Creating Killer Content Off the Cuff

I was at my Toastmasters club Grosvenor Speakers, this past Monday night. I was in the role of Time-Keeper. For anybody reading this blog unfamiliar with any of the support roles at Toastmasters use the previous link.

I had taken on this role because I have yet to do the role and also I need to complete my Competent Leadership manual (I didn’t previously get myself evaluated when I took roles on in the past hence having to play catch up now).

The president of the club mentioned before the evening began a speaker had dropped out and asked anyone (i.e.: me) if they had a speech. I didn’t have one prepared. Lesson learnt: always have a speech ready to go to pull out of the bag at short notice!

I thought about it for a few minutes and came up with a subject that I was really interested in: Web 2.0. I’m still learning lots about this subject, but I already know a fair amount about blogs, Myspace and Facebook. I am in no way an expert on this subject, but I am certainly passionate about it and a keen student!

So on the back of my club’s programme of events I Mind Mapped a speech. I gave it an effective three-point Toastmasters structure, an opening and a closing. Each point I made, I backed it up with examples.

Every spare moment I had between timing the different parts of the evening (which wasn’t many) I looked over the Mind Map. When I was announced as the second speaker for the evening I took the Mind Map with me and went to the stage.

I glanced at my notes once, just before starting then I launched into my speech.

It flowed smoothly and never dropped a beat. I had a pretty good grasp of my subject, so the information flowed. I did my best not to overwhelm people with detail and bit too technical (believe you me, I’m no webmaster).

I made sure that I opened my speech by getting the audience to raise their hands showing me how many people in the room had heard of my subject. It was just under half. So I knew how I had to pitch it.

Around the 7 minute mark I delivered a memorable closer, which rhymed and got me my only laugh of the evening, and I left the stage.

I got some very nice feedback both from my fellow toastmasters as well as my evaluator. I was complimented on my energy and ability to think on my feet.

My main criticism was that I didn’t allow for any pause for thought. Not that I just rattled through my speech at break-neck speed, but that I could’ve taken the time to create more tension in my audience.

It was a fair comment. However, it’s not going to be something that I am overly concerned about as I was making it up as I went along.

I wanted to make sure that I got my message across and had a clear and definite structure, both of which I achieved. I wasn’t bothered about getting laughs. I wanted things to be as clean as possible.

I saw that over at “The Public Speaking Blog” fellow speaker Eric Feng talks about Crafting a Speech in 60 Seconds using a technique by Richard C. Borden. (Edited to note Eric Feng’s blog is no longer active as at 2019) Whilst I know the technique and agree that it is very useful, it’s something that I think is good to have in the toolbox, but not really necessary.

I think that if you know your subject well enough so your passion comes through, you find an angle on how it applies to your listeners (in my case I spoke about the importance of Web 2.0 in terms of public speaking and toastmasters) and you use a solid structure you can certainly create killer content off the cuff!!

3 comments

1 ping

    • Eric on January 18, 2008 at 2:09 pm

    Hey Jason, I think at the end of the day, tools are just… tools. It really depends on the context. As the saying goes, a tool is only as powerful as the person who wields it. Personally I think the Borden method is easy to remember and intuitive so it will serve well for speakers under stress, and needed to say something fast.

  1. Hi Eric, I completely agree. Tools are just tools. It might be interesting to see how the two techniques that we have blogged about work together. I will absolutely give the Borden method a shot in the future. Although, hopefully, I’ll have a bit longer than 60 seconds to create it in.

    The particular aspect of the Mind Mapping approach that I like is the fact that not only does it help to organize your thoughts (and therefore your speech), but it’s also a memory tool, which can help with remembering what you have to say.

    Thanks for popping by and sharing.

    Jase

    • Eric on January 19, 2008 at 2:30 pm

    You know what will be fun. Share with me the mind map that you did for your speech. We can see how to synergise. Another method is the PREP. Point – Reason – Explanation – Point. Heard about it?

  1. […] never really intended to write a follow up to my previous post. But I have because both myself and Eric Feng, blogged on the same subject. Eric spoke about the […]

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