http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MW63PcDPPZk&feature=kp
Since the basketball and hockey finals just ended, I decide to look for inspirational speeches done by sports coaches. I have heard many speeches from coaches, and I came across this speech done in West Virginia. Bill Stewart, the head coach of West Virginia’s football team, gave an inspirational speech to his team before the start of a big game against Oklahoma.
As can be seen through the video, his speech sent a powerful message to his audience which,in this case, was his team. His team were huge underdogs, and so he decided to try to get his team excited. If you were wondering, his team went on to beat Oklahoma in a big upset.
There are a couple of ways that he gets the message across to his team. The first thing he does is that he addresses everyone in the room. He looks around the room, and he also moves himself around. The one thing that makes you listen the most is his voice. He does not sound monotone at all, and he has plenty of vocal variety. He has no vocal fillers either. Something that he did very good was that he raised his voice whenever he was saying something important. He is also getting audience feedback when they say “yes, sir”. Simply, he makes it relatable to the players and hits them hard in the heart. This shows that you have to have a good relationship with the audience. Making them get engaged in the speech is critical to of the effectiveness of that speech. Getting feedback from the entire audience is a sign of a great relationship between speaker and audience. Unfortunately, this great coach, speaker, and person died in 2012.

I believe what made Malcolm X such a powerful and phenomenal orator was his absolute belief and conviction in what he preached. One could almost feel the passion and bevy of emotions he felt when he was speaking and the eloquence in which he channeled and conveyed these emotions while still managing to remain calm and collected. He used many analogies and and examples  historically, logically and emotionally to to connect with his audience. His own individual experiences and hardships and overcoming all of it stood as testament in itself and served as  more than just mere credibility because he truly experienced and lived the injustices he spoke out against.

Some of that basic arguments he used to appeal to the audience coupled with his fearlessness were the  denial of basic human rights to African Americans through segregation and discrimination. He also highlighted the hypocrisy displayed by the united states and the rest of the United Nations by explaining that the were all quick to condemn South Africa and its apartheid  practices while simultaneously overlooking the United States very own notorious form of segregation backed with Jim Crow Laws. He always seemed supremely prepared and capable of denouncing any claim that challenged his position and i believe this was all due to his fervent belief in his message and his desire to free the minds and physical situations of his people. He clearly and powerfully used his own past experiences as well as as the knowledge he acquired through reading and empowered or evoked fear from his audiences as his excellent rhetoric echoed…”By Any Means Necessary”

Time and time again I’m amazed at award-winning actor, singer and poet Daniel Beaty’s powerful spoken word performance entitled “Knock Knock”. Performed on Def Poetry Jam, a spoken word television program, Beaty captivates the audience with a sentimental poem about his childhood separation from his father. At the age of 3, his father was sent to prison, leaving the poet with the hardship of growing up in a household without a father figure. Instead of allowing the situation to discourage or intimidate him from manhood, Beaty learns to “father himself” and lives out the role he imagines a father to be: a teacher, an activist, and a revolutionary.

Although Beaty’s presentation touches on an array of sensitive emotions such as disappointment, anger, and empowerment, I admire his smooth, controlled, realistic transitions between these tones. In other words, the speaker’s skilled change of tones/emotion evoke a realism to the story by allowing the audience to experience a glimpse of the confusion and uncertainty experienced during the absence of his father. Beaty’s ability to convey such raw emotion, in combination with the story in itself, is the reason behind the crowd’s standing ovation. Through facial expression, gestures, and most notably – vocal expression, the poet appropriately and effectively escorts his audience step by step through his trials and tribulations, as well as self-realization and triumph.

The image I selected is from a video of the performance found on YouTube. I believe the image sums up the nature of the presentation in the best way possible: powerful, inspirational, and revolutionary.

(The actual video of “Knock Knock” is posted here: Def Poetry: Daniel Beaty – Knock Knock (Official Video) It’s worth watching for yourself!)

