Toastmasters Speech #8- Getting Comfortable with Visual Aids

(This is the 8th in a series of speeches that I have given for the Toastmasters public speaking group that I mentioned in a previous post.)

First there were town squares, 4H clubs and formal dances. In the computing world, there were message boards, email and instant messaging. Now we have social media. What is social media? Simply put, it’s being social, as humans by nature are, but online. And it’s changing human interactions. Social media comes in many forms (slide 2 above). It’s being social in games (MMOs= massively multiplayer online games), sharing information (blogging, facebook, twitter), telling others what you are doing (facebook, twitter), inviting people over (evite), networking to find a new job (LinkedIn), recommending something (digg, tripadvisor), sharing pictures (flickr), sharing videos (youtube), podcasts and music (iTunes). Let’s take 3 examples of how social media has changed human interaction: sharing a magazine article with friends, getting a recommendation and finding a new job.

First, sharing a magazine article (hold up physical article clipping). What did we used to have to do to share a magazine article? Take the clipping, address an envelope to a friend, buy a stamp and mail the letter (put physical article in envelope and hand to member of audience). If that took, say, 2 days to get to my friend and she shared it with another friend (ask her to hand it to someone else), who in turn shared it with 2 friends who shared it with 2 friends, then it would take 8 days to get to 8 people (slide 3). With email, say each person read their email once per day, then that time gets cut in half, 4 days. Now we have social media. If everyone checked their facebook account, say, 2 times a day, then this again would cut it in half and would take 2 days to share the article with 8 people. We all know that sharing it with 8 people on facebook takes much less time than 2 days. Let's see why (slide 4). Before the internet, it took a big effort to send letters, it cost money, and you have less "letter-friends" for whom you knew a mailing address. With Email/Groups, it is less effort, no cost and we have more "email-friends" than letter friends for whom we have email addresses. However, there is a stigma in forwards with email. Currently, with social media, it is less effort, no cost and we have many more social media-friends. In addition, it is part of the culture to share and adding mobile devices to mix makes it such that we can check facebook even more often than twice a day.

Now, let's look at getting a recommendation (slide 5). You used to perhaps ask your family and friends for a recommendation on a product they have used. "Hey Bob, I'm looking to buy a new refrigerator. I heard you bought a new one recently..." This may take several months to physically talk with people. You might have bought a copy of Consumer Reports or spent time physically checking out products or getting quotes. With email and internet, we have access to more friends and acquaintances, consumer reports is available online and store websites are available to check prices from home rather than going into stores. With social media, we can ask our social network, a broader group of people, look at online reviews and review prices at many stores with online aggregator sites. As an example (side 6), I asked several people on facebook for a good, local chinese place. Of those who responded were people, two were people don't even live in the state anymore, and others are acquaintances that I would never have asked personally.

Finally, let's look at getting a job (slide 7). Before the internet, you might have asked friends if they knew of any job openings, checked the newspaper for job ads and sent a physical resume (hold up mine for an example) via snail mail or fax. With the internet and email, you could ask more friends and acquaintances, check CareerBuilder or Monster for job ads and would generally send a resume via email or fax. Now, with social media, like linked in, we have many more people in a social network to ask about jobs and contacts, social networks ask YOU, you would check Linked In, along with other job sites and send a resume via a posting online or email. As an example (slide 8), I just got a new job. What happened was that a recruiter from the company contacted me via LinkedIn about a year ago, I connected on LinkedIn for future networking, even though I wasn't currently available. When I was looking for a new position several months later, I talked to friends and submitted resume through a friend at the company via email. I interviewed, but wasn’t hired yet and talked to another friend at company via Facebook, emailed the recruiter and got hired! :)


These few examples of sharing an article, getting a recommendation and finding a new job show you how our interactions have changed with new technology and social media. I know my kids won’t be impressed by the fact that I can download a song directly from iTunes the moment it is available, or take a photo and post it directly to facebook with my phone for a friend on the other side of the world to see instantaneously. I, however, am impressed by these technologies and the way social media has changed the way we interact, for the better.