Every year we host fantastic female role models for Girls of Steel. Past speakers include Julia Parsons, WWII codebreaker; Carnegie Mellon University Professors Henny Admoni and Jessica Hodgins; and PPG executive Rebecca Liebert. Girls of Steel was pleased to have Leanne Meyer, the Executive Director of the Accelerate Leadership Center at the Tepper School of Business and Program Director of the Carnegie Mellon Leadership and Negotiation Academy for Women, speak at one of our meetings. Leanne began her mission in South Africa and was inspired by events that occurred in her home country. Her mission is to assist leaders around the world to navigate their business life in the best way possible as well as making sure that everyone feels confident in themselves and the work that they are doing.
She discussed this with Girls of Steel by diving into the concept of being a leader and how women face challenges throughout their careers by trying to be successful. We could all remember a time when we were told that we should not be leaders or that we were being “bossy.” Leanne’s inspirational speech helped to remind us that we are capable of being leaders and should never feel guilty about doing so. We need to own the word “bossy” and replace its negative connotation with one of power and independence. She left us with this definition of leadership: “Leadership is using the greatness in you to achieve and sustain extraordinary outcomes by engaging the greatness of others.” by Susan L. Calantuono, CEO of Leading Women. This blog was written by Emma from FRC Team Girls of Steel (FRC 3504). If you are interested in blogging for FIRST Ladies, click here to sign up on the schedule!
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5 Ways to Build Your Oratory Skills
One of the biggest fears that many people still have nowadays is speaking in front of the public. In FIRST, students learn how to create, share, market and protect their ideas. When pitching a project, a creator is usually given a limited amount of time to reveal the most important aspects of what they have created. That’s why it is so crucial to have skills that allow delivering a message in both clear and concise way. Even though today, we have technology on our side helping us deliver the speech faster and easier, the idea of having hundreds or thousands of eyes looking at us still makes a lot of trouble. On the other hand, there are some who succeeded in attracting masses and deliver speeches listened by people around the world. How did they do it? Keep reading this article and discover how to build your oratory skills. 5 Ways to Build Your Oratory Skills 1. It’s very normal to be nervous A great public speaker who manages to make crowds wait anxiously for his next speech is full of confidence. But, this doesn’t mean that he was born with it. Growing confidence to build oratory skills is a process that takes a lot of practice and perseverance. There are various techniques that you can use to gradually increase your confidence level. First, it is perfectly normal to be nervous. Moreover, it is very important that you carefully prepare your speech. When you know what you have to say and what questions to expect from your audience, then it will become easier to overcome emotions. If possible, it would be also great if you could practice in an as realistic as the possible environment. Finally, you can build your confidence by rehearsing out loud and do extensive research to know your audience. Thus, you will become able to anticipate their questions and stay away from uncomfortable situations. 2. Know what type of people are listening to you Do you know who is your target audience? What kind of people is listening to you? Why are they doing so? Knowing your audience is the key to building strong oratory skills. Before you begin to write your speech and determine what type of message you are going to deliver, you should first think of who are the people who are going to receive it. Thus, you should start by understanding and knowing your listeners as much as possible. Knowing which are their biggest points of interest will help you choose your words easier. Moreover, this exercise will also help you determine your speech difficulty level. You should also not forget that your audience will connect to your speech if they feel that you share the same values and experiences. For example, if you don’t know how to “break the ice” and transmit a positive vibe to your audience, you can start your speech with an anecdote which will show them more about your personality and will also help get rid of emotions. 3. Don’t forget about the attention curve In case you receive a time constraint for your speech, then it becomes clear that you should respect it. By having a time length for your speech will help you organize your ideas in a more concise way and focus only on the most interesting aspects of your message. Moreover, you should be prepared for any unexpected interruptions while you deliver the speech. Thus, you should be prepared with some messages placed in the middle which you can skip in case you get interrupted. The difficult part comes when you don’t have a clear timeframe. Therefore, you risk falling into the trap of talking too much and lose your audience focus. In this case, you should have in mind the concentration curve. In general, their focus will fade during the middle of your speech and will increase as you go to the end. Furthermore, if your message is longer than 15 minutes, then you should expect that their concentration level will decrease especially if they start becoming hungry or need to go to the bathroom. 4. Adapt to the feedback received from your audience Your focus should always be on your audience. Therefore, while you deliver your speech, you should pay attention to how they are reacting. This means that in case their concentration level decreases, you should be prepared with a back-up plan to make them focus on your speech again. Their body language is the first source of feedback in this case. So, apart from focusing on delivering a clear speech, you shouldn’t lose sight of what your audience is doing while you speak. If you manage to know them very well, then it will become easier to gauge their reactions and deliver a message which will catch their attention from beginning to end. 5. Start strong and end dynamically If you want to keep your audience’s attention from beginning to end, you should stay away from clichés. Instead of starting with phrases like “today I will tell you more about subject X”, it would be more exciting if you would start with an anecdote or quotation related to the subject. Even though you grabbed people's attention, it is very important what you do during the entire speech. So, if you managed to start strong, your audience will expect to keep the same trend until the conclusion. Therefore, you can grab their attention by adding a personal touch or telling stories with a pinch of humor or sarcasm. The conclusion is also very important. Summarize the main ideas when you reach the end of your speech. A strong statement added in the final phrases will make your speech memorable. Conclusion If you want to improve your oratory skills, you should know that practice doesn’t make it perfect. It is absolutely normal to not be perfect when delivering your speech. People appreciate more an authentic speech than a carefully calculated one. Pay attention to the tips above and take enough time to prepare for delivering your speech. Moreover, it is normal to not be able to manage your nerves during your presentation moment. However, practice will help you minimize them and be as natural as possible. Top 10 Best Essay Writing Services of 2019 Ranked by Students http://www.topwritersreview.com/top-10-essay-writing-services/ Contributed by: Daniela McVicker Social Media: Twitter : https://twitter.com/danielamcvick LinkedIn : www.linkedin.com/in/danielamcvicker Hi everyone, my name is Samhita, and I am one of your new FIRST Ladies Directors! I am from Pittsburgh, and I am currently a freshman in high school. Last year I was apart of FTC team 9820 Girls of Steel Hypatia. I am now a member of FRC team 3504 Girls of Steel Robotics, and hope to be a roboticist in the future. I am looking forward to directing FIRST Ladies.
I’m Aeryn and I’ve been apart of the Girls of Steel Robotics FRC team for three years now and am happy to be apart of the FIRST community. I am currently in 11th grade and am looking into going to college for engineering. I have been inspired by the work I’ve done in robotics specifically in design and driven to continue with it. I look forward to Directing FIRST Ladies and helping make a better space for girls in FIRST. Girls of Steel has been a regional partner for the past three years and we became directors this past summer. This opportunity gives our team a chance to further our mission to inspire girls in STEM and we look forward to being the new directors. You can contact both of us at [email protected] |
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