I normally get it from three places – Content, Stage and Audience.
If my content has something that I feel should be expressed with HIGH energy then I use HIGH energy in my expressions, voice and gestures.
eg: “Hold on to your beliefs and your dreams will come true!”
If my physical stage encourages me to make my speech bigger in feeling.
eg: Do you feel the BIGness of a speech change when you are on a 5m stage compared to a 15m stage?
If my audience is silent then maybe there are two reasons.
One they are listening intently and reflecting
Two they are lost and in a different world
I need to increase energy if they are lost and get them into the speech
If my audience is NOT silent then
One they are chuckling or laughing and having a good time
Two they are booing and want me off the stage
I need to take corrective action to change the booers into believers
My online audience is on MUTE. They are silent both ways!!
The content is still the same if it is a prepared speech.
If it is standup comedy, you may change it based on audience feedback.
When the stage is virtual, I am romancing the web camera.
I look 1cm to the right of the web camera for the audience to my right
I look 1cm to the left of the web camera for the audience to my left
I look 1cm to the top of the web camera if I am looking for godly inspiration
I look 1cm to the bottom of the web camera if I am looking down in sadness
My neck is training in a range of 1cm micro movements to keep my focus with the online audience.
It is difficult to feel the energy from a muted online audience.
It is possible to look at encouraging and nodding faces but you don’t always get it because you are looking at the web camera.
The energy has to come from within.
The energy has to be imagined and increased and decreased on cue.
I love the Energy from the physical audience. My speech takes on new levels with a physical audience.
I am learning to love the Online audience. The Energy is locked away with the online audience. It is my responsibility to take my speech to new levels to get the attention of an online audience.
I very often have a story that happened to me in the past. I feel like I learnt something from that story that I would like to share. I then take it and make it part of my speech and then build the speech around it. I find this approach organic. Sometimes getting a supporting frame to this story is challenging.
Having a message first reminds of me of being called to make an Impromptu speech. I have a phrase or challenge thrown at me and I need to build from there. In this case as I get warmed up with a first few sentences, my mind is chugging away in the background trying to put together stories that happened in my life and try to relate them with the topic. The moment any story matches a bit, I bring it in. During my story narration, I keep looking for a nice to loop back to the message. The advantage of this approach is that the message is known and everything is built on it.
What is your approach when you write your speeches?
When making a speech to an audience it is important to know them.
Why?
Let us take the Toastmasters organization as an example. The statistics presented here are from the fact sheets published by Toastmasters International.
Age appropriate speeches for an audience are very important. When the average age is 46 years, making speeches about “nursery rhymes” might not be relevant. Maybe for a small group of the members who are parents.
When 78% of the audience have a Bachelor’s or Higher degree then it is safe to assume that the audience is intellectual and will be moved by intelligent argumentation and logic. Not to forget a personal story and emotional connection every now and then.
Toastmasters International – Fact Sheet (2020-21)
Till District (Country/Countries) level, your speech will have to also reflect some understanding of local culture and traditions for the connection with the audience. Once you cross the District border and your speech is being made in front of an international audience it is good to know that 52 percent of the audience is from the Americas. The story, the development, the humor and the message should be able to cross borders.
Knowing your audience and making a speech that fits is a challenge.
But getting your facts right and being prepared is half the job done!
I decided to do a Vlogmas for Christmas last year.
24 short videos over 24 days from December 1 to December 24, 2021.
After trying a few different tools, I settled down with two Apps inbuilt in Windows namely the Camera and the Video Editor App.
Hardware used: (links below)
I use the Logitech 4K Pro Webcam and I am happy with the video quality.
I use an external mike namely the RODE NT-USB Mini and I am happy with the audio quality.
I use a table top external ring light namely the Neewer LED Ring Light and I am happy with the light quality.
Step 1:
Recording the video using the Camera App.
Two settings which helped me were the Framing Grid and the Video quality.
I used the “Rule of thirds” for the framing grid and ensured that my head moved around in the middle box.
The Video quality was set to 1080p (Full HD). If your laptop does not have Full HD, get yourself a Full HD webcamera. It is worth the video quality.
I decided on an idea for the video and storyboarded in my mind. As the video length is aimed at 2 to 3 minutes, it is easier to storyboard it in the head. Anything longer might need a storyboard on paper or the equivalent.
Once the video was recorded, the only thing that it needed was to be trimmed in the beginning and the end for a few seconds.
I first did it with YouTube video editor but then realised that there is an Windows inbuilt video editor which is easier and faster.
Step 2:
Editing the video using the Video Editor App
Create a new video project and import the untrimmed video from earlier.
The video trimmer is very basic and I like it for this kind of video.
The first few seconds are the ones where you click on the record button and get ready. These seconds need to be trimmed. You may either move the trim control or use the arrow buttons to move step by step. I realised that I have a special look in my face before I start talking and I wait for that short span before the mouth opens and catch that point for the initial trim.
The last few seconds are the ones where you click on the stop record button. Your eyes are looking at the stop button and these seconds need to be trimmed too.
Once the trimming is done, you may finish the video and remember to select the 1080p for Full HD video quality.
Now you have a video ready for publishing in different platforms like YouTube, Twitter and Instagram.
It was afternoon and I had written two messages on WhatsApp to two different friends. As usual, I expected the messages to show me a tick in a few seconds.
NO! I saw an icon I had not seen for years. Something which looked like a clock indicating that my message had not been sent.
I waited for 5 seconds!
I started getting jumpy at 10 seconds!!
I knew that something was wrong with the world at 15 seconds!!!
I started to PANIC.
One message was about a cousin looking for a job.
Another message was about planning a meeting for a restaurant.
Both obviously very important messages that could NOT wait.
I opened another App after 1.5 minutes namely Telegram.
Luckily both friends were on it and I copied the messages from WhatsApp and sent them on Telegram.
Both messages left my phone and went off to my friends!
PHEW, I was saved.
My loyalty for sending messages to friends using an App(that I had used for 5+ years) switched after a downtime of 1.5 minutes.
I asked my daughter why does she like the new craze in kid toys – “POPIT”
She gave me the answer in a triad.
“Firstly, the POPIT is FUN“
I ask myself, are my speeches fun?
I catch myself adding humour after the speech has been written out.
I catch myself adding a funny anecdote to lighten a long process discussion.
I catch myself adding an agile game which is fun during a multi-day hackathon.
FUN is so important but very often an afterthought.
“Secondly, the POPIT fights BOREDOM”
What are the different things we do to fight boredom? If we are bored, are we enjoying what we do. Let us give that a break and assume we are bored for the sake of argument.
I fight boredom by walking to the coffee dispenser even when I am wide awake.
I fight boredom by reading some news between two important meetings.
I fight boredom by pinging a colleague on slack and asking them how they are doing.
BOREDOM is a reality that needs to be fought.
“Thirdly, the POPIT comes in bright colours, makes a pleasing sound and provides a nice touch feedback”
Do our speeches speak to different senses?
The POPIT is very often made in bright neon or rainbow colours.
When you press each convex surface, it makes a pleasing POP sound.
It also provides a nice touch feedback when you have POPed a POPIT and you want POP more.
When our speeches can be filled with FUN, fight BOREDOM and speak to SENSES we have a winner.
