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welsh_spud
March 29th, 2006, 08:42 PM
Next week I will be giving a speech in my english class about a charitable organisation of my choice. Ubuntu seems like the perfect choice for me and was wondering if there were any resources available for me (I remember seeing some slideshows about Ubuntu somewhere).

I have plenty of shipit CDs, which should go down well, and a laptop do run a slideshow on.

So any ideas or tips on public speaking?

slazh
March 29th, 2006, 08:51 PM
You could use OpenOffice's Impress for a presentation / slideshow if that's the question :P

Subjects you might want to adress;
* Open Source idea
* The Ubuntu project and it's filosophy / the reason why Ubuntu excist?
* Comparisson to Microsoft Windows and/or Mac OS X
* Other distributions and there buisness models; Novell for example

Hope this helps :)

stuporglue
March 29th, 2006, 08:52 PM
You should probably check the Wiki for Marketing related info:

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/marketing

Do Ubuntu proud!

adrenaline
March 29th, 2006, 09:10 PM
AHHH! Unbelieveable...I logged in, typed a monstrous reply and then by the time I went to send it my login had expired.

I'll try and hit the highlight of what I had said
- Know audience well (Make them excited about what have to say & tell them why they should care)
- Make attention-getter stick out (humor if that fits you, amazing stat otherwise maybe)
- Slideshow should have brief slides, probably without animation effects that hit the highlights of the points you'll elaborate on (Try not to fall into the trap of reading slides, it's very boring)
- Perhaps an embedded video clip from here (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1165754797197197496&q=ubuntu&pl=true)
(obviously not the really geeky parts but maybe he says something that would blend in nicely)
- Closing statement could be either refer back to attention-getter or possibly a quote

trorion
March 29th, 2006, 09:14 PM
Generally I don't think Ubuntu would be qualified as a charitable organization though I don't specifically know the NSW laws. How much of a stickler is your english professor?

As far as tips and tricks;
1- write out and rehearse your entire presentation verbatim 3 or so times
2- note the presentation with quick notes and practice using the quick notes until you have a flawless presentation.
3- do your presentation without any quick notes until it is flawless. I do mean flawless.
4- Practice again.

By the time you stand up in front of a group you should have reviewed your presentation 15 or so times without missing a beat. If you make a mistake start over. At least 3 or so of those times should be presented in front of an audience of at least 2 or so people.

NeghVar
March 29th, 2006, 09:21 PM
Y I do question the chartitable thing, now if you were looking for a non profit group you may hit it but I don't think Ubuntu does any charity work.

As far as public speaking goes, know your topic and what you want to say as well as the message you want to present, nothing is worse than having someone who clearly just did a google search for some quick info, especially if its for school you want to look like your the worlds biggest supporter.

Make sure to include counter arguments for what ever your doing. The shoot them down with specific answers to the criticism, not just vague references to an argument but a position based on fact.

Relax, if you get up there and your all tense you will end up making mistakes, don't let your audience get to you, just go with it.

I once had to give a spoeach about the Korean War to a group of 2k including veterans of the war, the rest of the school, teachers, civic officials etc. It can be a bit nerve racking but If you know what you want to say and the message you want to present then it will help you out a lot.

BWF89
March 29th, 2006, 09:24 PM
So any ideas or tips on public speaking?
Make sure that you go first. If you go after a couple of ther people and they were really good and you were meodicre to bad than it'll make you look bad. But if you go first and your meodicre they won't have any basis on which to judge you to the other people so you'll look good.

woedend
March 29th, 2006, 09:26 PM
in the intro, your goal is to: captivate audience(grab attention with catchy phrase), explain your credibility(why they should listen to you), introduce the topic, and outline whats to come in the body of your speech. Remember to use vocal variety and to make eye contact...they are watching you speak, not you play on the computer. While you can impress then with slides or even ubuntu itself, make sure you keep eye contact. Relate the topic to them. Explain what linux is and can do for them. ETc...
just finished up my university public speaking...good luck

Krigl
March 30th, 2006, 07:46 PM
I would add: beware of sounding like Jehova's witness or MS bashing (unless it's obviously fun).
Good luck

endersshadow
March 30th, 2006, 08:34 PM
Keep your slides simple. I'm in business school, so I've done more slideshows than I care to remember, so here's what I've learned from them:

-Make the slides simple, but elegant. Nobody wants to stare at a bland slide, but nobody wants to try to read a bunch of info while you're running your yap. You're the focus of the presentation, not the slide.

-Avoid the Alphabet Soup. Nobody there will know what "OSS" means, or even what "Open Source" means. Explain these ideas first. Do not use a bunch of acronyms or specialized vocabulary out of the blue. Your audience's eyes will glaze over in seconds.

-Give some background into the Open Source movement, starting with Richard Stallman and the GNU project. While you don't have to go into a whole history, the philosophy behind GNU (http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/) is the cornerstone of all OSS.

-Explain who Shuttleworth (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MarkShuttleworth) is, how he made his money, and why he's funding Ubuntu. One of his key points is to give free software to the world--that's going to be your cornerstone of "this is a charity." Shuttleworth's mission is truly to give all people access to quality computing.

-Explain what Ubuntu (http://www.ubuntu.com/) the word means, and extend that to the distribution that bears the moniker. It's important.

-Speak clearly and at a moderate pace. Our tendancy is to speak faster in front of people. Slow yourself down. Breathe deep. Once you start trying to go fast, you stumble over yourself because your mouth doesn't keep up with your brain. It's a disaster.

-Practice. Make sure you practice well beforehand, and time yourself. If you go to long, don't speak faster, take stuff out. Cut the fat. Also, remember that you will probably take about 2 minutes longer on the presentation than you do in practice.

-Cut the fat. Be concise. Nobody likes longwinded presentations. People have short attention spans. Segway into different topics well, but make sure that you don't spend too much time talking about one topic.

-Don't condescend. Treat your audience like adults. Don't dumb down your ideas like you're explaining them to 5 year olds. These people are on the same intellectual level as you, but you have different knowledge than they do. Convey the knowledge professionally and articulately. Don't use pretentious words nor overly simplified language.

That's about all I can think of...good luck :-D

ssam
March 30th, 2006, 08:54 PM
you might want to talk about edubuntu, or the $100 laptop.

be ready for questions about bill gates giving lots of money away. you might want to look around www.gatesfoundation.org. he and his wife have given a lot of money to buy drugs for things like hiv, though the reason drugs are so expensive is because they are all tied up in patents. i can't any mention of building drug factories in the third world. there is a bit of talk about condoms, but the bulk of the money seems to be drugs and drug research. its great that he is giving money away, i just think there are better ways he could use his wealth and influence.

and also have a look at http://www.shuttleworthfoundation.org/