Eye Contact during Public Speaking

There is a lot of information out there about this subject.  I have read several articles about how important eye contact is when speaking in public   I will share briefly three points about this.

 1. Practice eye contact 

  Like anything in our lives it does not necessarily come natural to all of us and even cultural differences come into play here.  As you interact with people make it a point to make eye contact with people. You can practice doing this in a mirror. If you have online video calls for work or something, practice eye contact by looking into the camera 

2. Before being to speak during your presentation.

  

  At the beginning of your speech before you even begin to speak take a pause and look at your audience.  Look left and right and see all of them. This helps to ground yourself and connect with your audience before speaking.

3.  During your speech make eye contact with one person for three to five seconds and then move on to another person.  This time frame is typical amount of time it takes to finish a sentence or make a point.  

   Eye contact is an important part of speaking both in conversation and in public speaking. It is worthy of our attention and practice to make us better speakers. 

There is a lot of material about eye contact and public speaking out there here are a few articles I references in writing this educational moment. 

https://janicetomich.com/five-tips-making-eye-contact-public-speaking/

https://www.linkedin.com/advice/0/how-do-you-balance-eye-contact-gestures-when-speaking

https://www.quora.com/What-are-steps-I-can-take-to-improve-my-eye-contact-when-speaking-in-public

https://www.toastmasters.org/resources/public-speaking-tips/gestures-and-body-language

Social Network Etiquette: Minding your manners in a digital world.

 

I grew up before the world wide web existed and most of what we see today as social media was not even a thought we would have understood back then.  Social media is an amazing thing when you put it in context of how it has made the world connected and one might say smaller.  It has also been problematic  in many ways.  It has emboldened behavior that would more than likely not happen in a normal exchange between people face to face. There is just something about typing words on a screen that is easy to dismiss that there is a real live person on the other end receiving those words.    

  While there is much to be shared and talked about on this subject and this would probably make an excellent speech topic. I will keep this educational moment brief. 

   I would offer this:  If you would not say it to someones face the way you are about to say it in a post on social media don't post it!  This perhaps obviously is about relationships with others who will read what is posted but it has ramifications larger than that.  There are many aspects of social media where it will reflect poorly on you in many different ways including professionally in your career, personally in a moment of weakness and now it is an arguably a permanent record.    How do I know this? I have been guilty of making careless and even sometimes stupid comments and I am ashamed to say I hurt peoples feelings and offended them, for no real good reason other than I wanted to be "Right". 

  I shared in a speech a while back that I made a commitment to not make negative posts or comments online ever again.  I have tried to and have mostly kept to that commitment to myself and it has been good.  What I found was how much people are starving for positivity in their online experience and I am guessing in their lives period.  That is what I want to be part of!   Try posting something positive and see what kind of response you get! My experience is I get overwhelming positive responses back.   

  As toastmasters we work on being better communicators, better leaders and I have said it before, better people. Let's extend that idea into the way we post on social media. 

  This educational moment of course has much of my own thoughts on this subject but it started from this article on Toastmasters International  It is an excellent article:  

 https://www.toastmasters.org/magazine/magazine-issues/2017/june2017/etiquette

Speech Contest Season

  Fellow Pioneer Toastmasters  

 As we have been discussing the last couple months contest season is upon us here in toastmasters.  Starting very soon here this month into the next month.  Area level and Division Level contests will be starting. I would encourage you all to consider going to at least one of these contests just for the experience of it. You will see some great speakers delivering their excellent contest speeches. These speeches get better as they progress up the levels. 

 I would also encourage you to consider serving in the contest if you are not competing.  Area and Division directors much of the time struggle to get enough volunteers to support these contests. Judges, timers,  ballot counters and so forth are needed to conduct a proper contest.   

 You can find a lot of great information on the district 26 website about the contests. including when and where and we can certainly get you in contact with the Area or Division Directors accordingly. 

 This is a very exciting part of Toastmasters. 

Here are some links to the information.   If you need any help getting in contact with proper folks or anything else let me know we will find out the information needed. 

https://www.d26toastmasters.org/our-calendar/

https://www.d26toastmasters.org/2024-2025-speech-contest-season/

How to be a supportive audience member.

  In Toastmasters we often focus primarily on being the speaker. We try to improve how we write, deliver and conclude our speeches. This is to be expected and is an awesome thing.  We also are often members of the audience,  I would dare say way more than we serve as a speaker. How do we do this well? 

1.  Clap!   Yes in toastmasters love to clap!  This is a great thing. when speakers are introduced show you appreciate them and clap!   After they conclude their speech,  clap!   This also prepares the speaker for larger or different  audiences where they will be introduced in this way. 

2.  Listen and give feedback.  Basic respect would certainly guide us to listen and hear what a speaker is presenting to us. We should be for the most part watching and listening intently.  This obviously includes not talking with other members of the audience. Occasionally writing a note for evaluation or for you personal benefit is ok but generally we show the respect that preparing a delivering a speech deserves.  If they say something funny laugh, if they say something wise and you agree node yes! Smile when they look at you!   I would say generally refrain from giving negative feedback. What if you disagree with them?  Well you can talk to them later about it and have a civil discussion but generally during the speech keep that to yourself. That is one mans opinion... even if the speaker is speaking on something and taking a position we disagree with I think they and the speech deserve the respect to hear it out. 

3.  Participate when appropriate or be quiet.  When a speaker has a speech where there is Q&A Think of a good question that would be of interest perhaps to you but also the audience in general. It can be awkward when a speaker opens up a time of questions and no one asks any questions.    The other side of that coin when someone is giving a speech be quiet! I know especially in a club setting we get very comfortable with each other and may make a comment when someone is giving their speech. This generally is to be discouraged. When a speaker is speaking they have the floor. We as audience respect that and just listen quitely.  We should hold our comments until after the speech and we can talk to them personally.   There are many more elements to this point. When a distraction happens minimize it for the speaker. If you forgot to silence your phone and it starts making noise turn the sound off asap If someone else phone goes off don't be looking behind you or around focusing the attention away from the speaker.   Just minimize or eliminate it asap and keep right on paying attention to the speaker. 

  We as toastmasters,  given enough time, will have  many different things happen while we are giving speeches. As audience members we can certainly empathize with what a speaker will be dealing with.   The golden rule applies here. As a presenter, how would you like the your audience to act? Go and act accordingly.