Find your own darn speaking style

Last week in Idaho City I saw the customized Chevrolet pictured above. What the builder of this coupé utility stake truck did starting from a Chevrolet Bel Air inspired the title for this post.

Back in 1959 Chevrolet began producing the El Camino (Spanish for “The Way”) - a coupé utility pickup. This vehicle isn’t an El Camino. Instead it’s a Mi Camino - My Way, like the Frank Sinatra song. The El Camino hid its spare tire either behind the passenger seat or under the bed. This vehicle has its two spare tires displayed very prominently.  

Last March I blogged about What’s your speaking style more like: Teppanyaki, Flambé,or Flying Greens? and in 2014 I blogged about Don’t just get on the bandwagon! find your own speech topic and approach.

Public speaking isn’t the greatest fear for Ukrainians

Diseases of relatives is. That’s one interesting result from a magazine article titled Population study of fears in two generations of Ukrainians which appeared last year in the Indian Journal of Psychological Medicine (Volume 37, Number 3, pages 305 to 310). It was written by four researchers at the National University of Pharmacy in Kharkov : O. V. Filiptsova, Y. N. Kobets, M. N. Kobets, and I. A. Timoshyna.

They surveyed 867 residents of the Kharkov region between 2004 and 2007. Each resident filled out a 24 item fear survey schedule (Ivleva-Shcherbatyh questionnaire) where each fear was ranked on a scale from 1 to 10. Those fears were of:

Animals
Ageing
Aggression possibility in relative
Communication with an authority
Confined spaces
Darkness
Death
Depth
Diseases of relatives
Disease possibility
Exam
Future uncertainty
Height
Mental disorders development
Pain
Poverty
Problems in a private life
Problems in the case of diseases of relatives
Public speech
Responsible decision making
Sex function disorders
Street violence
Suicide commitment
War

They reported results by gender for two generations - younger than 35 and older than 36. The younger generation grew up in an independent Ukraine, while the older generation  was raised in the former USSR with its political regimentation.

Back in 2012 an article at Psychology Today by Glenn Croston titled The Thing We Fear More Than Death began by claiming that:

“Surveys about our fears commonly show fear of public speaking at the top of the list.  Our fear of standing up in front of a group and talking is so great that we fear it more than death, in surveys at least.”

In this study for younger females fear of public speaking ranked 9th (and death was 17th), and for younger males it ranked 5th (and death was 14th). For older females it ranked 10th (and death was 14th), and for older males it ranked 14th (and death was 16th). Public speaking indeed was feared more than death, but it wasn’t hear the top of the fears list. Detailed results are shown in a series of four bar charts. Click on one to see a larger, clearer view.

The first bar chart shows fear rankings for 475 younger females. The top ten fears [and their 95% confidence intervals] are:

Diseases of relatives 7.6 [7.4 to 7.8]
Exam 6.6 [6.4 to 6.8]
Problems in the case of diseases of relatives 6.4 [6.2 to 6.6]
Problems in private life 5.8 [5.6 to 6.0]
Street violence 5.4 [5.2 to 5.6]
Animals 5.3 [5.1 to 5.5]
Poverty and Responsible decision making 5.2 [5.0 to 5.4]
Communication with an authority 5.1 [4.9 to 5.3]
Future uncertainty and Public speech 5.0 [4.8 to 5.2]
War 4.8 [4.6 to 5]

Public speech, 5.0, tied for 9th place with Future Uncertainty. Death and darkness 3.2 [3.0 to 3.4] were 17th, so speaking in public was more feared than death.

