Tag Archives: toastmaster

Daily Scribble

I joke, therefore I am

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This is the forth speech in the Humorously Speaking manual. The objective of the speech is to open with a self-depreciating joke and use at least two sets of series of jokes in the body.

Many of you may already know I am studying philosophy in SFU part time. I have learned to reason like Descartes, debate like Socrates. I though my arguments are invincible, until I have an disagreement with my wife. She simply says, “Honey, you are wrong.”

Dear Mr. Chairman, fellow toastmasters. I joke, therefore I am. Many people think philosophy is useless, boring and difficult. The mafia boss gives offers no one can reject, a mafia boss who studies philosophy gives offers no one can understand. I was a curious little boy since I was young. I like to answer weird questions like, Is there a God; What is good and evil; Do I exist? When my mom annoyed by my questions, she would just told me to shut up. Later when I grew older, I found all those questions all under a discipline called philosophy. Philosophy means the love of wisdom literally. I found philosophy very interesting and thought provoking.

The first course I took in philosophy is the history of philosophy. I learned philosophers from Plato to Aristotle, Descartes to Hume, Kant to Hegel. If you asked me what do they have in common? They are all dead. I learned that for every great philosopher, there exists an equal an opposite philosopher; and both of them are wrong. I did not get the answer for my questions, instead I got ten different answers and why each of them is wrong.

I still could not answer my questions, but I learn a few things about philosophers. I learned Occam shaves with a razor; Hume eats with a fork and Russell’s teapot is lost in space. I know Schrodinger has a cat, Pascal is addicted to gambling and God said Nietzsche is dead.

The mind-body problem always intrigue me. How do I know I really exists, not merely a brain living in a test tube hook up to the Matrix? I took a course in metaphysics to find the answers. Metaphysics means studies beyond our physical world, question the foundation of reality. In the end I figured out the answer to the mind-body problem. What is a mind? No matter. What is a body? Never mind.

Recently, I took a course in ethics to learn what is right from wrong or how to argue a wrong is a right. In the class, I learned different ethical theories. Aristotle said doing good is a virtue; Kant said doing good is our duty; Locke said doing good is having a good end result; Hobby said doing good is like we agree not to kill each other. I am a bit confused where ethics comes from. As an engineer, I know electricity comes from electron, so morality must comes from morons.

Although I am inspired to become a philosopher, but I end up being an engineer. Do you know what is the difference between a philosopher and an engineer? About 80k per year. Philosophers think hard on many great questions of all time. They think about the meaning of life, the dilemma of truth, the existence of the world, but they forgot the most important question: How to make a living?

The philosophy department in SFU is having a meeting. Suddenly an angel appears in the room in front of dean of the philosophy department and says, “I’ll grant you whichever of three blessings you choose. Wisdom, beauty or ten million dollars.” Without hesitation, the professor chooses wisdom. There is a flash of lighting, the professor is transformed, but then he just sits there, staring down at the table. One of his colleagues whispers, “You have great wisdom. Say something!” The professor says, “I should have taken the money!”

Daily Scribble

Element of humor

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I am working on my “Humorously Speaking” manual for my Toastmaster program. Some people seems to have natural talent with a good sense of humor, but humor can also be learned. You just have to remember the basic principle of humor and practice, everyone can become a decent joke master.

Telling a joke always has 5 basic parts. The first part is the set-up. It builds up the expectation of the audience so you can surprise them later. Then it follows by a pause to draw the attention of of audience. Then the punch line is the sentence that creates humor. Within the punch line, there is a punch word, the word that triggers the laughter. After the punch line, follow by another pause to give the audience time to absorb the joke and enjoy it.

A joke starts with a target, someone or something you want to make fun of. Hostility to the target in subtle or obvious way is fun. But because choosing a target that suits your audience. Sex, racial, religion jokes sometimes may be offensive to some people. Then use exaggeration and emotion to draw the attention of the audience before surprising them with the punch line. Humor must be unexpected. The joke would be less effective if you laugh at your own joke or you tell the audience you are about to tell a joke.

