Things I learnt to improve communication at work

What happens when communication between people is not that efficient and clear in the business world? I am sure you know pretty well the following picture. Misunderstandings happen all the time when the actors in discussions, conversations or negotiations have an idea in mind which is tough to convey. Or when one is not really listening to the other and just have his own idea in mind.

Sadly, misunderstandings happen. Quite often. And this problem is time and money consuming. But above all, relationships get severely affected when expectation is betrayed, somehow, by too many assumptions.

What I learnt is that in order to make ideas caught by a partner and across the different communication channels, simple rules need to be followed. Let's go through some ideas.

Be careful to death by Power Point

According to a statistics, there are 300 millions Power Point users in the world. Everyday 30 millions presentations are done. It is pretty clear that a bad and boring presentation lead to bad communication and may bring undesidered consequences? Imagine you are trying to sell something but your presentation is damn bad.

• Send content beforehand. Everybody will have an idea, and eventually will come with intelligent questions.
• Attractive visuals. Put images as background. Nice images. Choose carefully images you plan to present. There are lots of media libraries with content ready and licensed to use. Don't simply steal from Google Images, you never know where your presentation is going and who's reading it.
• 3 to 5 bullets, no further text. Use Power Point for what it is, a tool to visualize and summarize ideas. Not the script for your speech. Besides, people read faster than you speak, If you plan to fill your slides with text, just send them. You're useless.
• Never, ever, look at the slides. Look at people.
• Why are you presenting? Make sure you have a clear objective. Remember to follow the pattern why-what-how and not the other way round.
• Pay attention to the overall message, and put some passion there.
• Reherse, and ask for feedback.
• Check remote control, check that your laptop is fine and make sure you have a backup on usb. Make it happen!

Again, don't bore people do death

You are presenting something to an audience, and soon you realize that from the bottom, people start snoring. You are boring them. My presentations were like that, some deeply technical speeches full of details. Since I started studying the art of presenting, my life changed. And I saved hundreds of lives.

• Catch people's attention, say something great to start your presentation "Today I am here to change your life and make you rich!". You can even interact with people "how many of you know...?"
• Keep eye contact, Otherwise you will lose the audience. 
• Change tone of voice, presentations tend to get monotonous. A pitch from time to time will wake people up. DO YOU NEED AN EXAMPLE?
• Make jokes, use an informal tone. Use a friendly tone.
• Make a great unexpected conclusion

Video and teleconference

When the meeting is in a virtual room, first make sure that all the equipment works. To the purpose, connect some minutes before. Yes, common sense. But too many meetings starts late because the pin is wrong, the camera does not work and the voice is silent. Let's then summarize.

• Check all the equipment is working fine in advance.
• You may want to schedule meetings 5 minutes past the hour. That is 12:05, so people have time to move from one room to another, to setup a conference bridge or take a cup of coffee.
• Speak clear and loud; and use your plain English. This may be a problem with non native speakers, not everybody has full control on english language. Keep it simple, then.
• Remember to pay attention to people on the camera. If you are divided between a physical room and the camera, divide yourself between the two effectively.
• Send material in advance, slides, documents and whatever is needed so people can follow you easily. 

Make emails more visual

People don't like reading flat, long, detailed emails. People will most probably read your email top to bottom, with a glance to bullets, possibly. Then here you have some ideas to make the most out of this channel.

• Keep it short, but keep all the details in.
• Use bullets to explain the main points 
• Use bold, underline and italic.
• Use colors to state that something deserves further attention

A technique for persuading people

This is a nice example to show how you can subtly persuade people to do what you want them to do. This short video tells about the experience of famous director Steven Spielberg when at the age of 15 had to face a troublesome situation.

This contribution basically suggests that in order to persuade people, first one need to match people's needs against own personal abilities. Then remember:

• The objective is meeting people's basic needs. 
• Look into your own resources and capabilities to meet others' basic needs

Hope you'll enjoy it.

