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.

For post #2, you have two options of prompts to choose from.  Post #2 is due before class on Monday June 16.  Blog posts should be between 250 and 400 words.

Option 1.  Post an image (photographic or otherwise) that conveys a speech situation you have encountered in which you think a speaker has a powerful and positive impact on an audience or individual listener. What is the nature of the speaker’s impact? How does the speaker achieve this impact? What does this image demonstrate about the nature of the relationship between audience and speaker?

Option 2.  Describe a situation you have experienced or witnessed recently in which a failure of communication, or poorly developed communication skills, caused a problem. Include an image or photograph that conveys something about this situation. Can you identify what went wrong? What can you learn from this incident about a particular skill or communication strategy?

My cartoon character’s name is Doomsday, he is usually a calm and confident individual is actually rather surprised to find that he has a fear of of public speaking. He can be described as somewhat vain and unfortunately he does think highly of himself, and up until recently he was a unaware of his phobia. He is disappointed in himself and his incapability to remain calm in the center of  of audience compounded with his vanity this realization was a piercing and humbling blow to his ego

It was about a month ago when it all came crashing down. He was previously aware of the fact that he tends to slightly speed up when nervous but nothing as embarrassing as what occurred in his last group presentation. He thought himself prepared and even memorized majority of his particular task in the group and although nervous he still believed everything was alright. His other two group members presented and did fairly well but as soon as his turn came he lost his cool and realize his heart was beating about a mile a minute and as he looked through the power power point he sadly noticed himself stuttering, reading extremely fast and even skipping many bullet points. He decided no matter how awful he would at least get to the last slide constantly uttering “um”  and “like” each time he was stuck and in this manner he struggled and stuttered till the end.

After his conclusion he apologized to his group mates and although his friends reassured him he did fine, he was certain his highest possible grade for the assignment would be a C at best if tithe teacher was generous. Miraculously the teacher awarded him a 92/100 and although extremely happy and amazed he knew and that was evident  he had a fear of public speaking and that he had to over come his fear of public speaking or in his perception his own individual “doomsday” sooner and not later.

J-Man is a cartoon character that everyone knows about. He is attending Baruch College in New York. At this moment, he is taking two summer classes including a communication class. Even though he is a cartoon character that is popular, he has been known to be a bit shy at times. The positive new is that his shyness has been going away little by little throughout his life. He does not hate or love talking in front of a group of people, but he does get nervous sometimes for no reason. He has done many class presentation throughout his life and has generally done great on them. His biggest problem seems to be overthinking while being in front of the class or group of people. Public speaking is something he does not like to do, but he will do it if it is necessary. In class, he does not participate much. Participation has always been a weak link of J-Man. Teachers always tell him to participate more often, but he seems to not be budged. Most of the times he does not participate is due to the fact that he simply is not sure of is answer. He does not like to be told that he is wrong. The thing that he seems to not understand is that in order for him to learn from his mistakes, his mistakes have to be pointed out to him.

In general, he has decent speech communication skills. In order to get his idea across, he raises his voice to demonstrate the important parts. He probably needs to use more body language as he sometimes appears to be too motionless. He is at his best when he has prepared himself completely for the presentation and knows exactly what he is going to say. He is at his worst when he is forced to think in front of a group of people. His biggest problem is simply a lack of confidence and overthinking. He should be able to get rid of those problems with practice. The communication class he is taking will probably help him greatly in diminishing his problems. It is important skill for him to make better in his personal and professional life.

Bamboo-copter is a shy and quiet cartoon character. Taking Com1010 is the most challenging thing for her. She only has once experience with public speaking. Last semester she took Eng2150. She presented her presentation in front of the class. Although it is a small class only have nine people, she stills nerves. Nervousness is a major problem for many people during public speaking. A visual aid is really help the presentation. She made a Power Point slides for her presentation. Sometimes she forgets the content, the Power Point will remind her the main points. She enjoys a process from choosing an article, doing research, and presenting a speech that are interesting. She had done a presentation. She hopes she will do better than first time. She hopes through this course will improve her communication, research and analyse skills.
She always pays attention to the class, and takes a note. However, she doesn’t speak a lot. Sometimes she forces herself to join the class discussion, but she only can say few words. A small group discussion made her feels more comfortable.
Because she lacks of vocabularies, sometimes she can’t express what her idea is. She will use body language or she will give some examples. A strength of her presentation is the Q&A time. She does a lot of research. So she is able to answer the questions and has a discussion with the audiences. In order to build her confident, she will practise a lot before she presents her speech. Another strength is she has well organize. She will follow the plan. The worse thing is she doesn’t know how to engage the audiences. She speaks too fast because she is so nerves. Sometimes audiences don’t understand what she saying. She believe only thing can overcome nervousness is a practice.

