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On September 27, 2011 I attended a speech at the Auburn University Student Center in which Bill Rasmussen, the founder of ESPN, was speaking on his journey to making it big. The speech was an hour long and contained some strong points and some not so strong points as well. He adapted to the environment, which was all college students, by relating to us through common knowledge such as school, work, and most importantly Auburn football. He went in depth with each of his main points and was relevant with the listeners by talking about things we could understand. The audience as a whole seemed intrigued and interested in what he had to say.
The entire audience remained engaged in listening to the speaker for the entire hour. Many supportive points and storied were used to help describe his founding of ESPN as well as what hard work it took to transform such a small idea into a huge success. Bill used visual aide such as pictures throughout a timeline of ESPN’s offices, logos and sporting events to help better paint a picture in the audiences mind. The speech structure was effective, but could have been better . The language used was appropriate and clear throughout the speech and it was obvious that he was credible and had enough experience to speak on the topic.
However, a clear goal was never stated and left me wondering what he wanted us to take away from the speech. When giving number figures out to tell a story he often gave different figures, which led to confusion. It was in a story format but lacked clinchers to keep listeners wanting to know what was going to happen next. The delivery of the speech was the most impressive criteria of all. Bill sounded intelligent on his topic and had good conversation skills. He maintained eye contact throughout the hour and did not rely on reading material at all. He had good posture and presented good facial expressions.
He had sufficient poise as he walked across the stage to insure he made eye contact with all areas of the room. His pronunciation and articulation was acceptable and he spoke fluently during the speech. He allowed time for questions to be sure the audience understood what was said and to give a change to elaborate more. Overall I felt as though Bill Rasmussen was an effective speaker that had good content, mediocre structure, and exceptional delivery. I encourage all people to participate in a speech given by Bill Rasmussen if ever given the opportunity.