My 10th Toastmasters speech: What is life like

I am here today with a humble purpose, I want to share with you a simple reflection to help you improve your life. And I am here because it is useful for me therefore I thought that this may be interesting for you to know.

I would like to ask just one thing. Take a few seconds and think about something you hate to do. Something that makes you feel uncomfortable. Let’s make it easier. Something that happened this very morning. No no, it’s not a meeting or that uncomfortable mail.

What, can’t you find anything? I will help you with something you really cannot stand. From the very beginning of your day. And ladies and gentleman, that is the very beginning of the day. You hate waking up in the morning. Who doesn’t?

Now let’s make it even worse: what if you have to get up on Monday? Isn’t it quite uncomfortable to get up on Mondays, after a pleasant weekend with your family or friends? Yes it is. Mondays are there for you to be annoyed. But of course I can find something even more terrible than that. And it’s getting up early in the morning on Monday back from vacations. Wow, that’s pretty hard.
Of course there are hundreds of ways to make it worse. With rain, coffee's over at home, your car is broken or you can’t find your keys. You have headache and must attend a meeting. No hot water in the shower. Or... all these things altogether.

Small tragedies. That’s just an example of those kind of little things you will bump into during the day and along the path. To this you may want to add a quarrel with your parents, a misunderstanding with your partner and bad behavior of your children. Rain on weekends, too much work, stress, disappointing situations, people late, compromises, the mortgage, the car, responsibilities and one thousand of other things. We are used to live life in rush. Everyone has his own little secret to get over all these unpleasant situations and enjoy life as much as possible. I do have mine.

When it’s difficult to get up in the morning, or I am puzzling over personal issues, discussing with someone, too busy at work or troubled by any uncomfortable situation, this reflection helps me going back to relax in my mind and consider things for what they are.

My method is a real recipe for a lot of situations, and not only benefits me, it may have effects on people all around. It all started once when discussing futile things with my wife,I took a breath and suddenly said that. A moment of silence please. I said: “Why should I worry about that? Life is a party, and I want to live it like a never ending party”.

After that, I suddenly felt better, relaxed, as if all the stress had melt away. I thought about it and took it seriously. Life is a party. You don’t think so?

This is guy is crazy, you might be thinking right now. Ladies and gentleman, yes I am. For me life is the biggest party of the whole universe. I wish everybody may live life as such. Let’s have a look.

Who am I to say life is a party? I can prove you. Here’s my CV.

• 18 shared flats across my life with over 50 mates 
• Hundreds of birthday parties and celebrations at students’ houses
• Salsa and bachata dancing parties 
• Liters of wine and gallons of beer drunk all over parties. Hangover expert
• Absolutely senior as a party attendant and great socialization skills.
• Hire me!

We love parties because there is food, drinks, music and people. We may dance, sing, laugh and be serious. There are plenty of people you don’t know, some of them you know, funny and boring ones. You may get late to the party or be on time. Whatever the party is, it’s always full of surprises. Parties may be boring or not. Parties are made for lovers, and for haters too. Parties give a meaning to our lives.

Life is expectation, like before a party. When you are expectant for something to happen, when you are excited and when you put a lot enthusiasm and effort for a big outcome. It’s when you wish to meet new people, make friendship, enjoy food and drinks. It’s when everything is ready to go to the party.

Life is full of surprises. When you enjoy talking and talking, getting into a new conversation and also being serious into a discussion. When you meet that person it was a long time since you met last time. This is only at a party.

Life is supporting people, like in a party when you notice that girl in the corner alone, because she knows nobody, and you go next to her, speak to her, introduce to your friends because she’s shy and she doesn’t want to be under everybody’s eyes. You want the party to be a party for her too.

Life is awful moments, like in a party. When you notice that your friend drank to much and he’s silly and boring. When he starts crying about her girlfriend, and that he cannot forget her and he must go right away. When he is so drunk, or it’s you or it's me, so drunk, someone is there to bring you to the toilet to help you vomit.

