Prop hats from a felt donut: Chapeaugraphy or Tabarin

One old but still very amusing routine uses a simple felt donut that can be twisted and clipped to make many different prop hats, as shown above. I first saw Chapeaugraphy mentioned in a blog post by Tom Antion. British public speaker Nick R. Thomas mentions in his blog that he has done it.

Chapeaugraphy apparently goes back to a 17th century French street performer, who called himself Tabarin. You can find descriptions for making 25 hats in a 1902 book, New ideas in magic: Illusions, spiritualistic effects, etc. by William Henry James Shaw. Search in Google Books with the phrase “New ideas in magic”, and then look inside, starting on page 67 or search inside under the word chapeaugraphy.  

You also can always do something surprising with that felt donut, like in this other YouTube video, where it first becomes a steering wheel, a rap record, and a porthole on the sinking Titanic.

How many hats do you wear?

In life we all fill many roles, or metaphorically wear many hats that can be incorporated into speeches as props, as mentioned by Tom Antion. Hats fill needs at many levels, as shown by this Indexed cartoon about where your head is.

We also may literally wear many hats. When the top of my head began to go bald (around age 30), I became especially conscious of hats. In the winter I keep my head warm by wearing knitted watch caps, also known as tuques. In the summer I avoid sunburn by wearing Army surplus boonie hats.

A TV comedy show called Whose Line Is It Anyway? used to feature a game about hats where two teams got to use a box of them as props for the world’s worst dating service video.

The most unusual hat I own is a South Pole Station baseball cap. It was a gift from my sister Ellen, who got to spend two weeks there in 2005 (including Thanksgiving). I used it as a prop for a Toastmasters speech titled “Of course the turkey is frozen - a very southern Thanksgiving.” Her husband Antony Stark designed a small radio telescope called AST/RO that was located in the Dark Sector - about a kilometer from the main station. Tony and his colleagues ran it for 11 years. Ellen got to help him dismantle it to make room for its larger successor, the South Pole Telescope.

How to recognize a fictitious statistic

Recently a Google search led me to this startling statement on page 109 of Brian Tracy’s 2011 book No Excuses!: The Power of Self Discipline:

“According to the book of lists, 54 percent of adults rate the fear of public speaking ahead of the fear of death.”

The same statement also appeared (minus that second the) on page 42 of his 2008 book, Speak to Win: How to Present with Power in Any Situation.

Rex Stout once said that:

“There are two kinds of statistics, the kind you look up and the kind you make up.”

Mr. Tracy’s statement is the second kind of statistic. The Book of Lists from 1977 really doesn’t have anything on page 469 to support that quote. The biggest percent shown is 41%.

How can you recognize a fictitious statistic?

First, it’s very impressive, but doesn’t really add up. It looks like the mythical ManBearPig shown above and featured in an episode of South Park. He was half man, half bear, and half pig, and therefore 50% too much.

Second, when you look for where it might have come from there’s almost no written history behind it. The only other book that mentions that 54 percent is Daryl D. Green’s Awakening the Talents Within: A Guide for the Next Generation of Leaders (200) which says more vaguely that:

“According to one survey, 54 percent of people rank fear of public speaking higher than fear of death.”

The ManBearPig graphic was cobbled together from images of a Brown Bear and background, the head of a Neaderthal Man and clip art of a Pig.

Like talking to a brick wall

Gene Weingarten writes a lifestyle column in the Washington Post. Yesterday he  described his worst speaking engagement. Gene was keynote speaker at a gala event honoring an animal rescue organization.

Before his speech there was an open bar, so much of the audience was inebriated and noisy. He might as well have been talking to a brick wall. The only reason he kept going was that the text of his speech was going to appear in the newspaper (and had been printed in advance).

Then he discussed another speech that went much better - even though he was ”dying.”

Technology by the lectern

David Pogue writes and speaks about computers. He wrote the Missing Manual books about both Windows 7 and Mac OS X Snow Leopard. On May 26th he blogged at the New York Times about Technology or lack thereof at the podium.

David described how audiovisual (A/V) technicians at various venues managed to get the job done, sometimes in surprising ways. He always carries an adapter (dongle) for connecting the video output from his MacBook to the VGA input on a projector.