There are eight handy methods to construct the punch line:

  • Exaggeration, push your imagination to make the tales sounds absurd.
  • Incongruity, two genuine points followed by an radical point.
  • Reverse of view point
  • Definition to distort the meaning of the subject
  • Combination the characteristics of two totally unrelated items
  • Play on words, use words with different meaning in different context
  • Understatement, the opposite end of exaggeration
  • Implication, let the audience draw the missing connection

Here are some examples:

Philosophy is so difficult that even philosophers don’t understand it. (Exaggeration)

Talking philosophy in a date makes you sound intelligent, sophisticated and boring. (Incongruity)

Nietzsche says God is dead; God says Nietzsche is dead. (Reverse of view point)

The cost of doing philosophy research is minimal, it only have food and shelter the philosophy. The easiest way to apply for philosophy research grant is through social welfare. (Definition)

A moralist questions others morality, a skeptical moralist questions his own morality. (Combination)

Why an immoral person wearing a T-backs? Because he wants to become immortal. (Play on words)

Sophie’s boyfriend is a philosopher; He loves Sophie. (Understatement)

Philosophers thinks about all sorts of questions except the question “How to earn a living?” (Implication)

Daily Scribble

What is management

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This is the third speech in the humorously speaking manual. The objective of the speech is to use jokes in the speech, open and close the speech with a funny story.

Dear chairman, fellow toastmasters, honored guests. A big engineering firm outsourced to Africa and hired four cannibals. On the first day of work, at the end of the orientation, the boss said to the cannibals, “You will make good money as engineers. You can enjoy free food in the cafeteria. Don’t trouble other employees.” The cannibals promised they will not trouble other employees. For four weeks, things is working pretty well, but one day the boss found the co-op student is missing. He came to ask the cannibals, “Do you know what happen to the missing co-op student?”. The cannibal swear they know nothing about the co-op students and the boss went away. After the boss is gone, the lead of the cannibals asked, “Who ate the co-op students?”. One hand raise hesitatingly, and the leader yelled at him, “You fool, we have been eating managers for four months and no one has notice they are missing. Now you ate a co-op student…”

What is management? How many of you have read the Dilbert cartoon? When we think of managers, we always think of the pointy hair guy, sitting in a big office doing nothing, knowing nothing except giving a harsh time to Dilbert. Unfortunately, many people has this misconception about management; and even some managers has the same misconception themselves. Management is the mean to enable a large group of people joint together to form a large organization that deliveries and performs. With out management, any large organization will degenerate into a mob.

Management is a relatively new discipline. It exists merely for 150 years. In ancient time, there was no management, there were only slave and the slave masters. Slave masters don’t manage people, they whip their back. The longest surviving large organization in history is the army. That’s why at the dawn management, managers often borrow ideas from military schools. Command and control is the most common management style in early large organizations. However there are some fundamental difference between a company and the army. A manager can ask the employees to march left and right like a soldier, but they can’t ask the employee die for the company. By the turn of the century, management get a new life when Henry Ford invented the assembler line. Management has became scientific management. The managers break down complicate tasks into simple tasks and trains unskilled labor work together. The managers also measure the performance and output of the workers. After World War II, our society has changed from a blue collar manufacturing society to a knowledge society. Manager has to co-ordinate different people with diverse knowledge and skill in to work together and perform in a large organization.

When we think of management, we often think of business management. It is wrong. Management is a lot more than business. Management is essential to any large organization to perform and delivery result, whether it is a business, a hospital, a university of the government. The result of a business is a satisfied customer. The result of a hospital is a healed patient. The result of a university is a student who can put his knowledge into good use after graduation.

Someone thinks management is science. It deals with numbers, the bottom line, ROI, six sigma and lots of techniques to measure the performance. Someone thinks management is humanities. It deals with people, culture, value, psychology to foster a harmony working environment. Management is really a liberal arts. It is an art deal with knowledge. Not just the knowledge about the service or product of the organization, but also the knowledge possessed by other people. Manager enable a group of people capable of joint performance through a common goal and common value.

There are three men, a manager, a hardware engineer and a software engineer, going to lunch. On their way to the restaurant, they found a magic lamp. They rub the lamp, a genie appears and says, “Usually, I grant you three wishes, but since there are three of you, I will grant each of you a wish.” The hardware engineer goes first, he says, “I want to spent the rest of my life living on a Hawaii beach, with lots of money and lots of beautiful women.” The genie grants his wish and sends him to Hawaii. The software engineer goes next, he says, “I want to spent the rest of my life living on a Mediterranean island, with lots of money and lots of beautiful women.” The genie grants his wish and sends him to the Mediterranean. At last, the genie asks the manager, “It is your turn, so what is your wish?” The manager replies, “I want my engineers back after lunch.”

