It is understood that some speakers are powerful and loud, some are analytical, some are psychological, some are soft, some are humorous and all of them can succeed or fail at achieving the goals of their speech. How do we ensure success? There are many ways and all of them, have you, the speaker at the center.

Some speakers do not even care to view or follow other speakers or acquire pointers in lectures or books. Some speakers would emulate others or their styles but great ones would come out with their own styles and ways that are best suited for their character, voice and abilities. Therefore, all the pointers and reminders that anyone could give or find should be used in accordance to the person’s character, voice and ability. If your are not the humorous type than do not try to be and if you are not psychological in manner than do not try to be since you could end up being misunderstood. Use your strengths and find pointers, guides or reminders that will enable you to bring out the best in you.

In ‘Rambo III’ Richard Crenna(Col. Trautman) mentioned to Sylvester Stallone (Rambo) on the fact that he did dot make Rambo the way he is ( the perfect killing machine). He was just a good teacher as well as Rambo was a good student. Richard’s character in the movie mentioned that Rambo was like a beautiful statue in solid granite. The statue was already in existence and as a good teacher; he just pulled out the chips that would enable the statue to translate itself into being. ( I know, very Leornado da Vinci like but Rambo is certainly more muscular)

We should be like Rambo and his teacher and help loosen ourselves to bring out the statue of the greatest speaker ever, from within ourselves. We must learn to recognize the problematic chips( fear, intonation, structure, language and etc.) to bring out, how big is the chip and also how to bring it out. It is not impossible and nobody can do it better than the person, himself or herself, since the chips are within the person. Give it a go and find out the speaker in you.

The ends sometimes...

In line with Machiavelli’s view, I would first state that the way to achieve our ends should not be everything under the sun. However, when the opportunity arose such as the use of public figures for the betterment of the society, it must not be turned away but exhausted to aid the good aims of our society. People would exhaust and try sometimes dangerous and evil means to achieve even peaceful ends and it would really be an insult to our intelligence if we do not use our public figures for the betterment of our society.

How can they, the public figures help to contribute towards the betterment of the society?

Public figures(PF) are automatically influential in the society. This influence can be used to send the right message to the society such as the fight against AIDS and corruption.
PF are also mostly society leaders and respected members and hence be focal point of reference for the members of the society. This would enable to influence, persuade and inform the society with better effectiveness as not only people would follow what they say, they would also need less government expenditures on them as there would be smaller needs for media payment for advertisements and campaigns for awareness and education for the society.

The most important reason other than cost saving than effectiveness would be on the fact that they are the most effective tools. If they are not effective, companies would not be spending billions to pay public figures to lobby and advertise for their cause or products. They know who they are and what they can do and thus I urge extremely public ones like datin Seri Rosmah to be given more coverage and more airtime but at the right places and junctures that can really make a big difference.

Prsentation skills

In order to be able to get started with the presentation part of things, we need to get familiar with the various terminology used in discourse parlance. Lesson 1, Proficiency in selecting and developing a topic, organising and planning a written speech and attainment of various forms of supporting materials are crucial before the actual points preparation activity could be set in motion.

But, even before that, at least two steps before, please o please prepare yourself to want tobe the presenter. As if you do not look like as if you want to, why oh why would people want to listen to you.

Show them, tease them, cajole them and maybe all that time spent in preparing the points are worth it.

On the road

On the road for almost 4 weeks. Tough but good money. Am goin back to write the intepretation of my analysis so that i can submit my four chapters to my Phd Guru.

The thing to be lookin at is the fun i am expecting to have in my first copetetive debate in 12 years at GSD. I am sure FUN will be it.

I've been teachin outside for at least 4 days a month for a good 3 years now. Just wandering how i will fare teaching kids an Uni's in under 4 weeks.

Well, let us have fun debating first.

Tough Debate

It was tough, really tough when I had to decide the first time on whether to represent the Uni for debate or rugby.

Rugby was fun and so was debate to a big extent bug all the tackling in rugby is done through words and at time the physical side of rugby I surely did miss.

Nonetheless, the first call i had to make was in 91' and debate was it. The decision fell flat on many people's faces as the debate part was cancelled on the 11th hour for that Inter-U competition.

Well, see...

Satisfaction

In debate terms, satisfaction can be divided into 3.

1. Satisfastion of you as the speaker (you feel like you've done a fantastic job and given a spectacular speech)

2. Satisfaction of the general audience (they feel that that the speech is great)

3. Satisfaction of the adjudicators (they feel that the speech and you are fantabulous)


Guess which one matters the most. Yup the third one... the 3rd one ... the number three.

Thus we need to understand this simple concept. Satisfaction is result minus expectation. Thus you need to know their expecttation to be able to plan for it and deliver something beyond the expectation than the result for you is generally sound but if the result is lower than the expectation than, well.... not so good.

My Beginning as a debater

I never debated during my school days except in one inter-class tournament where I suprisingly upstaged the supposed best speaker in the school. I was really fired up that day simply because he said something negative about my pink striped tee shirt. Still, I was considered not good enough to represent the school. Thus I quit debating and concentrated on 'silat' and cricket. (Wasn't that good at both also but some girls said I looked kinda cute in my 'Silat' attire@ good enough for me)

In 1989 I was accepted into UPM in their matriculation program. I took part in two Public Speaking tourneys as I did not really want to be fully involve in the then famous orientation program, and finished 2nd in the BM category and 3rd in the English respectively. In 1991 I was selected as the team manager for my college team(I was really wondering why not as a speaker but the girls chosen were much better in terms of poise and looks, I didn't really complain). The all girl team made it to the finals and they were, all in their special cute ways, said how indebted they were to me for getting them to the finals.( I really thought that I did not do much other than vetting their points as we generally get our topics at least one week in advance those days).

Somehow or rather the organizer turned evil on us. They earlier informed us that the finals was slotted to be on the coming Saturday night but sent an ex-bouncer officer with a loud-speaker lecturer to cordially inform us that it is tomorrow night, kindly forgetting that the other team was informed of this change 3 days earlier. In good sportmanship albeit with a lot of crying, we went, took part and lost. But I was angry, I was so angry at being Shanghaied that I walked up to the organizer and told them with as much venom as I could muster, that next year I will be back as a speaker and I will trash every single team up against my beloved Sixth College. True to my word, I dished rugby for a full month preparing my team next year and won the 1991 UPM Inter College Title together with the best speaker title.

I was happy and also in a boastful mood. I told the organizers that I will come back next year and do the same again which I duly did in 1992. I was satisfied and went back to the real love of my life, the mud and blood of the rugby field. Somewhere in between those months, I went with a strange team to the IIU Australs where my speakers did not really want to debate. After the second round which we won, one of my speakers got ill and luckily I had a nice Singaporean speaker replacing her. Needless to say we did not do well in that tourney.

My rugby team team got third in 1993 Inter-college and I was a permanent fixture in the UPM Angels' B team when I got a message from the UPM Student Affairs Department that they want to send a team to Australia for the Australs and there will be a selection. I thought.. well never been to Australia before... 3 stitches on my forehead... left knee not doin so well... Sure.