Jinjin Xu

Mélange loves talking with people – sometimes, at least. In terms of oral communication, Mélange is at her best with small talk or one on one conversations. Communicating her skills to an interviewer at a job interview, or having tea at the cafe with a friend is a walk in the park. When meeting new people, she is always full of questions, probing at each newfound discovery – What does your name mean? Where did you grow up? Are you from Brooklyn?  The personal interaction between two people, bouncing off ideas and newly learned information is what excites her, and is itself the best, most authentic form of communicating. When asked to speak in front of an audience, given a question in class or asked to recite a speech, for instance, is when Mélange loses her spark. Perhaps it is the fear of being harshly judged or the rivalry between finding the right way to communicate a point that will appeal to the audience – Is this point relevant? I could look it up later; would I sound too smart if I say this? I could ask the professor after class; and the chain of “If’s” in conjunction with delayed attempts eventually dissolve into a pool of unspoken thoughts and once again Mélange goes unheard, with such a loud mind but a whispered voice.

Mélange wasn’t always this shy, as she has an adequate level of public speaking experience. She has given speeches from classroom presentations to auditorium assemblies. In her younger days, public speaking in front of large crowds was almost second nature. However, over time things have changed. Now as an undergrad in college, there is still an inner drive towards having her voice heard – but that urge is more often than not overpowered by shyness. This issue is most obvious during class. Everyone – even the professor – knows deep down, the communicative character has something to say, as she is very bright, talkative and full of great points to add to the conversation, but would much rather keep her thoughts to herself or neatly written out on the sidelines of her notebook.

Millie, is currently taking a required communications course at her college. Millie always strives to do her best in everything that she does; however, the terrible disease of laziness always interferes with her capabilities. Millie tends to be a little shy at first but opens up once she gets comfortable with her surroundings. One weakness that Millie has is that she absolutely loathes public speaking and isn’t any good at it either. Her palms start sweating and her heart starts racing and a million thoughts are scrambling through her head at once causing her to lose her train of thought and just carry on with silence. Even if she is well prepared and practiced a million times before, she goes blank before the real thing.

With classroom participation, Millie always tries her best to raise her hand at least once every class. She may not be the most active participant; however, she is definitely not the least active. She always pays attention and makes sure to take good notes. This will also depend on the class, however, as some classes are really interesting and some just put her to sleep.

Millie has quite a handful of public speaking experience with class presentations. At every presentation, Millie, more often than not, will fail to maintain eye contact with the audience. With so many pairs of piercing eyes staring at her, she gets nervous. She has been trying to fix this habit for the longest time and has made a little bit of improvement. Also, Millie has never had to improvise much so she always remembered every little bit of information she was to present. The only time she improvised was when she performed a play with a group of close friends. Her personality shines best when she is with a group of familiar people.

Time Bender is a rather reluctant hero. Reluctant only because the power bestowed upon him seems more like a curse than a gift, if only he could learn to control this power he may become a full grown superhero.

The power that was cast upon Time Bender is the ability to manipulate time – not the passage of time and time travel, but the rate at which time flows. You see, whenever there is a call to action and Time Bender has to speak – he loses the control of his ability. Time it would appear speeds up and slows down of its own accord.

Whenever Time Bender waits his turn to speak, the passage of time slows – seconds become minutes and minutes feel like days. However when it is the Time Bender on the podium, time speeds up! No matter how much material he has to cover or how well prepared he may be, there never seems to be enough time! With the snap of the finger 20 minutes feel like 5 and Time Bender is left unsatisfied because he did not conclude his speech.