Life is love. Because I met my wife at a party.

I am at the end of my presentation and I just want you to do something. Do it for you. Every time it’s difficult to get up in the morning, you are angry at someone, you are stressed by your work, you feel sad for something not really important... Every moment you spend of your life in a bad mood, always remember that probably it’s not that important. Celebrate with others all the good things of your life. Remember every time you get prepared for a party, a wedding party, a birthday, your company summer party. Keep the expectation high in life as if going to a party.

Always remember the main ingredients to make a great party. Food, wine, and great organization. Music, a DJ and rhythm. Ice cubes, glasses, and good spirit.
But overall, the main ingredient: people, because every moment of your life is good to share with others, when you are old...

...when you are young...

...and when you are very very young.

Because life is a party.

How to close your speech with impact

Whenever you speak in public, never forget to start with a great introduction to capture your audience from the very beginning. But also, never forget to close your speech in an unforgettable manner. Your conclusions must awake people inner feelings, you must inspire them and provide them with a practical way to introduce your lesson into their own life.

If you don't transmit values and touch people's heart, your preparation and work would seem boring and useless to them. Your conclusion must also deliver the sense that your speech is over, not just by saying "Thanks so much for your attention".

If you deliver the right value, your audience will thank you. So I want to propose you three excerpts taken from the following speeches. They have been greatly useful to me.

"Every problem you face is an opportunity for a creative solution. We each hold the key key to our innovation engine and have creativity waiting to be unleashed. It is up to you to turn the key."
—Tina Seelig video

"Our creativity comes from without, not from within. We are not self-made. We are dependent on one another; and admitting this to ourselves, isn't an embrace of mediocrity and derivativeness, it's a liberation from our misconceptions, and it's an incentive to not expect so much from ourselves and to simply begin."
—Kirby Ferguson video

"There is a mismatch between what science knows and what business does. And here is what science knows. One. Those motivators we think are natural part of the business do work, but only in a surprisingly narrow band of circumstances. Two. Those if-then rewards destroy creativity. Three. The secret to high performance isn't rewards and punishments but that unseen intrinsic drive. The drive to do things for their own sake. The drive to do things cause they matter. And here's the best part. We already know this. The science confirms what we know in our hearts. So if we repair this mismatch between what science knows and what business does, if we bring our motivation, notions of motivations into the 21st century, if we get past this lazy, dangerous idealogy  of carrots and sticks, we can strengthen our businesses, and maybe, maybe, maybe, we can change the world."
—Dan Pink video

Employee's power. How to obtain a salary raise

This story was told me some years ago by my cousin. He works in Milan for a company producing aluminium and surrogates. The thing is that they use a complex distributed software application to administrate productions, stock, sales and so on. They also have advanced management software that control the very production process, that is: fusion of metals, compounds purification, filtering and other technical operations on aluminium.

The fact is that everything is controlled and managed by machines. Without software management, strict synchronization between processes would not be possible, and as everyone knows, machines fail. The story is about this huge software and his main responsible, The Engineer.

The story tells that once upon a time this big piece of software broke down and left the whole company with no service at all during some hours. That meant: stop the production, switch machines off for safety reasons and try to fix the whole thing back as soon as possible. Kind of when telephonic network is out of order and you cannot even use your mobile phone, that same sense of anxiety.

So, everyone got at work rapidly to bring the machines back to life, The Engineer was there in the first line to understand what had happened and assistants there too. And when everything was back to the normal rhythm and probably a lot of money had been lost, the management called The Engineer and all his technicians to a meeting.

My cousin was there in the room, so he could tell me this funny story. The manager of the production department started screaming, red-faced and really altered after machines failure, and started accusing everyone. But above all, he reproached The Engineer for his lack of prevision of what had happened.

The Manager: "WE PAY YOU A LOT OF MONEY FOR WHAT? LOOK WHAT'S HAPPENED. WE HAVE JUST LOST THOUSANDS OF EUROS FOR YOUR DISTRACTION. IN SUCH A COMPANY, THIS IS NOT TOLERABLE AND I CANNOT PASS OVER IT. DO YOU UNDERSTAND? DO YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT I AM SAYING???"

