On April 28th 2017 I went to see a presentation on the importance of phosphorus. The official name of the talk was “Phosphorus Frontiers on a Finite Planet” given by Dr. Eric Roy, who is an associated professor at UVM. The talk was held at the Johnson house located at 627 main street. Dr. Roy was sponsored by the Rubenstein school. He wanted to show the importance of phosphorus, in regards to planting crops, but also the environmental impacts of how we are getting phosphorus. He wanted to demonstrate alternative ways humans could harness phosphorus. The audience he was addressing was very diverse. Students only seemed to make up about half the people in the room. There was a surprising amount of older people at the talk. It looked like most …show more content…
He had a slide show and an obvious direction to his speech. However, there were a couple instances when there was confusion, where people just blurted out questions. When this happened, Dr. Roy calmly clarified and made sure the person understood after he had answered. He seemed to be on the performance side more when talking about is background and work he did. He switched to the communication side when it came to the more scientifically specialized topics. For example, after the slide he asked, “Do you guys understand what phosphorus fixing is?” to get a gauge on how much the audience picked up from him. Dr. Roy’s invention was on par, but nothing extraordinary. He opened his talk by giving background about himself and his work, and said “I did this… but I am not going to talk about that today.” I knew the talk was about phosphorus, but if it were not in the title of his presentation it would have taken me a couple minutes to figure it out. When he did start talking about phosphorus, he clearly stated what it was used for in regards to agriculture, more specifically citing his work in Brazil. He was obviously very passionate about his work and he made that …show more content…
I did not realize how instrumental it is for life. That being said, I did not feel a personal connection with his goal of finding alternate ways of utilizing phosphorus. He made it seem like a problem that was happening very far away, because his work was in Brazil. I think Dr. Roy would have been more effective if he talked about the implications of not doing anything, or not changing the ways we harvest phosphorus. It made his argument less convincing because he did not create a problem to be solved. I was not sure why phosphorus contamination was bad, or where it was happening. He talked too much about Brazilian farmers yields of soybeans, then he diverged to where soybeans were being shipped which made the speech seem less personal and pressing. I am no expert in this topic, it just seemed strange to me that he brought up economics. When thinking back, he was probably trying to show how the increase of soybeans meant more phosphorus would be used, but he did not clearly say that so I was left guessing. He said early on that he was not concerned with the disappearance of phosphorus. At some points I thought it all connected to deforestation, but Dr. Roy only mentioned this fact briefly, so it could not have been. This is what I mean by I was not sure what the problem was. After these points he transitioned to the alternative ways of harvesting
This manner of presenting himself is continuous throughout his speech allowing his audience to feel comfortable around him. An example of this would be Robinson’s story about his son and a previous girlfriend. By sharing a story about his son, he allows the audience to feel a connection towards him. Almost, as if they were close friends sharing stories about events past and if the audience’s laughter was any indication his strategy worked extremely well. By becoming relatable Robinson captures that attention of the audience which makes them more attentive to what he would say
While I was listening to the audio recording of his speech, he sounded so confident when talking to them. He was a persuasive speaker and spoke to his audience with respect and honesty. He began his speech with a strong hook which I believe caught the attention of his listeners and myself. “I
He included a ton of information but lacked a visual aid. I believe by having a visual aid or multiple visual aids it could have kept the audience intrigued and kept their attention on what he was presenting. I found myself at multiple times during the speech getting distracted and forgetting what he had just presented. With a visual aid I believe that could have been avoided. I also noticed that he stayed in one spot for the whole speech and was reading from his notes almost the whole time. Similar to the visual aid I believe he could have been more effective in getting his main points across if he interacted with the audience more and showed more physical interest in the topic. I believe Martin Rees could have also organized his presentation better to also be more effective. What I mean by this is that at certain times during the presentation I found some of the information he was stating didn’t clearly reflect his thesis or main points, because of this it left the audience distracted and took away from what he was trying to get
The two speakers that I chose to compare for this study were Pastor, John Ortberg and Michael Pollan. While these speakers presented very different audiences, according to very different structures, three things they had in common were: 1) a personal/conversational tone; 2) they involved the real world in the context of their presentations; and 3) they were clear and concisein their manner of speaking. =======================
He organized the message into an introduction, body, and conclusion. The introduction mentioned the message, the body used biblical passages to emphasize his point, and the conclusion restated and reviewed the key points of the overall message to the audience. There were not really noticeable transition statements that he made, but the presentation still seemed to have a decent flow that was easy to follow and understand, without harsh jumps from section to section. (C6)
Otherwise, there seemed to be no significant or obvious distinction amongst members. The attitudinal makeup of the audience was either neutral or positive, as Davis and his work are most known for being lighthearted and joyful. Mr. Davis undoubtedly considered these elements when he planned his lecture, as a large portion of it was centered around the nostalgic feeling the Garfield comics give to the crowd (C3). Regarding the introduction used during the lecture, I felt that it was more than effective in its explanation of Davis by showing what he is primarily known for, what the audience was about to witness, and by creating a favorable atmosphere for the lecture. To gain the audience’s attention, a video demonstrating Mr. Davis’s history and accomplishments was played before he began his lecture. Overall, I thought that it was a moderately effective introduction because it reinforced the interest of the audience, displayed the significance Davis has to the illustration business, and presented his credibility as well-known illustrator. For example, I thought it was interesting that the administrator jokingly announced Davis as a man too important to be talking a public lecture. On the other hand, however, I also thought that the introduction was somewhat ineffective in that it never overviewed what was going to be talked about in the rest of the lecture (C4).
