Not to sound too much like Juan Antonio Samaranch, but 2017 was truly the best Speaker Idol I’ve ever had the pleasure of judging (and I’ve been judgy at all of them). I would foremost like to thank Tom LaRock (b|t) for stepping in as an emcee while Denny Cherry was ailing. Tom did an excellent job of keeping the contest flowing, and his stage presence and sense of humor kept our audience (and judges) entertained. I am also taking the opportunity of this post to document two new rules that we are introducing to Speaker Idol for 2018. (I think the official rules may be in a OneNote somewhere, or it’s just tribal knowledge between Denny and I):
- Contestants, or any representatives of contestants may have no written or internet communications related in any way to the judging of the contest with judges during the period of the competition. (Which is defined as the moment the first speaker idol contestant speaks, until the final decision of the winner is announced). Penalty is disqualification and removal from final.
This means if you won, you aren’t allowed to ask (or have anyone else ask) the judges what you did right/wrong in your talk. I would extend this rule only to round winners, but since runner ups have the ability to wildcard into the finals, or if a round winner does this they could automatically be promoted, the rule applies to everyone. You are free to ask judges for their feedback after the competition, but the for the most part, what we say to you on stage is our feedback. If it was really bad, we might be a little nice, but you likely know it was really bad. You can still say hi to a judge at the conference, but don’t ask them how you could improve.
2. No gifts of any value may be offered to judges within a 90 day period before and after the competition.
I chose 90 days somewhat arbitrarily for this, because I don’t think we name contestants 90 days before Summit. And if you care enough to buy judges 30 year old scotch 3 months after the competition, more power to you. If you want to give a judge a sticker, or a business card, outside the competition room, that is acceptable. Nothing more. Sticker or business card. No free training. Or logins to your site.
That’s enough about rules. Let’s talk about the competition.
The Level of Quality was High
As judges, we’ve never actually had to calculate scores before. For this years final round, we actually flipped over the sign in front of the room and objectively scored our top two on the following:
- Slides
- Delivery
- Content
Everyone who made it to the final was good. Really good. Each of them would be a fine speaker at Summit. So what were the differences? When competitions are there close, scoring comes down to very minor factors like body movement on stage, ticks in delivery, and making the most of your time. Another factor is taking feedback from the earlier rounds and incorporating it into your presentation. Almost all of our contestants improved from their preliminary round—if you made it to the final, congratulations you did and excellent job.
Why the Winner Won
There’s a saying I’ve heard in sports, particularly amongst hitters in baseball, and quarterbacks in football, and I can tell you it also holds true in bike racing, that as you become more experienced, everything around you seems to slow down and lets you observe more of what’s going on in the moment, than someone who is less experienced. The same thing applies to public speaking—when you first do it, you feel nervous, and rushed, and you don’t feel like you can just relax and be yourself. The biggest difference between our winner, and our second place competitor, was that Jeremy was relaxed, delivered his content slowly, so that it could be easily consumed, and conveyed a complex technical concept in a manner that was easily understandable. Both presentations were excellent, Jeremy’s simply rose above.
