🗨 Professional introductions

 

Professional brands

This week you will perform the personal brand speeches you wrote and recorded in your assignment. Your TA may choose several different ways to conduct the personal brand speeches, such as the options below.

NOTE: For these first personal brand performances, you may use printed scripts or notes – however, your goal is to eventually deliver these speeches without any written aids.

 

Career fair. Students are grouped into each of the four corners of the room – 4-5 students standing in each corner – and each student in the group performs their brand speech to all of the others, in turn. 

Speed dating. Students stand up in two parallel lines facing each other. When your TA says "go," each pair of students facing each other take turns presenting their brand speeches directly to their partner. (All the pairs will be talking at once!) When everyone has finished talking, everyone shifts one place to the right (and if you reach the end of one line you wrap around into the open place in the other line) and trades speeches with their new partner. Repeat until everyone gives their speech four different times. 

Around the horn. Everyone in the class takes a turn standing up and presenting their personal brand speech to the whole group. 

Personal brand hot potato. This exercise is based on the "present-past-future" method as described on the career advice site The Muse: "First you start with the present—where you are right now. Then, segue into the past—a little bit about the experiences you’ve had and the skills you gained at the previous position. Finally, finish with the future—why you are really excited for this particular opportunity." For the exercise, your TA starts by randomly picking a student and then calling out either "present," "past," or "future" – depending on the word that's called out, the student has to then quickly say one thing about themselves from the present, past or future. Then that student chooses the next participant, again saying either "present," "past," or "future" to the new student. The relay goes on like this until everyone has had a chance to speak.

"Okay, stop!" Students pair up to give personal brands to each other. But sometime while the reciting student is talking through their personal brand presentation, the listening student must yell, "Okay, stop!" and ask a relevant question asking for more information or clarification, based on what the reciting student has just said. The reciting student must answer the question and then finish up their personal brand presentation. (Then flip the roles and repeat.)

Improv workshop (with any activity). After giving your single 90-second speech, each student must give their personal brand speech a second time, but in only 30 seconds – choosing what to omit and what to highlight from the original speech. Bonus round: Each student gives their personal brand speech one more time, in a single sentence!

 

After your brand speeches, your TA will leave some time for you to reflect with your fellow classmates about things that students did in their speeches that were compelling and effective (so please take notes as you listen to your classmates speak). Here are some other questions your TA might have you discuss:

• Is your initial personal brand more about who you are right now, or who you want to become as your career progresses?
• Now that you've written it out, how do you think you'd like to see your personal brand statement change over the course of the semester?
• Are there any downsides or risks to thinking about yourself as a "brand" in the same way that commercial products and services are marketed and branded?
• Does UW-Madison have a "brand"? What is it? What does being part of UW-Madison say about you?
• How difficult do you find it to speak in front of an audience – especially about yourself? Do you think others share these challenges?
• What kinds of experiences can you explore to improve your public speaking skill?