David pointed out that it’s important to show up early so any A/V problems can be sorted out. He mentioned how he likes to use the Presenter View to see his notes and a preview of the next image. If you’re not familiar with this feature of PowerPoint, read a recent blog post by Adam Vero.

David also mentioned using a printout of the slides and notes at the lectern to get around his MacBook having to be off stage. (I usually print my slides at 9 per page on a handout and keep that summary on the lectern).

Your laptop might wind up on a cardboard box atop a chair or stool, as shown above. When possible I prefer to use my own laptop and remote. The last times I spoke at a university and a junior high school I used my simple remote with their desktop computer and ceiling-mounted projector. 

Employers consider verbal communication and many other skills very important, but are only somewhat satisfied by their newly hired college graduates

Every year the National Association of Colleges and Employers (also known just as NACE) conducts a Job Outlook Survey. Last December I discussed their 2010 survey. Data for the 2011 survey was collected between July and October of 2010.

Among other things, they asked employers to rate the importance of 21 skills/qualities on a five-point scale where:

1 = Not important
2 = Not very important
3 = Somewhat important
4 = Very important
5 = Extremely important

They also asked them to rate their satisfaction in those skills/qualities of their new college hires on a five-point scale where:

1 = Not at all satisfied
2 = Not very satisfied
3 = Somewhat satisfied
4 = Very satisfied
5 = Extremely satisfied

Last December NACE put out a brief press release mostly about the top five skills. Southern Connecticut State University once again leaked the whole survey on their career services web site. (Google search the phrase “NACE Job Outlook 2011” and you will see it under www.southernct.edu). I downloaded the survey and have analyzed their results reported in Figures 38, 39, and 40 as weighted average ratings.

The bar chart shows results for both importance (blue) and satisfaction (red). Click on it to see a larger version. 14 out of 21 skills were rated as very important (above 4.0). If everything was perfect, then those skills considered very important would have satisfaction ratings (in red) that would match (or even exceed) the blue ones. Instead there’s both good news and bad news.

First the good news. Some of the red bars exceeded the blue ones, but mainly for the three lowest-ranked qualities: sense of humor, entrepreneurial skills/risk/taker, and strategic planning skills. (That also was true for friendly/outgoing personality).

The bad news is that verbal communication skills, which were ranked most important at 4.65, lagged behind in satisfaction at 3.86. So did written communication skills, and many other skills (including the entire top ten). Last year they just listed communications skills, but didn't separate written and verbal.

These results indicate that college new hires are not really meeting their employers expectations. If you are still in college, then you should consider what courses you need to improve your skills. For suggestions about verbal communications, read this article by Paul Hettich.

If you are a recent graduate, then you could join a Toastmasters International club to improve your verbal communications skills.

A bar chart is much better tool to compare rankings for the importance, satisfaction, and differences between them than the three separate tables presented in the NACE survey. Those tables were organized from largest to smallest, so Communication skills (verbal) was in the top row under importance, in the eighth row under satisfaction, and in the fourth row under difference.

Ibagli posted the image showing a university graduation.

Overcoming public speaking anxiety - free videos from a university course

Back in January the University of California at Davis had a graduate-level course (GEO 298) on Overcoming Public Speaking Anxiety with nine lectures.  They posted their  unedited video files on YouTube:

Lecture 1: Class introduction (41 minutes)

Lecture 2: An overview of anxiety with Sharon Sausto Lasser (61 minutes)

Lecture 3: Reducing public speaking anxiety, with Michael Motley (58 minutes)

Lecture 4: Methods and resources for reducing anxiety (53 minutes)

Lecture 5: How to organize your presentation (35 minutes)

Lecture 6: Organizing your presentation and audience analysis (9 minutes)
 
Lecture 7: Effective use of presentation aids (49 minutes)

Lecture 8: Computer visual aids; the good, the bad, and the ugly (48 minutes)

Lecture 9: Speaking to non-academics (45 minutes)

They also posted the video files as free downloads on the Apple iTunes store. These are large files, about 1Gb each, so think before you try putting them onto an iPod or other portable device.

It’s nice to find some serious university level stuff on YouTube, along with clips of humorous animal tricks, etc.