Almost nobody wants to see your Top 15 list: please use either a Top 10 or a Top 20 list

At the end of the year it once again is time to compile silly annual lists of “The Top N.” Where should you stop – at 10, 15, 20, 25, or 30? We all know that lists of 10 are commonly used by folks like David Letterman or Guy Kawasaki. If you need a somewhat longer list should it stop at 15 or go on to 20? My answer is 20. Lists of 15 apparently would be about ten times less popular, although I have no idea why this should be so.

Yesterday morning I did a series of Google and Yahoo searches on the quoted phrase “top N” where N was a number ranging from 2 to 30. I tabulated the number of search engine hits, and then plotted them (on a logarithmic scale) versus the number of items as is shown above. (Click on the plot for a larger, clearer view.) The Popularity was defined as the logarithm of the number of hits, so a popularity of 6 means 1,000,000 hits, a 7 is 10,000,000, and an 8 is 100,000,000 and so on. When you connect between the Popularity for 10 and 30 with a straight line, it goes almost directly through 20 and 25, but it is goes about a full unit (or ten times) above passing through the value for 15.

I also did a similar series of searches, for N at intervals of 5 over a range from 5 to 150. The following plot shows those results. “Top 100” was about as popular as “Top 10”, and Top 20 and Top 50 also were relatively popular. Forget about ever using “Top 105” - it was truly pathetic.

This research was inspired by finding a list of 45 Commandments of Public Speaking posted on December 9th by Susan R. Young at Get in Front Blogging. Based on the following plot a “Top 50” list would get about 70 times more hits than a “Top 45 list”.

Does homeopathic Argentum nitricum reduce anxiety?

Back on November 17th Madeline Innocent (who is a natural health consultant in Perth, Australia) wrote briefly at Ezine Articles about Overcoming Your Fear of Public Speaking with Ease. She claimed that:

“The homeopathic medicine Argentum nitricum, Arg nit for short, is a wonderful medicine to allay anticipation anxiety.”

That same day she also posted three other articles praising that homeopathic medicine: Anticipation Anxiety Treatment in One Easy Step, Performance Anxiety Can Be a Help or a Hindrance, and Holistic Anxiety Treatment is Most Likely to Be Permanent.

There are lots of other articles which recommend homeopathic Argentum nitricum. For example, R. Oliva’s eHow article on Homeopathic Treatment of Anxiety says that:

“Argentum nitricum is most effective when used before a big event such as an important test or a public speaking event.”

What is Argentum nitricum? It just is fancy terminology for a tiny bit of silver nitrate dissolved in a whole lot of water. Does it really work for reducing anxiety?

In 2006 Karen Pilkington and her colleagues published a long article (in Homeopathy magazine) called Homeopathy for Anxiety and Anxiety Disorders: A Systematic Review of the Research. You can read the abstract and conclusion here at PubMed. They found no clear and compelling evidence that homeopathy was effective for treating anxiety.

In the article they mention that there were two clinical trials for Argentum nitricum on test anxiety, which is one important type of anticipation anxiety. The first one, done in 1982 by Stanton, found that it helped reduce test anxiety. A second one in 2003 by Don Baker et al attempted to replicate the first one, but found no effect compared with an inert placebo. By the way, that 2003 article reported on work done in Australia! You can read the abstract here at PubMed. Both studies used a concentration of 12X. That means one part per trillion, which is equivalent to 1 drop of water diluted into 20, two-meter-deep Olympic-size swimming pools (50,000 cubic meters), or one second of time in approximately 31,700 years.

What about results from university theses? There was yet another study on Argentum nitricum for test anxiety done in 2005. Christinette Snyman’s Masters of Technology (M Tech) thesis at the University of Johannesburg also found no effect when using a lower concentration (or higher potency) of 200CH. However, an M Tech thesis in 2000 by Gabrielle Traub found that a combination of Kalium Phosphoricum, Argentum Nitricum and Gelsemium at 200CH reduced anxiety. Another M Tech thesis in 2002 by Rowena Emmeline Kathyrn Thomson did not find an effect on anxiety for a combination. An M Tech thesis in 2002 by Karin Pelser also found no effect for Gelsemium sempervirens at 200 CH. Traub has mentioned her thesis results in an interview here. The other subsequent results also are interest.

So, I think you should take any claims about the effectiveness of homeopathy against anxiety with a grain of salt (or in their terminology, many truckloads of Natrum muriaticum). You should do your own research, read the literature, and make up your own mind.

