Feb 02

Effective Public Speaking – Joke Format

I came across a notebook of mine that I hadn’t looked at in a long time and I found I’d made notes about scriptwriting and formatting for comedy. I made these notes on 11th October 2003.

Unfortunately, I can’t for the life of me remember what book I made these notes from, but I think the notes are quite useful as they’re broken down into two categories. Although I do know that it was mainly for comedians who use joke stories.

The first is called: “Joke Format”

This details a way in which you can format joke stories together to form a comedy monologue like old school comedians. Here’s the format:

1) Put the 2nd funniest joke story first
2) End with the funniest joke story
3) Counter a good joke with a bad one.
4) Organize jokes stories according to theme.

Now, this could absolutely be used with a speech found in the Humorous Speech Manual (an Advanced Speech Manual from Toastmasters this is a link to their website). And I’m pretty certain that it could easily be used in stand-up comedy.

But this format would not be appropriate for the humorous speech that occurs in the Humorous Speech Contest, as this is more geared towards a story with one theme.

Although, I have to say, the “counter a good joke with a bad one” seems more in-keeping with the comedy format of old school comics. I think today’s comedy professionals try to have continuous funny lines. This particular point seems to indicate a groaner type of joke story, like a pun.

The other format in my notebook is called the Message Format. The book I read (nope, still can’t remember it) outlines two types for this format:

A)
Intro
2nd Funniest joke story
Main body of Joke Stories
Theme
Funniest Joke Story

B)
Intro
Funniest joke story
Other Jokes stories
Theme

This last one ends on a serious note instead of a laugh. Personally, if I’m doing a humorous speech I’d rather end on a laugh.

Where it says “theme” I think that infers that this is where the main point of your speech is comes, but the theme you should present throughout the entire speech when using one of these formats.

It’s a shame that I never made a note of the book that I got these joke story formats from. As I’m writing about this though I keep thinking Frankie Howerd for some reason. Maybe I was reading about Howerd somewhere and saw it mentioned there. There’s nothing else for it, I’m going to have to go through some of my books looking for it.

Although, I do have this nagging feeling that I made these notes because I don’t actually own the book. Yep, just went and checked my book collection and it’s not there. It wasn’t from an eBook either because I wasn’t really into to doing that much online back then. Yikes.

Jan 31

The London Speaker – no, not me

I received an email from my Toastmasters Club, Grosvernor Square Speakers earlier and they brought to me attention an online blog magazine called The London Speaker.

“A blog magazine?” I hear you ask, “what’s one of those“? I’ll let professional blogger Yaro Starak explain all about this blogging model and how it could potentially be profitable.

Anyways, back to the London Speaker… I think it’s a great idea as it will help keep all London-based Toastmasters abreast (ahem) of everything that’s happening within speaking in the capital. Well, when I say “within speaking” I actually mean just within Toastmasters.

The knock on benefit to all members could be more “cross-pollination” between members of different clubs, if (like me) you’re unable to attend an event then there may well be news and photos relating to it.

All in all a jolly good I idea. Think it’s been around the same time as this blog although I could be wrong.

Anyways, if you’re a London-based Toastmaster, an ex-pat or someone just thinking about joining Toastmasters and is just curious to know what it’s all about then go have a look see – The London Speaker

Jan 24

Creating Killer Content Off the Cuff, part 2

I never really intended to write a follow up to my previous post Creating Killer Content Off the Cuff, but I have because both myself, and fellow speaker Eric Feng, blogged on the same subject. Eric spoke about the Borden method:

“Ho hum!” (or B-O-R-I-N-G!)
“Why bring that up?”
“For instance?”
“So what?”

and I spoke about how I used a Mind Map in order to quickly create a speech. And I became really intrigued to see how this would work!

With both techniques there isn’t really a lot of time to create a speech, so they are both good to do under pressure. I enclose a copy of my Mind Map.

mindmap-web20

If you know anything about Mind Maps you’ll see that this is not how they are normally done. What usually happens is that this stage where there are mostly circles is the first, idea-generating stage. You get the ideas down as quickly as possible and you try to find how they connect.

Then next stage you would then go on and do a Mind Map proper with the branches and capitalized text providing just a breif encapsulation of your ideas.

But as you can see it was literally just me throwing ideas down on the page because I was busy multi-tasking performing the role of time-keeper as well (and in case anyone’s wondering, I did do the job well).

The speech structure that I use was the traditional Toastmasters/basic speech structure:

– An opening.
– Three points each backed up with at least one example and then
– A conclusion.

In this case I used a technique called “re-open” which Paul Evans author of Instant Speaking Success discusses whereby you end with a mini challenge for your listeners to hopefully spur them into action.

I decided to go ahead and post the Mind Map because of some of the comment exchanges that I had with Eric Feng. I thought that it might be good to see if the Borden technqiue and Mind Mapping can be unified.

Then Eric suggested that I share my Mind Map to see how we can synergise.

(He also mentioned another technique called PREP: Point – Reason – Explanation – Point. This was something that I haven’t heard of and will look into).

But for now it’ll be interesting to see how we can synergise these techniques.

Jan 23

After Dinner Speaking, part 2

I spoke to the President and ex-President at my local Toastmasters club trying to find out how I can go about developing my After Dinner speech that I debuted at the Christmas Dinner at the end of last year. I was hoping that I might be able to use the method that winners of both the humorous speech contest and international speech contest do.

They go around different clubs and work on their speeches before the next round of the competition. But what was pointed out was the fact that the contest winners get special dispensation after winning a certain level. Seeing as I haven’t won the humorous speech contest (yet) then I probably won’t be able to go round to other clubs to develop it. Continue reading

Jan 15

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!!