A second bar chart shows fear rankings for 257 younger males. The top ten fears [and their 95% confidence intervals] are:

Diseases of relatives 6.4 [6.0 to 6.8]
Exam 4.9 [4.5 to 5.3]
Problems in the case of diseases of relatives and Problems in private life 4.8 [4.4 to 5.2]
Responsible decision making 4.7 [4.3 to 5.1]
Public speech 4.2 [3.8 to 4.6]
Poverty 4.1 [3.7 to 4.5]
Street violence 3.9 [3.9 to 4.3]
Future uncertainty 3.8 [3.4 to 4.2]
Animals and Communication with an authority 3.7 [3.5 to 3.9]
Height 3.3 [2.9 to 3.7]

Public speech, 4.2, was in 5th place. Death 2.4 [2.2 to 2.6] was 14th, so again speaking in public was more feared than death.

For 23 of 24 fears the mean fear level for younger females was higher than for younger males. The exception was Aggression possibility to relatives, and it was higher by just 0.3. The largest difference was 1.7 for Exam, followed by 1.6 for Animals, Problems in the case of diseases of relatives, and war.

  

A third bar chart shows fear rankings for 101 older females. The top ten fears [and their 95% confidence intervals] are:

Diseases of relatives 7.8 [7.2 to 8.4]
Problems in the case of diseases of relatives 6.4 [5.8 to 7.0]
Depth 5.9 [5.3 to 6.5]
Animals 5.8 [5.2 to 6.4]
Exam and Poverty 5.2 [4.6 to 5.8]
Street violence and War 5.1 [4.5 to 5.7]
Problems in private life 4.9 [4.3 to 5.5]
Future uncertainty, Height, and Responsible decision making 4.8 [4.2 to 5.4]
Communication with an authority and Disease possibility 4.3 [3.7 to 4.9]
Public speech 4.2 [3.8 to 4.6]

Public speech, 4.2, was in 10th place. Death 3.3 [2.7 to 3.9] was 14th, so again speaking in public was more feared than death.

  

A fourth bar chart shows fear rankings for 34 older males. The top ten fears [and their very wide 95% confidence intervals due to the extremely small sample size] are:

Diseases of relatives 7.1 [6.1 to 8.1]
Problems in the case of diseases of relatives 5.6 [5.8 to 7.0]
Poverty and Responsible decision making 4.8 [3.8 to 5.8]
Problems in private life and War 4.5 [3.7 to 5.3]
Exam 4.2 [3.6 to 4.8]
Street violence 4.1 [3.3 to 4.9]
Ageing and Pain 4.0 [3.0 to 5.0]
Disease possibility 3.7 [2.7 to 4.7]
Future uncertainty 3.6 [2.6 to 4.6]
Height 3.5 [2.5 to 4.5]

Communication with an authority and Public speech 3.0 [2.4 to 3.6] was 14th and Death 2.8 [2 to 3.6] was 16th, so again speaking in public was more feared than death.

Perhaps Ukrainians have other things on their minds. (Today is the 30th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster).

Dismantling an awful pie chart

At Kelly Vandever’s Speaking Practically web site there was a blog post on April 11th by Tom Nixon. titled Give your graph a point of view illustrated by a the pie chart slide shown above. My previous blog post on April 22nd discussed why I thought it was Another awful pie chart example. I also showed a horizontal bar chart which I thought was better.  A revised version of that slide also is shown above. Kelly Vandever had commented:

“Sorry but I like Tom's chart MUCH better!”

Tom’s slide is prettier than mine, but I think his does not clearly communicate that data. So, I’m going to gradually remove what I think is superfluous from his. The first problem with his chart was that it has ten wedges, one for just 1% and two for 2%. That’s way too many. On page 71 of her 2008 book slide:ology Nancy Duarte advised:

“Limit a pie chart to eight sections. More is too many to differentiate on a slide.”

As shown above, those two 2% wedges should be combined with the 1% one, into one 5% wedge for Everything Else. 

The second problem with his chart was the huge outboard data label (in a font larger than the slide title) pointing to the red wedge. It already was identified by being exploded from the chart, so I put that white label back on the wedge, but using a larger font than for the other wedges.

