During the speech I think I did well, but I need to have more pause, I spoke too fast, it took me 5:30 to finish the whole speech, I think it might due to I practiced too much and trying to recite my notes during the speech, I will try to improve it next time.
I would like to thank my mentor Robert Fox, he helped me a lot, reviewed my script, which made me rewrite my script almost entirely. I will say without his help, I could not finish my speech successfully.
I also learned from him that it is very important to bring your personal example, since it will bring more connection to the audience, because people like the concrete examples, and also make it easier to memorize, and more confident for you to tell your own story.
My speech is based on the book "connected"(this is author's video on Ted), and chad fowler's blog post: "be careful of who you work with".
Following is my script.
The power of social network
Birds of a feather flock together, this quote tells us the power of social network.
We all know that networking is important, but how important it is? What is the power behind it?
Today I am going try to answer these questions.
Mr. Toastmaster, fellow toastmaster, and welcome guests, my name is Steve.
The reason I choose this topic is because I found a good book by chance, it is called - "connected". This is a very inspiring book about social network.
First let me share you a scientific research result coming from the book. The 2 authors studied obesity, and they found that the obesity can spread through the social network, like virus, they give the following striking result:
If your friend is obese, then you have about 45% higher chance to be obese;
If your friend's friends is obese, you have 25% higher chance to be obese, and
If your friend's friend's friend is obese, then you still have 10% more likely to be obese.
And also obese people are more likely connect to each other, and non-obese people more likely connect to other non-obese people.
This example tells us that human behaviour is contagious, we are so easy to get influenced: if your friend is overweight, you will be overweight, and if your friend is richer, you will be richer; if your friend is happy, and you will be happy.
This is the power of the social network, it shape our lives: it affects our health, wealth and success. it can make you good or bad.
so please choose your friend wisely.
And be careful of who you work with!
Let me share with you my bad work experience, about 10 years ago, I joined a large company, but I found culture was bad: I saw bureaucracy, favouritism, and ridiculous process, my job was boring and slow moving. I was totally frustrated and not happy, and until one day I decided to leave because I could not stand anymore.
So my lesson is choose your employer carefully, the culture is more important than the salary.
There is another kind of social network we can not ignore, it is the social network over the internet. In the last 5 years, facebook, linkedIn, twitter, become more and more popular, compare to the physical social network, they have some advantages: they spread ideas lot faster and easier, and people are much easier to get influenced.
For my personal example, I like twitter, I've been using twitter for 3 years, I follow many masters and gurus in the IT industry, I read their tweets, read their books and articles. And the interesting thing is those gurus are usually connected each other, I feel I am in their loops and listen to their conversations, which is definitely helpful for my career. I learned a lot, my mindset was changed, I understand what I need to improve and where I should go in future.
Blog is another powerful tool influenced me a lot, it was a blog post which inspired me to join the toastmaster club, last year this time, I read a blog post, it mentioned if you does not give a good speech, then you are wasting people's time, you are killing people's life! How to make a better public speech? join the toastmaster club, that drive me standing here.
And I also have my personal blogs, Sometime I got comments and emails from all over the world, thanked me how my articles helped them for their work. Those are very encouraging, which stimulate me to continuing writing blogs. In the internet you never know how much influence you can have, how much help you can give other people!
In conclusion, the social network shapes our lives,it can make you good or bad. We get benefit from a good social network, it is also our responsibility to make it better. It helped me me, and I am sure if can help you as well.
I like to share a quote from this book:"When you smile, the world smiles with you".
Mr. Toastmaster
