If you don’t already read it, I recommend Kathy Sierra’s Creating Passionate Users blog for her insights into how to engage the brain for an optimal learning experience.

Her topics are often about software or books, but the underlying ideas should translate well to professional speaking.

The mission of every Toastmasters club is the same, and it bears repeating here:

The mission of a Toastmasters Club is to provide a mutually supportive and positive learning environment in which every member has the opportunity to develop communication and leadership skills, which in turn foster self-confidence and personal growth.

Quick plug for our club: if you live or work near Liverpool Street Station in London, the nearest TM club is City of London Toastmasters.

http://www.cityspeakers.co.uk

PS Bandwidth notwithstanding, I vote for full feeds too. If you cannot stretch to that , I prefer to see a summary of the post in my feed reader, rather than the first few words, arbitrarily cut off with …

I am not sure I get the point of this experiment.

The way I see it, going from a full-text feed to a first-para-only feed could either increase the bandwidth, because people would both get the first-para via RSS, click on it and get the full-text via the website, or it could decrease the bandwidth, because people would get the first-para via RSS, refuse to click on it and not read the article. In the first case, going to a first-para-only feed is a bad idea because it increases traffic and irritates people accessing the blog via an RSS reader. In the second case, going to a first-para-only feed is a bad idea because it reduces the number of people who read the articles.

Am I missing something?

I find the real challenge is in giving good evaluations. As an evaluator I am constantly tring to figure out how I can best help the member grow in their speaking skills.

On thing we do that I think helps guests is we have name tags for everyone. Since my experience is people will forget them, we print out name tags (first name only) for evryone at each meeting. I use 2″ x 4″ shipping labels. It only take a minute to print out name tags for everyone and the cost is minimal. I feel it really makes guests feel more at home as they don’t have to try to remember everyone’s name. For guests we fill out a manual name tag for them.

Another thing to consider… it is usually easier to learn something new than change something you have acquired since some year. I am being general, but you probably get the idea there. Anything people do routinely (even if wrong), they will have an hard time changing their habit. Personal growth - the topic you mostly attack overviewly — is probably a constant assessment and change in your way to do — that is probably why it is very hard often

sometimes i think this means signposting for people we normally interact with: ‘this isn’t a real idea. i’m not suggesting it. it’s just brainstorming. it’s off the wall. dial down the critique-o-meter.’

Noticing the number of verbal pauses (ums, ahs, you-knows) is an eye-opener for many people. I probably had around 10-20 in my first speech. Now I’ve got them down to about 0-2 per speech.

GAH! Please bring back full text feeds!