The show went on some minutes, and The Engineer, facing the whole management staff on the other side of the desk, remained silent. He had spoken not a single word since the show had started. The management team was sitting and he was standing. My cousin reported it seemed like a jury deciding what would have been the future of The Engineer. And The Manager went on screaming at The Engineer in front of his team, and more people had got closer to watch the scene and to understand.

The Manager: "I DO NOT LIKE PEOPLE MAKING A FOOL OUT OF ME, THIS WON'T HAPPEN AGAIN, I ASSURE YOU THIS WON'T HAPPEN AGAIN. AND ANSWER WHAT YOU HAVE TO SAY, FOR GOD'S SAKE!!!"

The Engineer, who had remained silent the whole time, was standing firmly and waiting for his turn to speak. At last, he just opened his mouth and said.

The Engineer: "I quit"
The Manager: "WHAT???"
The Engineer: "You have heard it. I quit. Tell me where I have to sign. I'll quit right now, I'm leaving the company."

The Manager after some embarrassing seconds of silence, continued: "Wait a second you cannot quit"
The Engineer: "Yes, of course I can. I'll quit right now. I don't need to communicate you anything else"
The Manager, conscious of the vital importance of The Engineer and of the difficulty to substitute him with anybody else, slowed down: "Ok wait, let's stay calm and relaxed, let's see what can we do about it".

Maybe not everybody in that company knows the end of the story, but my cousin knows that not only his friend The Engineer remained in the company in the position of expert of the IT system, but moreover he received a considerable salary raise. And I'm sure that since that moment, people respect him a little bit more.
If you want to obtain a salary increase, firstly make sure your boss, your colleagues or whoever respect you and your job.

I am sorry, I did it wrong, I won't do it again

Few days ago I wrote some considerations about committing mistakes when a person is supposedly living in an innovative environment. Today I am in the mood for writing some more lines about mistakes when one is effectively wrong and there are reasons to stop and ponder about that.

I made some reflections after the news had reported that Spanish King Juan Carlos Borbón-Dos Sicilias was admitted to hospital and operated for having his hip injured. Not a great news, had it not been for the fact that he injured himself hunting elephants in Botswana.

That news was well accompanied with a photo of the King holding a shotgun in front of the unlucky and deceased elephant.
As anyone might imagine, the fact provoked strong public critics; not only for the act of killing elephants and taking part to an expensive safari, not just because Spain is suffering from unprecedented economic and social crisis, but mainly because Spanish Crown is currently being scrutinized because of a financial scandals.

Eskamilla: Juan Carlos I of Spain, 2008

The thing that made the news ways more interesting was the immediate and clear answer of the King. When leaving the hospital, he faced a flash interview and after appreciating the treatment received in the hospital, he declared: "I am sorry, I did it wrong, I won't do it again." 

Not that much of a speech, really; rather a Tweet (93 characters) saying it all. But after days of polemics, scandals, burning media and boiling social networks, in my humble opinion he finally came out with the most effective recipe (regardless of the consequences of killing elephants in Botswana). These are the reasons.

• Humbleness is the most effective weapon against pride. Instead of arguing that black is white, acknowledging the failure at early stages is fast and efficient, much more than saying sorry when no more argumentation is available.
• The King summarized sincere feeling of guilt ─I am sorry─, transmitted the admission that hunting elephant is not the best thing to do ─I did it wrong─ and finally conveyed the message that after all, he learns from his own mistakes.
• He diverted public opinion away from the fault and concentrated attention on the apology and how it has been made.
• He probably achieved to go down in history as King Juan Carlos "The Humble".

That said, next time you commit a big blunder and you are aware of it, consider saying sorry as fast as you can. It'll save you a lot of time and your error will almost go unnoticed after a while.