As I was searching, I just happened to stumble upon this video of Caroline Kennedy’s speech. This video is a little clip of her 30 minute interview on Manhattan’s local news channel NY1. At the time, Kennedy expressed her interest in becoming a member of the US Senate. In this video her communication skills are terrible. As you can see in the video, she must have used the word “you know” about one hundred times. She does not sound very professional or intelligent. Vocal fillers are okay if you use it sparingly because I understand it is very hard to get rid of them completely. However, to use it to her extent is just unacceptable considering she is hoping to be a public political figure.

As a public figure, people will look up to you and it is only expected that you sound confident and strong. “You know” is probably not a good word to use a gazillion times if you want your audience to listen to you because it makes you seem like you don’t know what you are talking about and people will take you less seriously. You will not be able to get your message across effectively.

What I learned from her interview is vocal fillers used to her extent is just unacceptable. You will lose credibility and people will just think to themselves what in the world is she talking about? NO I don’t know! To give her the benefit of the doubt, this was an interview and there may have been no way for her to fully prepare herself because she won’t know what questions would be thrown at her. However, she still should  have kept her “you knows” to a minimum.

By: Samantha Kublbock

The following video displays Iowa native Zach Wahls delivering a captivating persuasive speech to the Iowa House of Representatives on why he believes gay marriage should not be banned in his home state. I thought of this speech immediately as I was reading option 1 of the assignment because I believe the content as well as delivery has such a powerful impact on viewers.

In addition to delivering his thoughts extemporaneously, Wahls brings up a number of important ideas so concise and emotionally charged that is was definitely hard to disagree with him that day in that court room. He establishes credibility by describing exactly how unaffected he is from being raised by his two mothers and really tries to make everybody understand where he is coming from. I also loved the fact that he brought up he was an engineering student who had scored in the 99th percentile of the ACT. This really helps debunk the claims that were bound to be mentioned in court that day about how being raised by gay parents may negatively affect your education.

Wahls paints such a clear picture of his loving family that makes listeners visualize just how similar his family is to each of ours. Particular moments, such as the mention of his mother’s crippling disease, also helps to heighten emotions of the listeners. Because this speech takes place in a court room of representatives looking to end civil unions in Iowa, this vivid imagery is an excellent attempt to bring the audience members closer to feeling what he is feeling about gay marriage. He ended the short speech strongly, recapping in a single sentence exactly what he believes the decision that day should be, and I think he definitely had a positive impact (at least on some) of the audience.

Working in sales enables me to communicate with people from all walks of life as well as observe the interactions between colleagues and their customers. Unfortunately, not all of the communications between the customers and sales persons always run smoothly.

An example of this was between a customer and a coworker. A man walks into the store because he was shopping for a last minute anniversary gift. One of my coworkers, Jason, walks over and greets him. The man starts telling Jason what he wanted, but he spoke so low it sounded like he was mumbling. It almost seemed as if he was shy to say what he wanted. This made it very hard for Jason to understand him. Jason politely asks him to repeat what he said. The man repeats what he said, which sounded like “bracelet”. So Jason goes and gets him some bracelets to choose from to which the man responds, “No! That’s not what I wanted!” After several exchanges like this Jason starts to lose his patience a bit, and starts talking with a tinge of frustration in his voice. The man was eventually able to convey what he actually wanted, which was a necklace. Had the customer spoken more clearly, he would not have spent so much time looking for what he wanted, causing frustration amongst everybody.

There were several things I learned from observing this experience, particularly from the customer, one of which is the importance of always speaking clearly, and audibly so that the other party may understand what you are trying to say. Speaking clearly and confidently is essential to communicating to the other party. Secondly, from my co-worker I saw the value of patience when dealing with other people.

The particular situation which I witnessed was very awkward to watch, it was cringe-worthy. The speaker was a Hollywood director Michael Bay who was giving an address at Samsung’s press conference during the Consumer Electronics Show or CES during the first week of January 2014.

