The Sandwich

Little Things Matter, and Initiative Makes the Difference. Two lessons I learned from Kelly Barnes and Phil Boyte at the DECA Western States Leadership Conference in San Diego last weekend. But the real lesson: Speakers who have a real commitment to creating and learning their craft are amazing!

Just like all speakers we are always looking for new content to make our programs more powerful. As we debriefed the conference it became apparent to me that the real excitement about this business is creating new pieces, new learning and the desire to always be a student of the craft of speaking to youth. Speaking to youth is a completely different type of speaking, mainly because it is really easy to "bomb" in front of a youth audience. All youth speakers know that, which is probably why so many speakers work to develop their "schtick" and stay with it for as long as possible. Phil said: "At this point in my career I get really excited about doing something new in front of an audience".

So how do you develop new material?
There is nothing like trying something new and have it work, and at the same time we learn just as much from material that doesn't work. Since, "bombing" is so easy in front of a youth audience what are some stragegies we can use to create new material. I use the sandwich approach. If I have a new piece, story or activity I always sandwich that in between two solid pieces of content. I usually do it in a workshop or small all school assembly first. Before the program I look at where I can place my new material. I finish my solid piece, transition into the new piece, whether it is a story, activity, humor piece. Then I transition out of that and pay attention to how I made the transition. I make a mental note of both of these transitions while I am speaking.  So on paper it looks something like this:

Solid piece, that has a definate ending, Transition into "new piece"

Do new story, activity, vinette, phrase, concept etc...

Transition out of that into a solid piece.

After the program, I spend sometime paying attention to how I transitioned, journal a bit about that and look at what I can do the next time.