The third problem with his slide was using a stock photo of a red BMW coupe with a German license plate (from Munich). The subtitle claims the chart is about North American car colors. Why does it show a foreign car? Note that after it’s removed you can see that the pie chart covers a relatively small area on the slide.

The fourth problem with his slide was the title. Red was the fifth most common car color. Would you ever say that a pro sports team which is fifth in its division is HOT? When only 1 of 10 cars is red, how can you say that color is hot?

Saying red is hot also is nonsense when viewed as a temperature. White is much hotter than red, as you can see in a Colour chart for forging and hardening from Uddeholm.

Another awful pie chart example

At Kelly Vandever’s Speaking Practically web site there was a blog post on April 11th by Tom Nixon. titled Give your graph a point of view illustrated by a pie chart with popular colors for North American cars similar to the one shown above. (His also was 3-D and had the segment for red exploded). His text said to:

“Give your charts and graphs a point of view by emphasizing the specific data that is critical to their understanding of your big idea or goal. Pull out the important numbers, enhance their display and show how those numbers are so important to the overall understanding of the content. Then add a headline and a sub headline that focuses their attention and have a powerful graph that both shows the data and delivers your point of view.”

Just over a month ago on March 17, 2016 I blogged about how 3-D Pie Charts are the Spawn of Satan. I don’t think Tom’s chart delivers his point of view. As shown above, a horizontal bar chart would be better. Now you can clearly see how white is hot and red is not (since it’s in fifth place and less than half the percentage for white). The data for my chart are from Axalta.

WHO knows how to wash your hands - an excellent demonstration speech topic

Are you supposed to give a demonstration speech for a class or the Speaking to Inform manual at your Toastmasters International club?  The World Health Organization (WHO) has a solution. They have excellent information for talking about hand hygiene.

A good starting point is their seven-page pamphlet on Hand Hygiene: Why, How & When? There is a poster on How to Handwash? Also see their web page Clean Care is Safer Care.

There also is is a 14-minute YouTube video on Hand Hygiene posted by the New England Journal of Medicine. Detailed hand moves are shown starting at 6:15. The information is presented in clinical jargon though. If you want a clearer, funkier Philadelphia version, look at the six-minute Wash “Em - Hand Hygiene Music Video from Thomas Jefferson University Hospitals. They show the hand moves starting at 3:00. (The video was inspired by Michael Jackson’s song Beat It). Even more hand and dance moves are shown in another four-minute video Hand hygiene from rubbing to dancing. 

I found this topic via an article on page D1 of the April 19th Wall Street Journal by Sumath Reddy titled The right way to wash hands: A scientific inquiry. It also is discussed in a press release about a magazine article titled A Pragmatic Randomized Controlled Trial of 6-Step vs 3-Step Hand Hygiene Technique in Acute Hospital Care in the United Kingdom whose abstract is at PubMed. 

The image of hand washing came from Wikimedia Commons.

Strategies for effective lectures

In April 2015 a 6-page review article titled Practical Strategies for Effective Lectures by P. H. Lenz et al appeared in the Annals of the American Thoracic Society (Volume 12, Number 4, pages 561 to 566). You can read an abstract at PubMed (where I found it), view the full text, or download an Acrobat pdf file of the full text. It has a list of 39 references. The article is one in their medical series of Seminars for Educators.

This article contains six sections headed:

1]  The Rationale for Active Learning
2]  Contemporary Methods for Engaging Audiences
3]  Using Audience Response Systems to Promote Interactive Learning
4]  Organization and Delivery of the Large Group Session
5]  Techniques for Effective Slide and Graphic Design
6]  Alternative Software Tools for Large Group Presentations

Figure 2 in Section 5 shows an example of the Assertion-Evidence format for PowerPoint slides that I discussed in this blog back in February 2014.

The image was adapted from an 1895 one about Popular Lectures on Human Nature found at the Library of Congress.

