Other Problems with Toastmasters?

I got an email from Olivia Mitchell. Olivia does speaking and presentation training in New Zealand. She has a blog called Speaking About Presenting and posted a very interesting article about how to get the most out of Toastmasters. She raises some very interesting points about problems with the actual speaking education program for Toastmasters.
Olivia has two major problems she brings up and I want to address both of them from my point of view:

First, Olivia points out that "[Toastmasters] overemphasises superficial skills - like body language and vocal variety - while ignoring critical skills - like developing a memorable message for your presentation."
I don't think body language and vocal variety are superficial skills. I think they are critical parts of communicating a memorable message. The majority of people who come to Toastmasters have a fear of public speaking. Their issue is with the presentation part of the presentation. They need to learn to work a room, to feel more comfortable. The first 10 speeches, are designed to deal with those issues which beginning to address message development. The later speeches and advanced manuals address issues like knowing your audience and developing your message. Advanced speakers, those looking to do more than get over a fear of public speaking, need to focus on the communication aspect of speaking. I don't know many experienced speakers who join Toastmasters and go through those first 10 speeches so they can do those more advanced skills. There are a number of them, but when most people think of Toastmasters they think help getting over fear, not advanced skills.
I think to address this, the organization needs to look at their education program, look at how they are branded and how they promote themselves.

Two, Olivia says "once you have developed basic skills, the Toastmasters official programme does not include the learning experiences which can help you develop further."
This is technically not true. The organization does provide some learning experiences, but they don't do a great job of promoting those experiences. Part of this is because many people don't stay with the organization long enough to find out about these opportunities. They get through the first 10 speeches and then they are out the door. There is an incredibly high turn over rate for club membership. If people stuck around and paid attention they would learn about speaking at conferences and trainings within the organization. They would learn that many districts have speakers bureaus to help promote speakers. Yes, they could do a better job of promoting these programs or providing networking opportunities outside of the organization. Currently, the program is designed to allow someone to put in as much work as they want. Those motivated to find outside opportunities do find them.

There are a few other comments Olivia made that peaked my interest:

1. Ignore your assigned evaluator (most of the time)
2. Don’t copy the Toastmasters way of using PowerPoint
   

First, I would never ignore any feedback, especially from someone who saw your speech. Training an evaluator is a very difficult thing to do, but every evaluator has given at least 3 speeches themselves and, thus, has received 3 evaluations. They have some idea about how to do this. Every speech tells the evaluator what to look for and the design is not to overwhelm the speaker with feedback. The evaluation may not be the most indepth one you can get, but there will be a nugget to use for improvement. Working with a mentor is important and you should try to get them to not only provide you with your first few evaluations, but to help guide you through learning how to evaluate others.

Second, she is absolutely right about power points from the organization. Power point abuse is an epidemic and I feel we should all be working to end it. The organization is new to technology. Powerpoint is new to many people still. The organization took these old overhead slides (also poorly done) and popped them into a new tool. Rather than thinking of a redesign, they trusted the old idea to work in a new medium. I echo all of Olivia's suggestions on ways to improve powerpoint presentations. There are some great videos and tutorials out there to help.

I have been reading over the rest of Olivia's blog and it is a great one. I encourage you all to add it to your feed readers.