Analysing Public Speaking: A Guideline from TED and Dialogue by Peter Van Uhm

Sustainable Development: Project Management and Communication

CEMUS, SLU and Uppsala University

https://www.ted.com/talks/peter_van_uhm_why_i_chose_a_gun

 “Why I chose A Gun”-a 17.10 minutes dialogue by Peter van Uhm (2011).

The message of Peter van Uhm was about a constitutional state which is contained a set of regulation will work as more powerful than a gun (Uhm, 2001). He chose the gun for a better world and how the gun will work for the purpose.

Yes, I think it’s a good public speech delivered by Peter van Uhm. I think he has used all of the nine principles. The presenter covers the first section of emotion including Unleash the Master Within, Master the Art of Storytelling and have a Conversation (Gallo, 2014, p.8) through telling a story about his father’s death (Uhm, 2001).

He also covered the Novel part teaching me how weapons can be used as a medium of peace rather than conflict. Bringing weapons in hand and showing to the audience was a moment that they were thinking, what is the thing Peter uses for building a peaceful better world. Creating this moment is one of the secrets of public speaking. According to Gallo (2014), it is a “moment in a presentation is when the presenter delivers a shocking, impressive, or surprising moment that is so moving and memorable,[…](Gallo,2014, p.136).” The writer has also given an example of Bill Gates presentation where he (Bill Gates) used some mosquito to share the experience of poor to the riches (Gallo, 2014, p.135-136). When Peter showed the gun to the audience, they were created the whole auditorium with fun which showed the process of lighten up is one of the secrets of public speaking.

The presenter covered the memorable part of public speaking secrets. He was stick to the 18 minutes rule completing his presentation within 16 minute and 50 seconds. To be stick in this point there was a countdown timer display showing time starting from 18 and finished at 0.00 (Uhm, 2001). As, painting a mental picture with multisensory experience is one of nine secrets of public speaking, I observe Peter’s presentation that he tried it using the gun, one soldier with him, and the other components like audio and multimedia which showing him on a big screen.

The one thing of the public speaking secret is staying in own line. That means authentic, open, and transparent ( Gallo,2014, p.240). Peter also outlines his information having his own practical life. His father death and talking about peacekeeping in Afghanistan’s police training where he was directly involved with this thing (NU, 2012).

I don’t have personal recommendation about improving the presentation because I think he has done everything to share his message to the audience.

I think, the speaker has taken very well into account the setting and the audience. He addressed the audience several times and they were very much attentive to the speaker and it shows that he got his message across to them as well.

My view is, we need armies if we want peace. Ethical or non-ethical issues depend on its purposes of using. The purposes depend on the nation’s diplomatic and home policy. It also relates with the foreign relationship and economic conditions. In the present context, power is pre-condition of peace for a state. The state power also linked with military capabilities along with national resources and national performance (Treverton & Jones, 2005). In one hand, it increases national power and other hands, it protects a nation in advance from creating conflict. Besides these, the army has been working for peacekeeping activities over the world.  According to Presentation of Willliam Redekop, “It [Ethics] refers to standard of behavior[u]r that tell us how human beings ought to act- as parents, children, friends, citizens, public authorities, teachers, businesspeople, professionals, etc.” and though the Utilitarian Approach deals with consequences and “provides the most good or does the least harm” in the ethical action, my view support this approach to use the army.

He used “[t]he terms values, morals, and ethics are often used interchangeably. While related, there are some important distinctions between them.”

I would like to rank the perspectives as Utilitarian Approach, Justice approach, Virtue Approach, Common Approach and Rights Approach. I have ranked like these for the best choice of using army in terms of ethical issues.

Though ethics depends on the standard of the behavioral act of human being, so using the army for peace is obviously ethical. I do like the Utilitarian (Outcome) Approach of ethics. Due to differences of ethical issues within human behavior, there is needed something to control them internally or externally, home or foreign. We need armies in sense of view that, although there is a big issue of budget behind it and sometimes need to environmental degradation, moreover it helps more than it loses.

Using the online tool, I have scored 79 and it seems my option is probably ethical and I believe it is also ethical to use Gallo’s public speaking secrets to convince people of my message because if my project or thinking is ethical, then it is important to convey the good message and make any one understand in any way. If Gallo’s secrets help me to convince people in ethical activities then it ethical to use as well.