Motivational quotes are good to get inspired

Today we had a nice Toastmaster session here at the company, and as a Table Topic Master was missing, I took the role.

If you don't know what a Table Topic session is, just imagine a moderator asking questions or introducing topics to an audience. After the topic is presented, he calls a member from the audience on stage to have him improvise for at least one minute (on the topic).

I had nothing prepared, so I thought about involving speakers on reflections on motivational quotes. I have quite a lot I am used to send to friends every once in a while. Here they are:


It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

Personality can open doors, but only character can keep them open.
Elmer G. Letterman

Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass... it's about learning to dance in the rain.
anonymous

Failure defeats losers. Failure inspires winners.
Robert T. Kiyosaki

Why repeat the old errors, if there are so many new errors to commit.
Bertrand Russell

If you want to live a happy life, tie it to a goal, not to people or things.
Albert Einstein

Don't say things, have them done. Things done are self explained.
Woody Allen

Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.
Winston Churchill

I think it's nice to have people reflect on these topics, but as there are new members too, I let them choose if they wanted a difficult topic or a simple one. Moreover, switching from a serious quote to a light topic, made the session funnier. So, prepare some more topics such as:

• What are the things you do before going to sleep?
• Which smartphone do you prefer, iPhone or Android?
• Is it better to have an iPad or an Amazon Kindle?
• What would you rather ride, a Vespa or a Harley Davidson?

Silly topics, but really helpful for nervous speakers, indeed.

A couple of tips to start your public speech

I am not used to watch TV, because I don't own one, and my life goes on anyway. For video information I rely on Youtube, Vimeo and similar, it's more than enough to satisfy my interests.
I'll list just a couple of tips to remember, because I think they can be effective at the time of speaking in public.

Especially if you need to improvise your speech, opinion or simply contribution. It's curious: when you are drinking a coffee with a friend, a person of trust, you feel comfortable enough to express freely your thoughts and digress on multiple topics. But put yourself in front of an audience, and unless you have the gift of knowing how to control yourself and establish a contact with people from the public as soon as possible, your speech won't be so fluent as you would like.

Then just a couple of ideas from Elsa Punset, Spanish writer and philosopher.

• Drink a sip of water just before speaking
  Having a sip of liquid will send a message of relax to your brain, and the brain will interpret that if you have time to drink, then your life is not in danger. So the brain sends another message of relax to the whole body. In case you don't have any glass of water, swallow your own saliva, it'll help!
• Inhale air deeply in your belly, retain air some seconds, and exhale as slowly as you can
  This kind of breathing will make you relax immediately, probably thanks to the same mechanisms of the previous tip. It's the typical respiration you use when sitting down, and part of one typical Yoga respiration too (I'll write a post on it).

I tried these tips, and although they don't solve every problem, they'll help; at least as a placebo!

And if you need some more self-confidence, I think this video will help you charge your batteries before your next speech, quite intense and funny!

Don't go upper case. SO OBVIOUS.

I have a few friends in my social networks that seem to have problems with editing styles. I'll be more precise, I am not referring to spaces after commas, capital letters when starting a new paragraph or a full stop when introducing a new sentence.

I don't pretend to be the style master at all. But simply, when you greet your community, comment others' posts, appreciate an image or make yourself visible on the network, you really don't need to use capital letters for everything.

WHY DO YOU ONLY USE CAPITAL LETTERS? 

TELL ME WHY??!!

My explanation.

• Your caps lock is broken
  I see. Write me a line I'll send you 5 dollars to buy a new keyboard.
• You think your texts are not visible enough
  You're wrong. The universal rule is writing lower case. I admit upper case writing for an exclamation of pure joy, but just from time to time. Unless you're happy the whole time, of course.
• You need to attract attention
  Go have some beers with your friends. If you don't have, you can drop me a line.
• You are an artist or a publicist
  I guess your creations are cool, otherwise stop writing and try painting.
• You have absolutely no idea about communication, education and technology
  Well, it's time to learn how communication has changed, my friend.