Also, as I mentioned in a previous post, homeopathic tablets often incorporate lactose (which can be a problem for some of us).

Update: On December 19, 2009 the first article I mentioned by Madeline Innocent reappeared on another web page titled Cure Your Hemorrhoids.

Naked audiences and Savage Chickens

Recently the silly advice to imagine your public speaking audience naked was the subject for one of Doug Savage’s wonderful, single-panel Savage Chickens cartoons. I think of Doug as being the Canadian follow-up to Gary Larson and his Far Side. The talking block of bean curd in this cartoon from October 23rd is known as Timmy Tofu. Back on February 11, 2009 Timmy wrote a valentine saying “I want to see you naked.” At first I thought Timmy was a desktop computer tower. When he gets drunk he does too, as seen in a January 8, 2009 cartoon. Doug has published a couple other cartoons about motivational speakers on March 13, 2009 and February 4, 2008.

Speaking of naked audiences, there is a footnote on the bottom of page 3 of Scott Berkun’s new book, Confessions of a Public Speaker regarding my previous blog posts about that fun but useless bit of advice coming from Sir Winston Churchill. It reads:

“I asked more than a dozen experts, and while none knew the origins of the advice, Richard I. Garber tracked down a mention in expert James C. Humes’s book The Sir Winston Method (Quill) connecting Churchill to it.”

My first blog post seems to be the only place on the entire web where a cartoon containing full-frontal nudity was used to discuss this topic.

SAY WHAT? Best, worst, and most clueless speakers of 2009

Today there was a press release in which Deborah Shames and David Booth, who are the principals of Eloqui Communications, handed out their first annual Say What? awards for three categories of public speaking. They named the following people:

OWN THE ROOM (for outstanding speaking):

Barack Obama, for his Fort Hood Address

Patrick Kennedy and Ted Kennedy Jr,. for Ted Kennedy's eulogy

Brian Williams, for NBC Nightly News

BLAH, BLAH, BLAH (for speaking without skill, meaning or passion):

Caroline Kennedy

Alan Greenspan

Joe Biden, our Vice President

FOOT IN MOUTH (for clueless speaking rather than shutting up):

Kanye West

Serena Williams

Joe Wilson, South Carolina Congressman for his “you lie” outburst

This list of top threes really is even sillier than one naming the most boring public speakers in the UK that I discussed previously. You need a list of five or ten in order to accommodate the “winners” in obvious categories like politicians, sports figures, musicians, actors, clergy, and businesspeople.

The press release did a pretty good job of putting “foot in mouth” too. In the first paragraph it described Shames and Booth as authors of:

“…Own the Room, their jointly-authored, business presentation book that has recently earned top rankings on three different Amazon.com bestseller lists.”

The last paragraph gave the full title of the book as Own the Room: Business Presentations That Persuade, Engage & Get Results. However, it omitted listing Peter Desberg, who actually is the third co-author. He does not work for Eloqui Communications, so he wasn’t “featured” in this press release. It is usually better not to leave out any co-authors when mentioning a book, unless you are trying to start a vendetta!

Do you have a high level of anxiety about public speaking?

What do you mean by high? Also, how on earth would I find that out?

First, just ask yourself the following two silly questions:

1. Which of the above photos describes your mental image for a speaker’s platform:
a) the short one on the left
b) the tall one on the right

2. If you could avoid giving a speech by paying money, would you be willing to spend:
a) $1
b) $100
c) $10,000
d) $1 million
e) $100 million

If you answered question #1 with b), and question #2 with e), then you have a VERY high level of anxiety.

Seriously, there is a simple self-test that you can take to see how your level of anxiety compares with other people. It is called the Personal Report of Public Speaking Anxiety (PRPSA). The PRPSA first was described back in 1970 by James C. McCroskey. It has 34 multiple-choice questions. You can take it and score it yourself in less than an hour. Then you can compare your score with the norms and see if your level of anxiety really is low, high, or just normal.

Some public speaking teachers routinely use the PRPSA at the beginning of courses in order to spot students with a high level of anxiety. Then they have their students take it again near the end of the course, so they can see how much their level of anxiety has decreased.

Some textbooks incorporate the PRPSA. For example, you can find it in Public Speaking: an audience centered approach by Steven A. Beebe and Susan J. Beebe, on page 20 of the sixth edition from 2005. If your textbook does not discuss it, then you can download this sample of Chapter 2 from Confident Public Speaking by Deanna D. Sellnow from 2004 which tells you to take the PRPSA and then discusses anxiety.