The format of the speech was a ‘duet’ – there was a Samsung representative who would lay out questions for Bay to answer at length. The speech and the conference was schedule to run longer than it did – it ran just over one minute. If you watch the video you will notice that Michael Bay points out that the teleprompter which contained his script has stopped working. It was at this point that Bay completely froze and shut down. Instead of attempting to improvise or ‘wing it’ as Bay mentioned, he mumbled a few works and promptly walked of the stage.

So what can I learn from this incident? Don’t be overly reliant on technology when delivering a speech, had Bay been more prepared and better rehearsed with the script and the outline, he probably would of been able to improvise and ‘wing it’ – thorough preparation, knowledge and understanding of content and outline and rehearsals of the speech will go a long way.

There are many powerful speeches that I found in http://inktalks.com  but among them I liked the speech presented by Varun Agarwal. He is a filmmaker, entrepreneur and a bestselling author.

Varun Started his speech with his own story and that really made audience to listen to his speech. He has a good vocal variety. His voice, tone created interest and helped him have more influence over the audience. The way he was using his power point slides were perfect, it supported his speech all the time. His speech carries a message to the audience which he delivers by talking about the word “Think” and how it impacted him. His gestures were very effective because he was using his hands to express his ideas.

After few minutes listening to his speech, the audience started clapping and that clearly shows how powerful his speech was. He is just 25 years old and he has already started his success journey. I believe it was a big hall so he was moving in the stage and it looked like he was focusing on all of the audience. He gazed at the floor few times but when he gave eye contact, audience could see his passion. There wasn’t any long pauses in his speech but he pauses little long just to get audience feedbacks like clapping or laughing.

His speech was not very long but surprisingly, he talks about everything he had done in his life. His transitions were flawless because it showed how he became a filmmaker then entrepreneur and then author. Audience knew how he was climbing a ladder of success. He was making few jokes that were well connected with his speech. People think before doing anything but he says, “Don’t think.. Just Do” and thats what he did.

He definitely knew how to connect with the audience which is why he got clapping from time to time and they were very inspired by his speech. In the above picture, it looked like he was teaching audience what they should do in their lives and giving them positive energy to become successful. His message was “Do what you love” which he conveys in a manner where audience were very much impressed by him.

In preparation for my personal speech, I browsed through the video archives on TED.com as well as did a brief YouTube search for great speeches. I stumbled upon a video of Patsy Rodenburg discussing the idea of “The Second Circle”. She specializes in theatre and public speaking so it makes sense that she would be a good presenter. However, it wasn’t just good–I was absolutely captivated.

Patsy makes excellent use of pauses, hand gestures, and overall body language to illustrate what she is talking about. She does not lift her hand just to lift it. Nearly every movement she makes is deliberate and serves to physically convey or emphasize the word she is saying at that moment. Some pauses and gestures (like the one I screencapped above) adds an air of dramaticness (is that a word?) and really makes you consider the significance of her words.

As she speaks, she does stumble and pause mid-sentence sometimes, or stops and goes a completely different direction with what she’s saying, but it never occurs to the audience member that it’s a stumble. It sounds so natural. It’s not awkward or rough. There is fluidity even in her mistakes. She does not make constant eye contact, but every gaze at an audience member or even at the floor serves its purpose. Again, she doesn’t do anything just to do it. It’s all very deliberate, yet incredibly natural.

Her voice is very pleasant to listen to, and the combination of her physical delivery and her vocal delivery fully captures each audience member’s attention. It’s hard to not focus on what she’s saying. The picture I posted above is one example of how engaged she is with the audience. She is fully present in every word she tells her listeners and in return, the audience is 100% captivated. Even though I was only watching through my computer screen, I could still feel the attention and engagement between me and Patsy. It sits comfortably between the speaker and the audience.