Organize your speech - Toastmasters Speech 2

This January, I volunteered to present my second speech at the Toastmasters club.
The goal of this speech is to organize your speech with a good opening, body and conclusion. The idea is that a well organized speech is clearer to the audience and ideas expressed are easier to remember.

To me, more than organizing the speech itself, the challenge was to select a speech topic. As I thought about the speech, I quickly realized that this is not as easy as it seems. Ice breaker was easy to prepare because you were told what the topic was. But with the second speech, you are responsible to pick an interesting topic.

And there I was, stuck. I thought, I thought and I thought. I could have spoken about some personal experience, talk about a time of life which was interesting and so on. But I did not want to do any of that. I feel it is always easy to talk about something out of your personal experience. But it is very difficult to talk about something with which you have no personal or emotional attachment. Hence, I posed this as a personal challenge.

One afternoon, at work, I took a break to stare at my watch. I noticed that the bezel on my watch was not positioned right. It did not look like it looked the last time. My watch is a diver's watch, but I did not understand the purpose of unidirectional bezel rotation. I decided to "google" about it. Apparently, divers set the bezel on the watch to match the minute they start to keep track of the time they can be underwater. I thought that piece of fact was interesting and there! A topic for my speech was born. Here it is...

Speech 2 - Organize your speech (5-7 minutes)

Time and Again - History and evolution of Wristwatches
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Opening -

Time goes, you say? Ah no!
Alas, Time stays, we go.

- Henry Austin Dobson

With those words, I wish you all a very good morning. Time has always been an intriguing concept for humans and time keeping more so. Through the course of human civilization keeping track of time has been of utmost importance. And a watch has become culturally central to our lives.

Let's us time travel a little today and learn about the history and evolution of watches.

16th Century

In Horology, this period was of great advancement and innovation. Peter Heinlein, a German watchmaker often considered the inventor of the portable timekeeper made the first known watch in early 1500s.
What you see here is a 16th century watch made by Peter Heinlein.

The watches made during this period were fastened to clothing or around the neck. There was no glass covering, but usually had a brass cover, often decoratively pierced with grillwork.
Also, the watches had only one hour hand. The accuracy very poor, that they were practically useless. They were made as jewelry and novelties for noble, a display of social status.

17th Century

This period saw little in the way of technical innovation. Early watches slowed down during their running period, problem called lack of Isochronisms. So they thought... let’s work on the decoration.

This is a early 17th century watch made of gold, enamel and precious stones. Precious metal were engraved, watches were jeweled, pierced and enameled for decoration. Glass was used to cover the face of the watches.

Then was the English Protestant Puritan movement which advocated the simplification and regulation of forms of worship. As a result of which unornamented watches became popular. Fancy shapes and adornment were usually confined to women’s watches.

Around 18th Century

After men figured that they couldn’t wear fancy watches, they decided to focus back on the technology. With addition of the balance spring during this period, accuracy improved greatly. It also resulted in the addition of the minute hand to the face.

One other important change that happened during this period occurred when Charles II of England introduced waistcoats. Men began to wear watches in pockets instead of as pendants.
With the increase in accuracy it was also noted that the position of the watch had an effect. The watch would gain or lose time depending on the pendant and face positions.

19th Century

The Enlightenment view of watches as scientific instruments brought rapid advances to their mechanisms. Almost accurate marine chronometers were made to determine longitudes during sea voyages. But till this point, watches were handmade and assembled until Americans came into play.
The Americans were the first to begin volume production. Mass production of watches was pioneered by the Waltham Watch Company in Massachusetts. Also with the use of railroads and for safety, first precision and reliable timepiece inspection system for Railroad chronometers were made.

This is a Hamilton railroad pocket watch, dated 1890s.

20th Century

During World War I was when Wristwatches were made and became popular. Patek Philippe created the first wristwatch in late 1800s. In 1904, Brazilian aviator Alberto Santos Dumont asked his friend Louis Cartier to come up with an alternative that would allow him to keep both hands on the controls during flight.
Cartier soon came up with the first prototype for a man's wristwatch called the Santos wristwatch.

What you see here is a trench watch, World War I soldiers wore these wristwatches and slowly pocket watches were out of fashion.

21st Century

The introduction of the quartz watch in 1960s was a revolutionary improvement in watch technology. In place of a balance wheel, watches used a quartz crystal, driven by a battery powered. Now quartz watches had taken over most of the watch market from the mechanical watch industry.

Conclusion

Today, watch makers like Patek Philippe, Rolex and the like still make mechanical watches with grand complications which cost millions. At the same time, relatively cheap electronic watches with digital display, watches for divers, astronauts are at our disposal.

Next time you look at a watch, don't just look at the watch - think of the grand history, think of the engineering, think of it as an expression of individuality and social status and most of all think of it as a piece of art.
With all that in mind, please, please, please remember to take off your watch before you get into a fight.