How not to communicate - Honda told me my car is literally da bomb

As shown above I own a 2012 Honda Fit subcompact car. Honda recently sent me an IMPORTANT SAEFTY RECALL notice that says:

What is the reason for this recall?
Honda has decided that a defect which relates to motor vehicle safety exists is certain 2009-2014 model year Fit vehicles.

The defect in these vehicles could kill or injure you or other people in your vehicle. Specifically, in some vehicles, the driver’s front airbag inflator could produce excessive internal pressure upon deployment. If an affected airbag deploys, the increased internal pressure may cause the inflator to rupture (break apart) and deploy abnormally. In the event of an inflator rupture, metal fragments could pass through the airbag cushion material possibly causing serious injury or fatality to you and others in the vehicle. Past ruptures like this have killed and injured vehicle drivers.

What should you do?
The remedy parts needed to conduct airbag inflator recalls will become available in the Summer of 2016. Honda will send you another letter when parts become available to repair your vehicle.

Until parts become available for repairs, please feel free to discuss your specific needs and concerns with your dealer, including the provision of, or reimbursement for, temporary alternative transportation, as necessary. You also may contact Honda’s Automobile Customer Service (at the number listed below) to address your needs and concerns.

If you have questions or concerns, we encourage you to visit www recalls.honda.com or to call Honda Automobile Service at 1-888-234-2138.

Wow! Should I start panicking and losing sleep now? Not really. The recall is a recent addition to a colossal mess involving inflators for Takata airbags. But Honda has a more specific recall site just about the airbags. I wish they had told me to look there first. A February 23rd article linked to from there said:

“A consortium of 10 automakers investigating the root cause behind exploding airbag inflators made by Takata Corp. has fingered the ammonium nitrate propellant as a key factor in the deadly ruptures — but not the only one. 

According to the group, known as the Independent Testing Coalition, the ammonium nitrate propellant used in about 23.4 million inflators that Takata deemed defective last year was contained in inflator assemblies that failed to protect the chemical from moisture in humid climates. The exposure to humidity and repeated temperature swings over time can cause the ammonium nitrate to combust violently and rupture the inflator when the airbags deploy in a crash, the group concluded…” 

On March 11th at Consumer Reports there was an article titled Everything you need to know about the Takata airbag recall. It included the following information under the heading of Does it matter where I live?:

“According to NHTSA, yes. The Takata inflators seem to be vulnerable to persistent high humidity and high temperature conditions, such as in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, the Gulf Coast states, Hawaii, and island territories. However, since a number of confirmed deaths have occurred in places outside the priority recall area, this recall should not be ignored.”

The high humidity and temperature combination presumably would cause the ammonium nitrate to break into smaller particles, which would combust more rapidly than intended when the airbag inflates. Other than when it was shipped overseas from Japan after it was made in August 2011, my car never was exposed to persistent high humidity. The airbag inflator is unlikely to produce excessive pressure. Some doesn’t mean mine. 
 
How many cars are involved? On March 2nd the Car and Driver web site had another article titled: Massive Takata Airbag Recall: Everything You Need to Know, Including Full List of Affected Vehicles. The recall started in April 2013, and it affected the following millions of vehicles:

Honda 8.51(millions)
Dodge Ram 5.64
Toyota 3.11
BMW  1.605
Ford 1.509
Nissan 1.091
Mercedes-Benz 0.848
Volkswagen 0.680
Chevrolet 0.510
Mazda 0.500
Pontiac 0.300
Audi 0.170
Subaru 0.080

That’s a total of 24.55 million cars, or about ten percent of the total of 257.9 million cars in the U.S. Here in Boise the March 30, 2016 Idaho Statesman had an article by Robert Ehlert titled Airbag recall a sobering situation for millions who need to act. He owns a 2008 Honda CR-V that he bought as a used car. Mr. Ehlert chose to park that vehicle, and drive a rental until it gets fixed. But I’m going to keep driving my Fit.