“In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is. ” – Yogi Berra
My knees and voice were trembling as I stood in front of what felt like a firing squad. In truth it was thirty of the harshest, meanest and least constructive critics I’ve ever had to face (you couldn’t pay me enough to go back to 7th grade). My voice hit 8 octaves as I recited the first line of Rugyard Kipling’s classic poem “If”. As I got to the second line my voice was still fluctuating, but my head was now firmly pointed at the floor and my voice was so soft that nobody could hear me. The hours of practice in front of the mirror were now going down the drain. I couldn’t wait for the tortuous ordeal to be over. ”If you can talk with crowds…” – oh the irony.
Fast forward twenty some years and I’m standing in front of 300 clients and potential clients. As I got up there, somehow my 7th grade self started to rear its ugly, acne filled head. That feeling in the pit of my stomach was back. Thankfully by the time I got up and demonstrated my product, I had fallen into my comfort zone. It was at that moment that I made a promise to myself to never have that feeling again.
When my buddy Marie first recommended that I go to Toastmasters to help out with my public speaking, I started to picture old men in funny hats driving tiny cars in parades. Due to my stereotype of club membership for public organizations, it took me having a couple of major public appearances before I broke down and joined. First let me tell you, yes there are some old guys in my local club, but no, there aren’t any funny hats.
To make up for the lack of funny hats, Toastmasters delivers enormous value in the form of continuous feedback from experienced speakers to help you learn what tweaks need to be made to your delivery, style and language. I’m a big believer in getting repetitions at anything really helps you to improve, but those reps need to mirror as close as possible the actual experience. That’s why talking in front of fellow Toastmasters has it all over talking to the mirror.
OK, so what does this blog post have to do with Twitter? Well, I’ve been a bit frustrated with the bad rap that the Literati have been giving the Twitterati. Much as television didn’t spell the end of culture, Twitter isn’t going to either. It is not reducing the complexity of thought, its making thoughts more accessible, I’d go on, but that’s why I wrote the speech.
Twitter: A New New Deal
Madam Toastmaster, fellow toastmaster and guests, I beg your pardon for one second as I just need to send this tweet. *Pretend to play with iPhone for a few seconds.* Ordinarily, I wouldn’t dream of using my phone during the meeting, but you see this message was important, as I believe that Twitter will save the economy.
For those of you who don’t what Twitter is, it’s a micro-blogging site that allows you to post messages that are 144 characters or shorter. It’s the latest web phenomenon, and has millions of people logging in to tell people what they’re up to. People are now tweeting from all over. I just told people that I’m giving a Toastmasters speech, Lilly could be tweeting that she’s sitting through a tortuous Toastmasters speech, or Nimish could tweet that he’s nervously hoping he doesn’t get called upon for Table Topics.
Why on earth would this ultimate time waster be the savior to the economy? Three reasons. First, wasting time can actually help productivity. Second, more information is good for an information economy. Third, it’s creating new businesses, and improving existing ones.
OK, so first wasting time is good for the economy. *Long Pause* I know what you’re thinking well if that’s true, the long pause you just gave Paul probably contributed 1 million to our GDP. I’m just doing my part. Seriously though, many recent studies have come out about the ability for the brain to focus on a single item for long period time actually diminishes the speed at which we can complete the task. So if we take short breaks as we see our concentration start to wane, we can improve our overall productivity. What could be better for a quick break, than the ultimate in short attention span phenomena, Twitter.
Second, The cross pollination of information means that more people are being introduced to new ideas more quickly. This leads to innovation as people assimilate the new information and ideas into their current framework to produce new concepts in a sort of infinite feedback loop. This is actually being reinforced with how Twitter is being used today, as people are typically embedding web links in their tweets for more substance behind ideas, and very few people are still using it to talk about what their cat did this morning.
So the third reason that Twitter is going to save the economy, is that it is creating new businesses. Companies have sprouted to create software to read Tweets. There are currently several competitors in this space, and more are entering. I personally have created my own business idea, which I’m currently working on that will weave people’s tweets into a chronological story. Then there are existing companies, which are searching through Twitter, to find people’s gripes and recommendations about their products and services and reaching out to those customers to improve the services for the benefit of the whole economy.
We’re spending trillions of dollars bailing out the banks, the auto manufacturers, and everyone else. What we really need is to encourage better customer service, the creation of innovation, and increases in knowledge worker productivity. We need a new, new deal. We need Twitter.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Paul:
Glad you joined Toastmaster’s it’s a great way to improve your public speaking skills. I agree with many of your points about productivity and as always you make me proud to call you son.
Mom
Good speech. I don’t agree with Twitter being the savior of the economy, however – or even that it’s all that useful, but it’s probably my ignorance.
Also, I have a real fear of public speaking. Maybe I should look into Toastmasters.