Remember, when writing upper case YOU ARE JUST SHOUTING at your readers, that's not pleasant.

That's why each time I read capital letter updates I feel uncomfortable. Please remember:

THE ONLY THING YOU'LL EVER ACHIEVE IS 

TURNING YOUR WRITING INTO SPAM!

How to not forget lies you tell

I'll agree with anybody, one should never tell lies. Actually I don't, for a couple of reasons mainly.
Firstly because I don't want to manipulate the reality, it's complex enough and time is running out so fast that I don't see a clear advantage in it. I think one should try to contribute to social development by telling things as they are.
And secondly, because I don't think it's a good thing living with the feeling of being discovered. I should always take care not to contradict myself, and this would be really uncomfortable.

Anyway, yesterday I was reading the description of a character taken from "East of Eden", Cathy. The writer suggest that Cathy employed three techniques to tell lies; here they are

1. Stay close enough to the truth so that one can never know
   This way I understand you can blend reality to make it appear the way you need; by emphasizing certain ideas or belittle others. Once you find someone questioning your statements, you can always fix everything with a misunderstanding.
2. Interlard lies with true statements
   This way you will probably reinforce your contribution by playing with well-known ideas, so that trust on what you say is somehow established.
3. Tell a truth as if it were a lie
   This is part of the whole strategy to make yourself credible. If you want to set a precedent, follow this step. Once your statement is called into question, make sure you have all the resources to demonstrate its truthfulness. This will provide you some degrees of liberty and for a long time, when you'll need to say:
   —I told you, you never believe me. Just like that time when...

I hope you found this tips interesting. Lies are evil, but I admit that from time to time, a "technical small lie" can save you time and probably your face!

How to connect to your audience: two basic hints

Last 7th of November 2011 I watched the debate between the two presidential candidates for next Spanish general elections (on the 20th of November): Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba and Mariano Rajoy.

My first impression is that not only was the debate boring, empty of concrete content and full of elusive answers on critical issues, but it also was designed not to hurt citizens' feelings.
My second impression is that when I need theatre, then I'd rather go to the theatre and assist to the performance of good actors, not just amateurs.

Apart from the content, I did not feel hurt nor attacked by their campaign. Actually I didn't feel much impacted, after all. This was independent from the interventions of both candidates (a mix of kindness and good propositions).
The sensation I had was the big distance between me, the audience on the other side of the screen, and them.
And after thinking a little bit, I realized that at least in the final intervention, at the time of addressing their message to the public, they were missing eye contact.
My observations:

• Nobody would say Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba summarized his message to the nation without batting an eyelid. Along the whole debate he blinked thousands of times.
  It was getting me nervous, really. Because it seemed like he was relying too much on his capacity of improvisation and did not prepare the conclusion at all. Or simply he needed some good eye-drops. I guess it's happened to you, you're asked a question and while thinking of an answer, you start blinking.
  The hint, simply blink as much as physiologically needed.
• On the contrary, it seemed like Mariano Rajoy did not rely at all on his capacity of improvisation.
  Actually what would you say of a person looking at his own notes 585 times in approximately 40 minutes? The contact to the audience was completely fragmented.
  Quoting Rajoy, speaking of political situation in Spain:
  —Actually I know it won't be easy, actually it'll be —pause 5 seconds and look at the note, then resume— difficult.
  What? You need to read your notes to say it'll be —pause— difficult?
  Second hint. Don't use notes, just for writing. You'll be proud of yourself and people will appreciate it. Moreover, less people will doubt about your sincerity.

A polite debate, after all; nobody left the room injured.

Top 3 tips to look good to your future in-laws

Finally you are there, you didn't expect it would have happened so early, so unexpectedly. The day has come. A lunch, a dinner, a breakfast or whatever. The day you'll meet her parents, you'll have to be prepared.
It's just a matter of months, maybe years if nobody is in a rush; nevertheless I have seen loves at first sight, just few days away to meet her parents.

