One of the Toastmasters in Capitol Club, Marilee Fuller, ACG, is teaching a youth program on public speaking for a group of ten 4th to 6th grade students at a local charter school (ANSER). She asked for volunteers to speak to the kids, and of course I said yes. The school is located within walking distance of my home and club.
I gave a ten-minute speech to them complete with PowerPoint slides. It was a technical mystery story called “The Case of the Corroded Computer”. They enjoyed hearing it, and I certainly enjoyed telling it to them. The moral was that, just like kids, we adults don’t always think things through before we act.
The story began with a luxury car dealer getting ready to move into a remodeled vintage building in a state capital. Everyone was in a big hurry to get the move completed before New Year’s Day.
The last step before moving the cars and the shop equipment in turned out to be having a contractor come to clean the discolored grout on the white tile floor for the showroom. The contractor was told it was OK for him to use hydrochloric acid and he did.
The very next day the dealer called and accused him of destroying a brand new minicomputer located in the bookkeeper’s office. The contractor said that was impossible, since his crew had not even been in the carpeted bookkeeper’s office, and the door had always been locked.
A company I worked for got called by a claims adjuster from the insurance company for the contractor. She wanted an independent technical evaluation of the damage. A chemist and I went to look at the computer. All the screws on the case were rusty brown instead of shiny silver color. Chemical tests on the motherboard revealed exposure to hydrochloric acid.
How did the acid get there? The building had a forced air heating system. A furnace was located in the back of the showroom, just outside of the bookkeeper’s office. The cold air inlet was located just a few inches above the tile floor. The very first hot air outlet from the furnace led right into the bookkeeper’s office. By Murphy’s Law that outlet was located on the wall directly above the computer. So, the computer got an acid vapor bath. Oops!
After our report the insurer for the contractor bought the dealer a new computer. They got the “old” one to salvage. By hindsight the computer should not have been there yet.
I forgot to mention to the kids that the preceding story somewhat resembles a Sherlock Holmes story about murder in a locked room, called the Adventure of the Speckled Band.
After the talk I gave the kids a handout to read. It was a two-page Claims magazine article I had written for their September 1995 issue, on “How to investigate corrosion damage to goods stored, shipped”. I am not sure if they were impressed or appalled that the article was older than they were.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Stepping into someone else’s shoes
One of the more challenging forms of public speaking is substituting for someone else at a technical conference. I have done it well just once in my career, back in the early 1980’s. There was a technical conference in Toronto. I was chairing a session on hydrogen embrittlement of steel. A French scientist had volunteered to give a presentation. However, he warned me that there was a possibility that he might not be allowed to travel.
A week before the conference an airmail envelope arrived with his text and slides. There was a brief note saying he could not come, and I should just go give his presentation. It turned out to be straightforward, because he and I had worked for the same PhD thesis adviser in graduate school. For about three years our desks were in the same lab and faced each other. We had built equipment together, and discussed that topic over and over. Later he had sent me many of his publications. A week was ample time to understand his presentation, because I already understood his approach to the topic.
A half decade earlier our thesis advisor gave a much more difficult substitute performance on the same topic. He was co-chairman of an entire conference. One of the keynote speakers could not make it because he had to testify in court as an expert witness. The manuscript and slides arrived about 2 hours before the presentation. Our advisor warned the audience that he was filling in at the last moment. Then he did an excellent job of communicating someone else’s material. How could he do that so comfortably? He and his co-chair had written a series of review articles on that topic. They already had read and discussed hundreds of technical papers. So, they understood what everyone thought, and could step into anyone’s shoes.
A week before the conference an airmail envelope arrived with his text and slides. There was a brief note saying he could not come, and I should just go give his presentation. It turned out to be straightforward, because he and I had worked for the same PhD thesis adviser in graduate school. For about three years our desks were in the same lab and faced each other. We had built equipment together, and discussed that topic over and over. Later he had sent me many of his publications. A week was ample time to understand his presentation, because I already understood his approach to the topic.
A half decade earlier our thesis advisor gave a much more difficult substitute performance on the same topic. He was co-chairman of an entire conference. One of the keynote speakers could not make it because he had to testify in court as an expert witness. The manuscript and slides arrived about 2 hours before the presentation. Our advisor warned the audience that he was filling in at the last moment. Then he did an excellent job of communicating someone else’s material. How could he do that so comfortably? He and his co-chair had written a series of review articles on that topic. They already had read and discussed hundreds of technical papers. So, they understood what everyone thought, and could step into anyone’s shoes.
