Preparing for this Ted Talk was pretty difficult. For one- I didn’t know where to begin. How do you give a speech without notes? How in the world do you memorize an entire speech? I had no clue.
I started with my topic for my paradigm shift essay, which was essentially a shift in the perception of geeks and geek culture. This covered a vast array of topics, such as the impact of Star Wars, comic books, and even fantasy football on nerd culture.
As one can see, there was a lot to talk about and a lot to remember. I ended up making a powerpoint and outline on it and tried to rehearse my talk. Everytime I tried, I kept stumbling, blanking on words, and going well over six minutes. I tried to cut down the talk, but I really couldn’t manage to do so.
I asked a friend to look over my outline to see if they saw something that could be cut out, and they gave me a brilliant idea. They reminded me that a ted talk was supposed to be a story. I didn’t have a story in mine, I had 3. So all I had to do was pick one and I would be good.
My story would be about comic books, and with a few tweaks here and there, I managed to bring that segment out to four minutes. Since it was a story, it was so much more easier to remember what I needed to say because it followed a linear progression. The worst part was creating an entirely new Ted Talk and outline. I wish that I had known that I didn’t have to give a Ted Talk on my paradigm shift paper and wished I’d focused on the story before preparing.
So, for the actual execution of the Ted Talk, things seemed to work out fine. The jokes really made everything easier for not just the audience, but really calmed me down as well. I hadn’t planned most of the jokes, they just kind of fell into place, and I’m pretty glad it did. I guess that means I can read the audience pretty well and get the timing right. I suppose that means that my Kairos is pretty good.
Now, for things I can improve on. I did not realize I say “um” as much as I did during the talk. After giving it I thought “Oh yeah that went well” but then I saw the video. And oh my god, the amount of “Um’s” made me want to curl up into a ball. I also had a slight mishap towards the end when switching slides, which threw me off so I temporarily forgot my lines. So yeah I need to work on slide switching. I also had a pretty weak conclusion in my opinion, it stopped kinda abruptly, like I was starting to make a point and then slowly gave up. So I want to work on that too.