Thank you!
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I had taken pictures with me of old watches to add visual interest.
After I finished the speech, I realized that I had missed lot of points I had in mind. I also missed showing the audience few pictures. I was also more keen on finishing the speech in time. So, forgetting some points really helped me stick to the time :)

Overall, the speech was OK. The opening and the conclusion was well received.
I realized how difficult it is to speak about topics such as this. This speech was a good eye opener for me.

Ice Breaker - Toastmasters Speech 1

It is probably an old story now. I am officially a member of Truckee Meadows Toastmasters club in Reno. It has been a fun experience so far.

Last month, was my turn to present my first speech at the Toastmasters club. The first speech is an Ice Breaker. It is a way to introduce you to the club members which in turn opens up a comfort level.

I thought long and hard about what I want to talk to introduce myself. How and what exactly do you tell about yourself in 4-6 minutes? I thought about my birthplace, my family, and my friends. But till this date, the greatest influence in my life has been the books I have read. I have very often been the book I have read. And as I look through my life, I see that time and again, my attitude towards life has been greatly influenced by the books I have read.
The thought occurred to me... I should talk about the books that have influenced me the most and how. With that in mind, I prepared a speech. Here is it...

Speech 1- Ice Breaker (4-6 minutes)

READ ME
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Good Morning Fellow Toastmasters and guests

Opening -
I vividly remember reading a story called "Games at Twilight" when i was about 13 yrs old ... the story was about a boy who plays hide and seek with his friends, and by the end of it finds out that his friends did not remember to look for him. That they had moved on to play another game while he was hiding and waiting. He was silenced by the terrible sense of his insignificance.

Now that literary work, my friends, gave me about 6 yrs of depression every time the sunsets... first time a book influenced me without my knowledge.

There is a Proverb - “Tell me what you read, and I will tell you who you are”. That is what I am going to do today.
It’s interesting because in a way, you are giving away too much about yourself and in a way you still hold some mystery.

Body -
The past 28 years of my life can be divided in 4 phases, the 4 phases running both exclusively, inclusively, in parallel - big mess!

Phase 1 - I am better than everyone else

This is the final novel written by philosopher and author Ayn Rand. It is considered the second most influential book after the Bible. Mind bending!
It is a complex combination of mystery, love story, social criticism, and philosophy, and a celebration of individualism, free will, capitalism, logic, and reason.
I am fortunate because it’s one of the greatest books I will ever read.

By the end of reading this book, I had the least tolerance to mediocrity; I began to imagine that I belonged to the group of ideal characters in the book. Not fun!
It took me few years of reading more books and meeting some wonderful people, before I realized that I am really not that great. I am a very mediocre person.
But this book was the one that taught me that I should not be ok with it. Hence I strive every day, learn more, to be better.

Phase 2 - Simplicity is so easy, yet so difficult

Whenever I find life complicated, I always re-read this one book. It is a timeless, simple, wonderful classic.
This simple yet powerful book made me realized that we almost always know what the right thing to do is, but for some humanly reasons, we don't do it.

Right after my grandfather, Atticus Finch is my role model. I always wanted to grow up and be like him and do things with great integrity.
And I also learnt that you do not have to be loud to be a strong person. It also has taught me not to be judgmental about things and people.
It has influenced me very strongly on how I handle everyday situations.

Phase 3 - "It’s a magical world - Let's go exploring"

Once i turned 18, I did something that every adult should do - Start reading comics. It is my favorite, most cherished comic.
Humor to me is very important in my life. We are so engrossed in daily activities that we overlook obvious things, don’t observe, think of trivial things in life and find humor in them.
Every time I read this, I consciously decide to be youthful, silly and to not take myself too seriously... no matter how old I grow.
It is a necessity in my life - to read and laugh to Calvin and Hobbes.

Phase 4 - "up to taking up some challenges"

I am going through some challenging times and sadly the present-tense situation is that I am reading "Lord of the Rings".
There is something about the world confronting the dark times and some people set out there to, to save the world.
Intriguing... especially from my perspective where my day is taken up by the crucial decisions like what shoes to wear, should I eat for lunch, who should i vote for in American Idol and so on. To me these larger than life books, much needed big picture about life and invoke most profound thoughts like "What if I were an Elf..." :)

I have owned this book for 4yrs and had many attempts at reading it. May be once I finish this book, I can see how it ends up influencing me. But for now all you are going to know about me is that I am a slow reader.

Conclusion -

I feel really blessed to have discovered some wonderful books and looking forward to a life time of reading.
I have obviously discussed about these books and thoughts about them to some of my friends in the past.
Almost always sigh in relief and tell me "Thank God! That explains everything..."

Thank you.

Disclaimer - Please do not judge these books based on how I turned out :) I believe that no two people read the same book the same way.
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To present this speech, I took with me the books I spoke about. I thought that visual display of the books was very important for the audience to relate to the subject. When i started speaking, I did not stick to the exact words written on my paper. I did not want to sound like I memorized the speech. I thought it should be natural, especially when the topic is you. It was fun!