Sunday, November 9, 2008
Biggest fears about speaking to groups
This data is about 18 years old, but still interesting to contemplate.
Dr. Roger Flax of Motivational Systems did a study of 12,000 people who participated in his firm’s communication training programs. They were asked: What are your biggest fears about speaking to groups? Results were reported on page 13 of the September 1990 issue of American Salesman magazine in an article titled The Unspeakable Fear.
The fears reported were:
81% - Making embarrassing mistakes
77 % - Damaging your career or reputation
63% - Forgetting or freezing
58% - Being dull or boring
52% - Looking nervous or petrified
45% - Being stared at
37% - Being unable to answer questions
31% - Being unprepared
24% - Being ignored
19% - Being laughed at
7% - That someone will fall asleep
The list of fears is rather comprehensive. It is only missing some more obscure ones like being struck by lightning, turning into a pillar of salt, alien abduction, or spontaneous human combustion.
Dr. Roger Flax of Motivational Systems did a study of 12,000 people who participated in his firm’s communication training programs. They were asked: What are your biggest fears about speaking to groups? Results were reported on page 13 of the September 1990 issue of American Salesman magazine in an article titled The Unspeakable Fear.
The fears reported were:
81% - Making embarrassing mistakes
77 % - Damaging your career or reputation
63% - Forgetting or freezing
58% - Being dull or boring
52% - Looking nervous or petrified
45% - Being stared at
37% - Being unable to answer questions
31% - Being unprepared
24% - Being ignored
19% - Being laughed at
7% - That someone will fall asleep
The list of fears is rather comprehensive. It is only missing some more obscure ones like being struck by lightning, turning into a pillar of salt, alien abduction, or spontaneous human combustion.
Sunday, November 2, 2008
Public speaking is still the #1 specific social fear, according to the latest results from the NCS-R survey
Is public speaking the #1 social fear? A couple of professionals involved with public speaking don’t think so, but I respectfully disagree with them. In a blog post dated April 21, 2008 Lisa Braithwaite quoted from an earlier article by Melissa Lewis titled “Five tired, worn out public speaking clichés, and why it’s time to throw them out” that began with:
“ 1. ‘Public speaking is the #1 fear’
You can count on hearing this one any time you take a presentation skills class. The problem is, there’s nothing to substantiate it. The quoted source for this "fact" is The Book of Lists, which, even in current editions, shows a tiny blurb in the Sunday Times of London from October 7, 1973, as its source. In this article, no mention is made of who did this research, how it was conducted, who the subjects were, whether the subjects were a representative sample of the U.S. population—nothing! Not to mention the fact that this "research" is 30 years old. Haven’t people changed in 30 years? And don’t we face new fears that weren’t even in our consciousness in 1973? Of course. If this research were to be conducted with rigor today, we would likely have a different outcome. This tidy, shocking factoid is easily trotted out when we want to make a point, but it’s just not valid. Time to let it go”.
Melissa further said in an e-mail quoted by Lisa that “I have a standing offer to all my participants: Bring me a current, scientifically credible study showing that public speaking is the #1 fear and I'll give you $100. It's been 20 years and I'm still waiting!"
Well, Melissa if I was taking your course then I would ask you to open up your purse, get out your $100 bill and hand it over! (In fact, I could have had your $100 ten years ago.)
Earlier this year the results of from a large survey of the general population were published which state that public speaking is still the #1 specific social fear. That survey is the NCS-R, which is an abbreviation for the National Comorbidity Study – Replication. The paper with the results is “Social Fears and Social Phobia in the United States: Results from the National Comorbidity Study Replication” by A. M. Ruscio et al. You can find the abstract at Pubmed, as well as the full manuscript. The relevant results are the first column in Table 1.
If you list the prevalence of each specific fear in the total sample (9282 people) in decreasing order the fears are: Public speaking/performance 21.2%, Speaking up in meeting/class 19.5%, Meeting new people 16.8%, Talking to people in authority 14.7%, Important exam/interview 14.0%, Going to parties 13.4%, Talking with strangers 13.1%, Expressing disagreement 12.4%, Entering an occupied room 11.9%, Working while being watched 11.8%, Dating situation 11.5%, Writing/eating/drinking while being watched 8.1%, Using public bathroom 5.7%. There also were two more categories: Other performance or interaction fear 15.7%, and Any of the above fears 24.1%.
Just what is the National Comorbidity Survey? It’s a big, important American health survey program going back to the early 1990s, with its own web site. If you count the scientific papers produced from it you will find about 220!