Daily Scribble

Evaluating is learning

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I have been quite passive in Toastmaster for the past while. I did not show up to the meeting unless I have a speech or there is a special event. Last week, the chairman of today’s meeting ask me whether I help out as an evaluator. Since I have no reason to decline, I show up in the meeting to evaluate a speech. It was a CC#4 speech and the goal is to make good use of words. Although I have done this speech project before, it was almost 3 years ago, the speech project seems a like a stranger to me. Before the speech, I quickly went over the manual, check out the speech objectives.

Those objectives should be common sense to me. Namely, use short words and short sentence; be specify; use vivid language to draw a mental picture for the audience; use rhetorical device to spicy up the speech, avoid jargon, filter words and filter phrases. Yet I found myself do not pay enough attention to those basic objectives when I am working on my speech nowadays. I know how to write a good speech in theory, but I fail to deliver the end product most of time. Evaluating beginner’s speech helps me review some basic speech skills that I mostly forgotten or carelessly ignored. When I am giving the evaluation, I not only point problems in speech, I also have to give examples on how to improve it. It is just like teaching a student force you to know the material thoroughly, giving an evaluation force you to make a good example yourself. I an suppose an advance speaker in the club, but I still have lots to learn from the beginners.

Daily Scribble

Be careful what you ask for

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This is the second speech in the Toastmaster humorously speaking manual, leave them with a smile. The objective of this project is to prepare a serious speech that opens and closes with humorous stories and the closing story should reemphasizes the speech’s main point.

Dear Mr. chairman, fellow toastmasters, honored guest. Last year I spent almost 3 months living in India for my project. When I am in Bangalore, the company put us in a service apartment with maids come to do cleaning everyday. Just like any places in developing countries, our apartment have cockroaches problem. Everyday after work, we have to hunt down the cockroaches, kill them brutally with shoes or flash lights. One day we are tried of being crude to the cockroaches, so we took out a Ziploc contain to catch a cockroach. We don’t know what to do with the cockroach we caught, obviously we can’t keep it as a house pet. Next morning, we leave the container on the table and told the maid to get rid of cockroach. When we come home that day, the cockroach is gone, but to our surprise we found the Ziploc box went back to the cupboard with all other clean dishes.

PMC Sierra is a global company. We have design centers around the world. Effective communication among the team members across different sites is one of our daily challenge. Many of us are working on projects with team members in different countries with a different cultural background. Culture affect how people think and affect how people act. Aware the cultural difference can minimize misunderstanding in our communication.

Most of us grow up in Canada, we assume a North America cultural perspective. Sometimes we are not aware of the cultural difference when we talk to people in other countries. We take it for granted that our listeners can understood our message in the way that we expect. We are not aware of a subtle difference in the language we use can have a totally different meaning to a person coming from a different culture background. Be careful what you ask for. You will get exactly what you asked, but not really want you want.

Developing the culture sense is not an easy task. It takes time and experience to learn how to work smoothly with people in different culture. I would like to share a tip on better communication across difference culture. Here is the rule of thumb. When you in doubt, always ask for confirmation. Don’t just ask a yes or no question. Often you will get a yes, even though your listen has no clue what you are talking about. Ask your listen repeat your message in his own words. You can sense whether he gets it or not. If he fails to get it, you just rephrase your message with different expression. After a few trials, your listener should grasp the meaning of your message.

I would like to conclude my speech with another story. The Bangalore office has a cafeteria, just like our cafeteria down stairs, its menu does not many choices. To make it worse, it only serves Indian food. Everyday, I can choose to have red curry, orange curry or yellow curry for lunch. After a few weeks of having curry for lunch. I am sick of the lack of variety. I asked the kitchen staff, do they have a different menu. The kitchen staff said he can bring in some sandwich for me tomorrow. I gladly take the offer and order a chicken sandwich. The next day, when I go to lunch in the cafeteria, the kitchen staff has a brown paper lunch bag ready for me. I am eager to try something else other than curry for lunch. I open my lunch bag and inside I found … a curry chicken sandwich.