I think that the way he talked was very intriguing and made me want to continue listening. I also think that the way he projected his voice was very powerful, I could tell that he truly cared about what he was talking about and that he knew what he was talking about.
I agree with you on your post that he did appear to be too happy. However, there are people with that type of personality who are just happy within themselves. I think he did well in presenting his speech and in a timely manner. Yes, people do seem to lose interest when people are too serious and too lengthy when making a presentation. I liked the fact that he was able to gain my attention on this interesting subject. This video has caught everyone’s attention and it was effective in its delivery. I think humor is a good way to deliver any
So it is important to be direct and solid with your statements when you tell stories and give instructions. All of Randy’s sorties and jokes were easy to understand and direct. Something that Pausch did that was very creative was his use of foreshadowing. The photo of him and his siblings on the Alice ride at Disney as a child connected well with the program he designed later in life as a professor. Furthermore, he made that it apparent to his audience that may not have originally seen the connection by stating it was a foreshadowing moment. By leaving the story open-ended until a later time in his lecture, he captured the interest of people who didn’t know him prior by intriguing them with a mystery. Then to people who did understand, it was a fun and heartwarming connection. The point of using foreshadowing and other organization techniques is to keep the brain occupied and attentive. Pausch does an excellent job of this.
He started with asking everyone to go around the room and answer three questions: name, major, and what they want to learn from this presentation. While this seemed unusual, it also helped Kaney learn about his audience and how he should structure the presentation. Another example of this informality is that Kaney used a lot of comedy in his presentation; through a combination of jokes and financial puns (for a lack of a better word), he received enthused laughter from the crowed several times through the course of the presentation.
One issue she had during this speech was that during this time she was going to show us a few photos of herself after the explosion but there was a technology issue and she was unable to do this. Even though the pictures were not working, the devices of using her feelings in her voice and her emotion were just enough to pull me in to being interested in her story. Also, at one point she went to pass out a hand out and show us statistic but it took her a little while to find the sheet of paper which was one negative part of her speech because she should have had it in a spot she could easily get to. Since she was getting so into some of the stories she would also go off track and kept telling different stories. This was still very interesting but it kind of went off topic off why she was their speaking to us. Simmons was leaning against a table at times which was sometimes distracting because she seemed to be too relaxed at times and at the beginning she was moving her hands too much but then held a paper to calm her movements down which was good.
I specially enjoy when he used a direct tone to point to his primary audience what they missed in their initial statement. Doctor King
He told personally stories, sad stories, happy stories, and true stories. Although his points were about fear, he also connected God into his points as well. This made it enjoyable to listen to fro me, because of the stories that he told and how well he connected these stories with the points he was sharing, and it helped connect the audience together and with the Pastor because he then connected all of the to God.
The presentation Aid the speaker chose to use is a projector hooked up to a computer using a PowerPoint presentation, the use of these really brought out the message is trying to get across. We have some people that absorb information by listening others are visual learners so he covered both bases.
Of course the slide that had percentages on it caught my eye due to liking numbers and math so much. It was interesting for me to hear him talk about what would happen if 99.9% were acceptable. Some of the examples were like “two unsafe plane landings per day at O’Hare airport in Chicago” and “500 incorrect surgical operations each week”. These examples just show that companies are always having to know what they are doing and what needs to be improved to make sure