Back in 1998 another paper by R. C. Kessler et al,“Social Phobia Subtypes in the National Comorbidity Survey” was published using the original survey data from 1990-1992. If you list the prevalence of each specific fear in the total sample (8098 people) in decreasing order the fears are: Public speaking 30.2%, Talking in front of a small group 15.2%, Talking with others 13.7%, Using a toilet away from home 6.6%, Writing while someone watches 6.4%, and Eating or drinking in public 2.7%. There also was a category of Any social fear 38.6%.
I am pretty good at finding information on the web and in libraries. However, it still took me about a half day of online search to dredge up these two articles. The moral, if any, is not to trust the “experts” on a topic. If you want to find out the truth you will have to dig it up on your own.
“ 1. ‘Public speaking is the #1 fear’
You can count on hearing this one any time you take a presentation skills class. The problem is, there’s nothing to substantiate it. The quoted source for this "fact" is The Book of Lists, which, even in current editions, shows a tiny blurb in the Sunday Times of London from October 7, 1973, as its source. In this article, no mention is made of who did this research, how it was conducted, who the subjects were, whether the subjects were a representative sample of the U.S. population—nothing! Not to mention the fact that this "research" is 30 years old. Haven’t people changed in 30 years? And don’t we face new fears that weren’t even in our consciousness in 1973? Of course. If this research were to be conducted with rigor today, we would likely have a different outcome. This tidy, shocking factoid is easily trotted out when we want to make a point, but it’s just not valid. Time to let it go”.
Melissa further said in an e-mail quoted by Lisa that “I have a standing offer to all my participants: Bring me a current, scientifically credible study showing that public speaking is the #1 fear and I'll give you $100. It's been 20 years and I'm still waiting!"
Well, Melissa if I was taking your course then I would ask you to open up your purse, get out your $100 bill and hand it over! (In fact, I could have had your $100 ten years ago.)
Earlier this year the results of from a large survey of the general population were published which state that public speaking is still the #1 specific social fear. That survey is the NCS-R, which is an abbreviation for the National Comorbidity Study – Replication. The paper with the results is “Social Fears and Social Phobia in the United States: Results from the National Comorbidity Study Replication” by A. M. Ruscio et al. You can find the abstract at Pubmed, as well as the full manuscript. The relevant results are the first column in Table 1.
If you list the prevalence of each specific fear in the total sample (9282 people) in decreasing order the fears are: Public speaking/performance 21.2%, Speaking up in meeting/class 19.5%, Meeting new people 16.8%, Talking to people in authority 14.7%, Important exam/interview 14.0%, Going to parties 13.4%, Talking with strangers 13.1%, Expressing disagreement 12.4%, Entering an occupied room 11.9%, Working while being watched 11.8%, Dating situation 11.5%, Writing/eating/drinking while being watched 8.1%, Using public bathroom 5.7%. There also were two more categories: Other performance or interaction fear 15.7%, and Any of the above fears 24.1%.
Just what is the National Comorbidity Survey? It’s a big, important American health survey program going back to the early 1990s, with its own web site. If you count the scientific papers produced from it you will find about 220!
Back in 1998 another paper by R. C. Kessler et al,“Social Phobia Subtypes in the National Comorbidity Survey” was published using the original survey data from 1990-1992. If you list the prevalence of each specific fear in the total sample (8098 people) in decreasing order the fears are: Public speaking 30.2%, Talking in front of a small group 15.2%, Talking with others 13.7%, Using a toilet away from home 6.6%, Writing while someone watches 6.4%, and Eating or drinking in public 2.7%. There also was a category of Any social fear 38.6%.
I am pretty good at finding information on the web and in libraries. However, it still took me about a half day of online search to dredge up these two articles. The moral, if any, is not to trust the “experts” on a topic. If you want to find out the truth you will have to dig it up on your own.
Saturday, November 1, 2008
October 2008 Australian survey confirms Seinfeld: 23% of people fear public speaking more than death
In one of his comedy routines Jerry Seinfeld said that people fear public speaking more than death, so if they went to a funeral then they would rather be lying in the coffin than giving the eulogy. An Australian survey confirmed this.
The survey was taken by Newspoll for Reasontospeak.com and reported in the October 22, 2008 edition of the Sydney Morning Herald. They surveyed 1206 adults and reportedly 23% fear public speaking more than death, compared with 27% who rank death as their number one fear. Also, they reported that 28% of those who finished high school had public speaking as their worst fear, versus only 15% of those with university degrees. There also was an age difference. 25% of the 35-to-64 age group feared public speaking more than death, versus 18% of the 18-to-34 age group. They did not find a gender difference.
