diverse topics discussed by the speakers, I discovered two subjects I could passionately focus on, and began to create rough outlines for the speeches.
Day 1
· Class participants jumped right in, each delivering a brief overview of the informative speech. The class, bursting with positive energy and ideas, were amazing in their topic diversity and approaches. Topics in my section ranged from mechanical explanations, social tools, and business topics. I realized that I was going to learn a lot more in this class than I had originally anticipated! The collaborative assessment, critique, and suggestions from Dr. Edwards and class team members is invaluable, and I appreciated the positive reassurance from my classmates regarding my energy, subject matter, and use of examples.
Day 2-
· Most people found the Informative Speech to be easier to write than the market place pitch because of the more straightforward structure of the Informative Speech. After delivering their informative speeches the day before, several classmates realized they were either too opinionated about their subject matter, or too one-sided in their opinions, and decided to convert their Informative Speech subjects to their market place pitch topic. Dr. Edwards continually reinforced to us that you must believe your topic and what you are saying to the audience, because the audience can interpret your commitment to your subject matter. To be truly convincing you must passionately believe in the message you are delivering!
Day 3&4-
· After the first two days of delivering a brief (5 minute) version of our speeches and gathering feedback, the following two days of class time were spent in teams of three classmates, working together to fine-tune each other’s speech structure and delivery. With their help, I recognized my original outlines were way too long and in-depth. Also, we are allowed to use a limited number of visual aids, and the ability to paint a picture in the mind of the audience using words and points of emphasis has become critically important.
Day 5-
· Today we were joined by Dr. Harrington, and presented one of our speeches. Dr. Harrington is very inspiring, fresh feedback, cool west cost style of delivery, and succinct comments have given us a lot to think about. He emphasized the need to have a vision, and emphasize the vision in your speech. Don’t just talk. Communicate and deliver. Limit statistics, because they can overcome a speech. I believe his feedback will help us structure our speeches tremendously by help us avoid getting lost in explaining the issues instead of the solutions.
· After hearing the speeches my classmates had been pruning and tweaking for the last two days, I realize that the bar was going to be set pretty high. Those who didn’t quite have a charismatic delivery, still had a very smooth, solid, almost hypnotic delivery, and it was obvious they had their speeches very well memorized. And those that used “uum” too much, or were not as steady in delivery, generally still had very captivating delivery. Everyone is on the verge of pulling the pieces (delivery, content, structure, flow) together. I find myself trying to come up with ways to set myself apart from the crowd - ways I can make my speech standout and be remembered amongst the surplus of information being presented.
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