From my humble experience I would like to share with you three absolutely unavoidable tips to help make this first rendezvous perfect. No need to stress that being relaxed and smiling all the time is absolutely necessary. But besides looking good, well dressed and happy, there is something more.

Here they go:

1. Take care of your language.
   Language is your visiting card, and if you fail this test, sorry for you, you'll have to work hard to delete the impression you provided. Although using conversational street slung might seem quite natural, you never know who you're talking to. Think twice before saying anything; or even better, think rapidly and speak slowly.
2. Compliment the cook.
   The most typical situation to make your in-laws acquaintance, is a meal altogether at your girlfriend's house. Of course there is no need to say that you'll absolutely love all the dishes and you'll thank everybody for being so kind, and for cooking so well. In my case it's been dead simple, all meals were genuine and tasty; but in case you hate Brussels sprout like I do, well, you'll have to manage it.
3. In case you go to the toilet, never forget to lower the toilet seat.
   In the past I believed that leaving it opened would represent a sign of education and hygiene. But then I realized that the best thing is leaving it closed, ready for anybody going to sit down.

In most cases these suggestions may sound obvious to you. Actually they are, but I believe it is important to pay attention to them for just some moments, just in case.
And what if you realize you did something wrong? Don't worry, there's nothing a bottle of good wine can't fix.

Toastmasters table topics on job interviews

In my last post I wrote down my Toastmaster Ice Breaker, the first speech to complete a path to be a Competent Communicator.
But Toastmasters meetings are not just speeches, for those who ignore it. There's also the possibility to develop improvisation skills during the Table Topics sessions. That consists in a member of the club, the Table Topics Master (TTM), choosing some topics and calling people from the audience to improvise on a random topic for a period of time from one to two minutes.

The topic can be whatever the TTM likes, of course the simpler the topic, the better for the speaker!
Topics on hot themes such as sex, politics and religion should be avoided, unless the audience is a group of close friends or similar.

I'll write down some topics I chose once being TTM, hope you'll like and use them when you're short of ideas. They are thematic topics on job interviews, the TTM plays the role of the interviewer and the person from the audience is the candidate.

Here they go.


- You are unemployed and writing your CV, what would you write in your hobbies chapter?

- Why do you want to leave your current job?

- How would your co-workers describe you?

- You are asked if you plan to get pregnant, what would you answer?

- Where do you see yourself in five years?

- What are your weaknesses?

- If you were an animal/a can of soup/some other random object, which one would you be?

- If you were a ‘Lost’ character, which one would you be? (Use whatever character from whatever TV series. You can previously ask the audience whether they know certain TV series.)

- Do you ever abuse alcohol or drugs?

- How much should you charge to wash all the windows in Madrid? (5 euros per window is a good answer!)

- Design an evacuation plan for Madrid city center.

- This job has always been handled by a (female) (male). Do you think you can handle it? (sexist question, not really hot topic, might be funny although unfortunately quite common in reality)

My Toastmasters Ice Breaker

I started meeting with Toastmasters guys in May 2010, and since then I must admit that I have spent a really good time with them. For those who ignore what Toastmasters is, I'll just write what Google search result say, that is: "Non-profit organization developing public speaking and leadership skills through practice and feedback in local clubs since 1924." For more informations you might simply go to www.toastmasters.org.

Briefly, the first objective is to deliver ten speeches in order to obtain the "Competent Communicator" title. I am still far away from that, but I am now preparing my next speech.
The first speech is the Ice Breaker, and is the most simple one. Actually there is no need to provide the speech a complex structure or pay attention to lots of details while preparing the presentation. The objective is telling the audience who you are, what do you like and possibily why you are there doing what you do.

I'll add my Ice Breaker here, in case you are curious and looking for inspiration. I remember I read it almost completely. You know, it was my first time delivering a speech to an audience, and in english.