The survey was taken by Newspoll for Reasontospeak.com and reported in the October 22, 2008 edition of the Sydney Morning Herald. They surveyed 1206 adults and reportedly 23% fear public speaking more than death, compared with 27% who rank death as their number one fear. Also, they reported that 28% of those who finished high school had public speaking as their worst fear, versus only 15% of those with university degrees. There also was an age difference. 25% of the 35-to-64 age group feared public speaking more than death, versus 18% of the 18-to-34 age group. They did not find a gender difference.
Friday, October 31, 2008
Speech evaluation leads to improvement
The only way to really improve at public speaking is to go through many cycles of speaking, receiving feedback from evaluation, and then speaking some more. Just staring at yourself in the mirror, listening to an audio recording, or looking at a videotape of yourself won’t get you very far.
What is needed is honest, prompt feedback given by peers in a supportive manner. That is one reason I am in Toastmasters.
One of the pillars of the Toastmasters program is prompt feedback on each speech. Each speaker at a meeting is assigned an evaluator. The evaluator provides both a 2 to 3 minute verbal evaluation and additional written comments in the manual. Meanwhile the other club members are also providing brief written comments on 1-1/4 by 4-inch slips of paper.
Evaluation is tricky. The cover of the November 2007 issue of Toastmaster magazine said what it should be with the succinct phrase “Giving courage through encouragement”. One way to do that was stated years ago by Mary K. Ash: “Sandwich every bit of criticism between two heavy layers of praise”. Some Toastmasters refer to this process as: Commend –Recommend – Commend. This year Tom Fishburne said it more humorously in a Brand Camp cartoon.
The topic is covered briefly in a little 2-page tri-fold brochure titled “Speech Evaluation: How to Give Effectively” from Toastmasters District 22 in Western Missouri & Kansas. It is just one of a series of items which you can download from their website.
Giving and receiving evaluation is a perennial topic among advanced Toastmasters. Last year it was the featured topic in the February and November issues of Toastmaster Magazine. You can also find nine articles from Toastmaster posted at the website of Westside Toastmasters in Los Angeles:
“The 3Rs of Evaluating: Review, Reward, and Respond” (Nov 2007)
“What? A Standing Ovation for an Evaluation?” (Nov 2007)
“Three Points to Keep Your Evaluation on Target” (Feb 2007)
“If Only I’d Said…(mastering the art of self evaluation)” (Feb 2007)
“Learning to (Almost) Like Criticism” (Feb 2007)
“Want to Win an Evaluation Contest?” (Jan 2005)
“Build Your Skill in Evaluating Speeches” (Nov 2002)
“The Collaborative Speech Evaluation” (Nov 2002)
“Dealing with a Bad Speech Evaluation” (Nov 2002)
If you prefer videos to reading, there are a couple excellent presentations which you can watch on YouTube. Warwick John Fahy spoke for 10 minutes on “The Heart of Evaluation” at Shanghai Peoples’s Square Club Toastmasters in Shanghai, China. There also is a 40-minute Speech Evaluation Seminar given by someone from EmergingSpeakers up in Canada. Due to time limits for posting it is broken into four chunks: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4.
What is needed is honest, prompt feedback given by peers in a supportive manner. That is one reason I am in Toastmasters.
One of the pillars of the Toastmasters program is prompt feedback on each speech. Each speaker at a meeting is assigned an evaluator. The evaluator provides both a 2 to 3 minute verbal evaluation and additional written comments in the manual. Meanwhile the other club members are also providing brief written comments on 1-1/4 by 4-inch slips of paper.
Evaluation is tricky. The cover of the November 2007 issue of Toastmaster magazine said what it should be with the succinct phrase “Giving courage through encouragement”. One way to do that was stated years ago by Mary K. Ash: “Sandwich every bit of criticism between two heavy layers of praise”. Some Toastmasters refer to this process as: Commend –Recommend – Commend. This year Tom Fishburne said it more humorously in a Brand Camp cartoon.
The topic is covered briefly in a little 2-page tri-fold brochure titled “Speech Evaluation: How to Give Effectively” from Toastmasters District 22 in Western Missouri & Kansas. It is just one of a series of items which you can download from their website.
