PHOTOGRAMMETRIC ENGINEERING & REMOTE SENSING
June 2016
397
SECTOR
INSIGHT:
.
com
E
ducation
and
P
rofessional
D
evelopment
in
the
G
eospatial
I
nformation
S
cience
and
T
echnology
C
ommunity
T
his chiming into a “group call” in a GoToMeeting
format is becoming standard procedure in many work
and learning environments of today.
We gather in virtual / electronic groups which are often very
geographically dispersed around the country or the world
to communicate with one another. Public speaking is a part
of most of our professional lives. We all need to effectively
communicate with our colleagues, staff, and students. Today,
as we do this in person-to-person interactions, person-to-
group presentations, and through electronic means (e.g.,
virtual meetings), many of us find ourselves out of practice
and in uncharted territory.
Particularly, inanecdotal stories frompast annual conferences
people made observations that speakers have become less
professional and more hurried in their presentations. Often
cramming too much information into the time available or
to the contrary giving too little background information
to make the talk interesting or easy to follow. There were
talks where the presenter would seem to “wing it” or at least
seem “unpracticed”, while others were riddled with ticks or
bad habits, like twirling a pen or chewing gum. We as chair-
people have also failed our presenters by not enforcing time
constraints or allowing people to “talk through the question”
and therefore missing an opportunity for feedback. As an
audience we have accepted some of these habits because of
our interest in the topic being discussed or presented, thereby
accepting average or even poor communication as the norm.
In truth, however, we owe it to ourselves and our colleagues
to take the time to prepare and grow in our abilities to
share knowledge through effective communication and
presentation. As leaders in our field, we have an obligation
to our entire community, ASPRS and non-ASPRS alike, to
be better than average in everything we do, including public
speaking. Good public speaking skills lend credibility to the
speaker, and a desire to seek them out for more information
and to anticipate a quality talk when their name is seen in
the conference program.
Brian Murphy, long-time member of ASPRS, Past President
of the Florida Region and previous Chair of the ASPRS
Sustaining Members Council shares his experience with
Toastmasters, a public speaking organization.
By Brian Murphy, PSM, CP, GISP, Paul Pope,
Ph.D.,
Melissa Rura,
Ph.D.,
and Ed Freeborn, CTO
Ding, “Hi, this is Melissa.” Ding, “Paul, here.” Ding…
“Since joining Toastmasters, and attending recent ASPRS
conferences, I have seen a huge opportunity to help my fellow
ASPRS’ers by helping improve upon their oral communication
and leadership skills. I am interested in bringing elements
of Toastmasters into ASPRS in order to help improve the
member experience. Not only do I strongly feel this will help
benefit all ASPRS members but it will also help improve upon
the Conference experience as well, by helping speakers watch
their ‘ums and ahs;’ keeping their presentation informative,
yet concise; helping them rely less on power point bullets and
more on content and delivery; using vocal variety in order
to help maintain command of the audience.” Toastmasters
is well known in a commercial setting for training people
to present their ideas in a way that both communicate and
convince an audience.
To address this, training and discourse through an ASPRS
Speakers Club has been under development. The structure
is similar to that of Toastmasters International, but will be
hosted in a virtual setting and geared toward developing
speaker habits for the annual meeting and virtual webinar
settings.
In a recent meeting, Paul Pope, of Los Alamos National
Lab, shared some ideas that Toastmasters International
encourages in person-to-group interaction, that will be
replicated in our ASPRS Speakers cClub:
• Present for your audience, not TO them. A pedagogical
approach can be very effective.
• Make it your business to know what they want or need
to hear, and then be sure to present it in a way that
captures their attention and offers a clear message.
• With planning and rehearsal, you will be able to avoid
the common mistakes that plague other speakers.
• Practicing your talk at least once is the single best
thing you can do to be a better speaker. Conference
sessions typically allow approximately 15 minutes for
presentation and questions. That’s only 45 minutes of
time required to practice your presentation three times.
Time well spent; your audience will thank you for it!
• “Pregnant pauses” are useful to draw the audience’s
attention to particularly salient points, as well as for you