Chapter I, Me

My mother got pregnant around 20th March, 1976. I guess my grandfather must have been expectant about my sex, he was looking forward to have a boy to educate and to teach his own values and ideas. I don’t know if my parents were as expectant as my grandfather, being my mother pregnancy unexpected. Anyway, love sometimes wins, and I won a free ticket to life (well, not really free, that’s pretty like a mortgage repayment, but at first you don’t realize it), that was on the 22nd of January 1977. The third of three children, the only boy, the one they were not waiting for.

Later on it was not so difficult for me to catch the whole attention of people, being an hyperactive fellow forced my parents to spend great part of their time in controlling my movements.
I loved cartoons, specially Japanese ones (Who does not remember Mazinger, Goldrake, or Captain Harlock) and before going to the nursery, I loved to switch on TV and spend hours in front of the tv set. Then, my father built a small wooden box with a padlock to lock the plug of the TV. In a couple of days I learnt to open the padlock with a metal clip. I could not understand why I was not allowed to spend hours watching cartoons, actually, there was nothing more for me to do, provided my mother was always busy either cooking or cleaning. And the elder sisters?? I wasn´t really interesting for my elder sisters.
Another usual episode I remember was climbing on chairs and pieces of furniture to discover hidden chocolate pots. Really easy.
Nowadays I understand why youngsters are quite anarchists.
Then, by the age of four I started reading Micky Mouse comics. I could not stand Micky Mouse, actually my favourite character was Donald Duck. By far more sympathetic and human character than Micky, the perfect mouse. Boring.
By the age of six years old I had learned by memory around four hundreds comics, each story, each dialog. I did not realize my talent, my father discovered it when joking with my uncle: “he knows stories by memory!”. Actually I started repeating a random story from a random comic chosen by my father throughout my collection. Was I a lonely intellectual child?

Little child, little child, little child want you dance with me?

I am so sad and lonely baby take a chance with me.

I don’t have any particular memory of me sitting on a school chair. That was a quite period of my life. I think I nearly fell in love with all the good looking girls in my class. Pretty normal.
Then, jumping to my fifteen years, everything started moving really fast. That’s when I had my first electric guitar. I played in a rock band and that was really fun, playing in parties, festivals and events. We were the most famous rock band in the village.
Everything was so nice till I was nineteen, when two main milestones marked the path. A summer vacation with my friends before entering university in Barcelona, and the choice to start engineering. After some time, thinking back of that summer, I can summon it up with three words: fun, Catalan (somehow similar to my village dialect) and girls. I would say:

Well, she was just seventeen,

and you know what I mean,

and the way she looked was way beyond compare.

So how could I dance with another,

ooh, When I saw her standing there.

Chapter II, The others

University was something much different, first time living alone, far away from my parents’ worries and control. There I completely forgot music and dedicated to subjects new to me. No time for guitar, no space for old hobbies.
I must admit that being curious is a very positive attitude, although choosing engineering is not the solution I would recommend. Actually when I started tasting the explanations to all natural phenomenons, I discovered there were mysteries much bigger. Human people and their behaviours. Studying at a big university is so interesting from a social point of view, getting in touch with different cultures is challenging.
Being part of a community is an astonishing experience: I realized that people are very different. Actually, nice, gentle, simple, complicated, clean, dirty, awful, liar, egoist and poliedric. As my studies progressed year by year, the happening that radically changed my life took place. A great friend of mine, pushed me to go on Erasmus. He demonstrated that it was the right thing to do and that was the right moment. I had always thought that being abroad with an Erasmus grant would be a loss of time.
I will never forget that moment I decided to trust a person against my feelings and sensation, that was a real revolution. One might say..

Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away.

Now it looks as though they're here to stay.

Oh, I believe in yesterday.

Chapter III, Altogether

And at last my short travel has arrived to these days. My love for Spain never faded out, and after getting my degree I started to organize things to go back to Spain. I did it, and now I am living one of strongest and most vivid experience I ever lived. Loving a woman and working with great colleagues.

I think I stopped playing music and singing in a band, but music is playing in me.