Giving and receiving evaluation is a perennial topic among advanced Toastmasters. Last year it was the featured topic in the February and November issues of Toastmaster Magazine. You can also find nine articles from Toastmaster posted at the website of Westside Toastmasters in Los Angeles:
“The 3Rs of Evaluating: Review, Reward, and Respond” (Nov 2007)
“What? A Standing Ovation for an Evaluation?” (Nov 2007)
“Three Points to Keep Your Evaluation on Target” (Feb 2007)
“If Only I’d Said…(mastering the art of self evaluation)” (Feb 2007)
“Learning to (Almost) Like Criticism” (Feb 2007)
“Want to Win an Evaluation Contest?” (Jan 2005)
“Build Your Skill in Evaluating Speeches” (Nov 2002)
“The Collaborative Speech Evaluation” (Nov 2002)
“Dealing with a Bad Speech Evaluation” (Nov 2002)
If you prefer videos to reading, there are a couple excellent presentations which you can watch on YouTube. Warwick John Fahy spoke for 10 minutes on “The Heart of Evaluation” at Shanghai Peoples’s Square Club Toastmasters in Shanghai, China. There also is a 40-minute Speech Evaluation Seminar given by someone from EmergingSpeakers up in Canada. Due to time limits for posting it is broken into four chunks: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Fear of public speaking versus fear of snakes
Back in February 2001 Gallup polled Americans about their fears. They sampled 1016 people and reported what percentage expressed fear of various topics. Their poll reportedly had a margin of error of plus or minus 3%. The article about their results was titled Snakes top list of Americans’ fears. That actually is a somewhat misleading generalization which overlooks real gender differences, but in an October 23 blog post Lisa Braithwaite quoted it again anyway.
For women the fear of public speaking (44%) ranks significantly below the much worse top fear, of snakes (62%). For men fear of public speaking (37%) and fear of snakes (38%) were approximately equal. When you pool the data and put men and women together you get that 51% of the people fear snakes, but only 40% fear public speaking.
The detailed list of fears is shown in the following table. I have listed them in decreasing order for women (first column of numbers). The second column of numbers, for men shows significant gender differences. Column 3 lists the pooled results for the 2001 survey, and column 4 lists the pooled results for a 1998 survey.
Fears in order of decreasing percent (for women),
___________________________________2001 1998
_________________________Women Men Both Both
Snakes ______________________62__ 38__ 51__ 56
Public speaking _______________44 __37__ 40__ 45
Being closed in a small space____42__ 25__ 34__ 36
Heights_______________________41__ 31__ 36__ 41
Spiders and insects____________38___15__27__ 34
Mice_______________________33___ 6__20___26
Flying on an airplane__________22___14__18___20
Needles and getting shots______21___20___21__21
Thunder & lightning___________16___6____11__17
Dogs_____________________14___7____11__10
Crowds___________________12___10___11__11
The dark___________________8____2___5___8
Going to the doctor___________8____11__9___12
Public speaking is scary for both men and women. Women find public speaking to be scarier than men do, but they find snakes to be much scarier. Fortunately for most people practice gradually reduces the fear and makes speaking tolerable (or even pleasant).
For women the fear of public speaking (44%) ranks significantly below the much worse top fear, of snakes (62%). For men fear of public speaking (37%) and fear of snakes (38%) were approximately equal. When you pool the data and put men and women together you get that 51% of the people fear snakes, but only 40% fear public speaking.
The detailed list of fears is shown in the following table. I have listed them in decreasing order for women (first column of numbers). The second column of numbers, for men shows significant gender differences. Column 3 lists the pooled results for the 2001 survey, and column 4 lists the pooled results for a 1998 survey.
Fears in order of decreasing percent (for women),
___________________________________2001 1998
_________________________Women Men Both Both
Snakes ______________________62__ 38__ 51__ 56
Public speaking _______________44 __37__ 40__ 45
Being closed in a small space____42__ 25__ 34__ 36
Heights_______________________41__ 31__ 36__ 41
Spiders and insects____________38___15__27__ 34
Mice_______________________33___ 6__20___26
Flying on an airplane__________22___14__18___20
Needles and getting shots______21___20___21__21
Thunder & lightning___________16___6____11__17
Dogs_____________________14___7____11__10
Crowds___________________12___10___11__11
The dark___________________8____2___5___8
Going to the doctor___________8____11__9___12
Public speaking is scary for both men and women. Women find public speaking to be scarier than men do, but they find snakes to be much scarier. Fortunately for most people practice gradually reduces the fear and makes speaking tolerable (or even pleasant).
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