Business Communication 101
Business Communication Chapter 16: Writing Exercise 6
This evaluation considers the speech “The best stats you’ve ever seen” by Hans Rosling at TED 2006 conference in Monterey, California. All three presentation components – speaker’s delivery, presentation itself, and use of visuals – deserve high esteem.
The speech delivery is extremely involving. The speaker constantly interacts with audience through eye contact, varying intonation, and vivid gestures. Rosling’s speech is very emotionally engaging, creating the feeling that he is passionate and knowledgeable about the topic. Still, slightly excessive passion and high delivery speed result in perceived nervousness of the speech. Also, speaker’s diction is influenced by his accent; and he does not look perfectly well-groomed due to casual clothing and slight slouch (which could be attributed to his age and profession).
The presentation has a relevant topic and logical flow. Initially, the speaker discusses the relevance of the topic and the speech purpose. Using clear transitions between the presentation parts, the speaker explains his ideas in simple words to address non-professional audience. The speech is very focused and supported by evidence of global statistics graphs; the logical conclusion follows. The timing slightly exceeds TED conference time limit of 18 minutes; also, the talk does not provide for questions (possibly due to conference format).
The visuals are outstanding. Logically supporting the speech, they are very clear, dynamic, and perfectly timed. Sound effects and replays allow reiterating the key points. The speaker constantly interacts with the visuals. He also names the sources of underlying data (UN) and the program used to construct graphs (Gapminder).
Appendix
Figure 16.3
PART I: THE SPEAKER’S DELIVERY
(Circle the appropriate number using the 1–5 scale.)
PART II: THE PRESENTATION ITSELF
(Circle the appropriate number: 1 poor; 5 superior.)
The best stats you’ve ever seen PART III: USE OF VISUALS (SLIDES OR OTHER GRAPHICS)
(Again, circle the appropriate number: 1 poor; 5 superior.)
Page(s): 746, Successful Writing at Work, 10th ed. by Philip C. Kolin, Cengage Learning
