Yesterday saw my second night at my public speaking course held in Engineers Ireland . This week’s task was to prepare a speech on a subject you are in Earnest about.

Be In Earnest.

The objectives of this task are:

  • To convince the audience of your earnestness, sincerity and conviction on a subject you thoroughly understand.
  • To confront and control any nervousness you may have.
  • Time : Three to five minutes.

As I mention last week I decided to pick the topic of Open Source Software and Open Source Hardware .I found this a very easy topic for me to write about and prepare a speech. I am a keen user of open source software , with Ubuntu being my operating system of choice. When it comes to hardware I love the exploding world of open source hardware. There are so many great projects, Arduino, Makerbot, OpenMoko to name just a few.

I started out by writing the whole speech , and then transferred the key points to flash cards.

Key Points

  • Examples of Open Source Software we use every day.
  • Definition.
  • No need to reinvent the wheel.
  • Who makes Open Source Software. Hobbyists , Company’s.
  • Is there any money in Open Source Software.
  • Open Source Hardware -  definition.
  • Examples of Open Source Hardware.
  • Benefits.
  • Still in its infancy – who makes it.
  • Hope you all think about releasing any thing you make under a open licence.

As I was giving the talk it was clear that some of the people did not know anything about open source. I feel happy about the talk I gave. People seemed to like it. As always your speech is reviewed. Feedback is below.

Strong Points

  • Good Content, interesting topic.
  • Could clearly talk for an hour on the topic.
  • Earnestness and conviction in voice.

Areas for Improvement

  • Need a better opening to arouse audience interest.
  • Repetition in the middle.
  • Need to end on a stronger note of appeal.
  • Eye contact

Time  5.15

It is clear from the feedback from the last two weeks I need to add more structure to my talks. I need  better opening and closing lines.  At the tea break after the talk there were lots of great questions about my talk. I was surprised at the interest.

After  the tea break we had a table topics session. The topic I was given “Is your bedroom tidy or complete bedlam”. I made a point that to some my bedroom may look like bedlam but it actually divided up into sections. One area for clean clothes one for dirty clothes and the rest of the room for everything else.

Next week

I have my last night of the course next week.  Nest week task is “Show What you Mean”. I have to use gestures and body movements are part of a speech. I am going to take some time to think of a good opening line. As it was clear from the feed back I need to work on it.

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