Rich Watts

Interesting thoughts last night that I need to get written down some where, hence the blog post. I'm rapidly approaching the conclusion that there are two very distinct types of person when it comes to developing public speaking skills.

So what should you look to include in a speech designed to persuade your audience or bring them round to your way of thinking? Here are the things I think that you should include - let me know if you have anything to add in the comments section at the bottom of this page.

Ok, so here's what I've got on my list as 'technical presentation best practice' (if there is such a thing?). I hope it helps you with your technical presentation and if I have missed anything, please do leave your own hints and experiences in the comments at the end of this post.

What is the best structure for a speech? - is something I've spent quite some time contemplating recently. Is it best to stick to a rigid, tried and tested structure for each speech, with a clear beginning and ending, or should you try and break the mould?

When I drive in England I do 70mph on the motorway. When I drive in France I do 130 kilometres per hour on the motorway. There's not a lot of difference in my actual speed, but one sounds a lot more impressive!

Ok, so now all that’s left is to practice my chosen humorous speech. I’m going to try and practice it out loud twice daily and then hundreds of times in between in my head. I usually find that I know I have a strong opening if it is constantly rattling around in my head so much that it becomes automatic. If I’m nervous, I want to be able to deliver my first few lines perfectly whilst still in autopilot, so this is no bad thing.

Am I funny? Now there's a question. Would I be happy if people laughed at my humorous speech or do I want them to laugh with me? Could I think that I have the funniest speech in history only for it to fall flat? It's probably about time I tested my humorous speeches. At the very least it will help me to decide which one to use..

Ok, so I’m now down to the slightly harder graft, the speech writing. Some people find speech writing incredibly easy whilst others can struggle for hours and produce nothing that they feel happy with using. I’ve found from experience that the way in which we write speeches varies too, depending on who we are and how important we believe our upcoming speech to be.

Ok, so now I’m beginning to think about the topic I will speak on in the Toastmaster’s humorous speech contest and my thoughts are being led by the two points I made in my first post on the subject: * Humour and what is funny is essentially the choice of your audience * This has to be a speech with a story, not just random stand-up comedy

Ok, so since yesterday I've had a few people ask what criteria the humorous speeches are judged on. Here's the humorous speech judging criteria...

By the time you read this I should be led on a sunny beach in the South of France. If all goes to plan, I should also be thinking about and writing a humorous speech for the Toastmaster’s UK humorous speech contest which begins in September. Apparently I have a natural humour with my public speaking but this doesn’t seem to make the speech writing process any easier. Humour is after all extremely subjective and the nature of humour has been written about extensively by much greater, more informed writers than myself.

It's 70 years to the day that Winston Churchill gave one of his most famous speeches to the House of Commons. His 'So Few' speech was given as an overview of why Britain was fighting, how the conflict was progressing and where he saw the conflict moving on to. A classic example of a well structured speech using the past, present, future method of organisation. It brings a smile to my face that a speech that was over 5000 words long is remembered 70 years later for one single line.