So, ignore articles from coaches that spread fear, uncertainty, and doubt - like this one from last year about Public Speaking Anxiety: Can Public Speaking Training Make It Worse? Take an hour and find out for yourself where you stand!

Into the dark – and back into the light

Speakers are advised to have a “Plan B” so that they can continue in spite of problems with equipment. But, what do you do if there is a power failure, right before you begin your speech? That’s really stressful!

Over thirty years ago I attended an unforgettable Ph.D. thesis defense at Carnegie Mellon University. The conference room was packed with people from both the metallurgy and mechanical engineering departments. The candidate had a Carousel projector loaded with a long, detailed set of slides. He had his notes in hand, and was ready to begin.

About five minutes before he was scheduled to start his presentation we saw the room lights go out, and heard the ventilation fans coast to a stop. A few hundred yards away a mobile crane had tipped over. The falling boom had snapped the main overhead power lines for the campus.

What next? Should he get out a lamp and try to speak in the dark, like the painting of Diogenes looking for an honest man? Fortunately someone suggested that his adviser call the Mellon Institute building a half-mile away. They still had power, and also had a free conference room.

So, the defense was re-scheduled for an hour later. Committee, candidate, and audience walked over Panther Hollow to the new location. By then the candidate had a chance to recover his composure. He successfully defended his thesis, and went on to a distinguished career in industrial research.

The joy of finding a free and worthwhile e-Book: The ACA Open Knowledge Guide to Public Speaking

How would you like to ALMOST INSTANTLY obtain a COMPLETELY FREE e-book that just might CHANGE YOUR LIFE FOREVER? I am not just talking about a crummy MARKETING E-BOOK which REVEALS THE SECRETS of how YOU CAN MAKE BIG MONEY as a MOTIVATIONAL SPEAKER.

Nor am I talking about a not very AMAZING BOOK that can MAGICALLY ELIMINATE YOUR FEARS. It is not just a long ad for our FAMOUS SEMINAR that has been ENDORSED BY WELL-KNOWN CELEBRITIES.

But wait, there's more!!!

No OPERATORS ARE STANDING BY to try and sell you a MAGIC BULLET that will take your career to AN ENTIRELY NEW LEVEL. However, this WORLD CLASS PRODUCT is not AVAILABLE IN A STORE NEAR YOU.

This offer is not VALID ONLY FOR A LIMITED TIME. There is no MONEY BACK GUARANTEE. You do not need to ACT NOW.

$ $ $

What I am talking about is a non-commercial textbook resulting from a collective effort by a bunch of real, live college professors in the American Communication Association (ACA). It is called the ACA Open Knowledge Guide to Public Speaking. The Guide is a work-in-progress. It began to appear in September 2008. Right now it consists of a series of 13 modules (chapters) that you can read online or download as Adobe Acrobat files here.

The download list on the right side of the page shows abbreviated titles of the modules. Full titles for them are as follows:

Public Speaking in Context: How Does Public Speaking Differ from Other Forms of Communication (12 pages)

Listening: The “Lost” Communications Skill (16 pages)

On Critical Thinking and Reasoning: Deduction, Induction, and Logical Fallacies (27 pages)

The Significance of Audience Analysis: Strategically Considering Your Target Populace (14 pages)

Persuasive Speaking: Origins of Contemporary Persuasion (13 pages)

Persuasive Speaking: Strategies for Causing Attitudinal and Behavioral Change (22 pages)

Developing Quality Research Skills: Getting the Most Out of Your Library and Online Resources (10 pages)

Using Language Well: The Power of Effective and Ethical Language (15 pages)

Figuratively Speaking: Techniques for Adding Clarity and Style (19 pages)

Developing and Using Visual Aids Effectively: Charts, Models, and Artifacts Galore, Logical Fallacies (16 pages)

Introductions and Conclusions: On Perfectly Beginning and Ending Your Speech (16 pages)

Informative Speaking (16 pages)

Special Occasion Speaking: Public Speaking in the Workplace, Public Relations, After-dinner Speaking, and Ceremonial Speaking (8 pages)

When you add up the modules there are 204 pages so far. I found my way to the Introductions and Conclusions module when I was looking for references to give my Toastmasters club while preparing to conduct their Better Speaker Series presentations on beginning and concluding speeches.

The ACA Guide still has an extremely low profile because it is non-commercial. It was mentioned as Speech Reference of the Month in a November 10 newsletter by Statehouse Toastmasters (Salem, Oregon).