Outside Speech Assignment Essay

After I watched the speech which was gave by Bill Gates in June 08, 2007 on the Harvard commencement, I felt more interesting in Bill Gates. According to the information offered by woopidoo. com, we can find the Biography of Bill Gates, which said, â€Å"Bill Gates is one of the most influential people in the world. He is cofounder of one of the most recognized brands in the computer industry with nearly every desk top computer using at least one software program from Microsoft. Bill Gates is the richest man in the world and has held the number one position for many years. Gates was born and grew up in Seattle, Washington USA. His father, William H. Gates II was a Seattle attorney and his mother, Mary Maxwell Gates was a school teacher and chairperson of the United Way charity. Gates and his two sisters had a comfortable upbringing, with Gates being able to attend the exclusive secondary â€Å"Lakeside School†. Bill Gates started studying at Harvard University in 1973 where he spent time with Paul Allen. Gates and Allen worked on a version of the programming language BASIC, which was the basis for the MITS Altair (the first microcomputer available). He did not go on to graduate from Harvard University as he left in his junior year to start what was to become the largest computer software company in the world; Microsoft Corporation. † 30 years later since Gates left Harvard; Gates came back to Harvard and gave a speech to those students who were graduated from Harvard. The reason why Bill Gates gave this speech is that he wanted to deliver what he had thought about a successful person should do to the world after graduated from school. His topics were appropriate for the audience, because the audience were all students who graduated from Harvard. Also, his topics were appropriate for the occasion, because it was Harvard commencement Day. For the general purpose of this speech, it was the special occasion speech, because this speech was a presentation that highlights a special event. The special event was the Harvard commencement. For the mode of delivery for this speech, I think it should be the manuscript mode, because during Bill Gates were giving the speech; he looked down on the speech table. Bill Gates used his voice effectively. He adjusted his rate very well. He did not speak very fast so that everyone there can get what he said. Also, he used pause for effect, such as when he said, I’ve been waiting more than 30 years to say this: â€Å"Dad, I always told you I’d come back and get my degree. † Between â€Å"to say this† and â€Å"Dad† he used a pause, so that audience would think about what would he going to say. And it made the speech more interesting. Also, he used duration for attention, pitch for expression, volume for emphasis, enunciation for clarity and fluency for fluidity during his speech. He spoke clearly and smoothly, so that everyone could understand what he was talking about. Bill Gates used eye contact to hold audience attention, because he would look at audience usually, not kept reading his manuscript all the time. He did not use facial expression a lot, but audience still could see him smiling sometimes. Thus, for the delivery part, I think Bill Gates did very well. He gave the speech by using a manuscript; however, he gave the speech without kept reading the manuscript all the time. He used voice to get audiences’ attention; he used eye contact to kept audiences’ attention. And everything he talked was clear and smooth. For the speech organization, Bill Gates used a very good attention getter by saying, â€Å"I’ve been waiting more than 30 years to say this: â€Å"Dad, I always told you I’d come back and get my degree. â€Å"I want to thank Harvard for this timely honor. I’ll be changing my job next year†¦and it will be nice to finally have a college degree on my resume. But I also want to be recognized as the guy who got Steve Ballmer to drop out of business school. I’m a bad influence. That’s why I was invited to speak at your graduation. If I had spoken at your orientation, fewer of you might be here today. I applaud the graduates today for taking a much more direct route to your degrees. For my part, I’m just happy that the Crimson has called me â€Å"Harvard’s most successful dropout. † I guess that makes me valedictorian of my own special class†¦I did the best of everyone who failed. † These were part of the manuscript I found from networkworld. com. After his introduction, he began to recall his school life when he was studying in the Harvard. By telling his story, he told audience how he began his business. After his business, he talked about what he had thought about during the 30 years. Then, his main point came out: â€Å"In your years here, I hope you’ve had a chance to think about how–in this age of accelerating technology–we can finally take on these inequities, and we can solve them. † Then, Bill Gates gave an example for the inequities: there were millions of children were dying from poverty and disease. Then, Gates started talked about how to help these children from dying, â€Å"If we can find approaches that meet the needs of the poor in ways that generate profits for business and votes for politicians, we will have found a sustainable way to reduce inequity in the world. This task is open-ended. It can never be finished. But a conscious effort to answer this challenge will change the world. We can make market forces work better for the poor if we can develop a more creative capitalism? If we can stretch the reach of market forces so that more people can make a profit, or at least make a living, serving people who are suffering from the worst inequities. We also can press governments around the world to spend taxpayer money in ways that better reflect the values of the people who pay the taxes. At the last, he gave the conclusion by calling action, â€Å"Knowing what you know, how could you not? And I hope you will come back here to Harvard 30 years from now and reflect on what you have done with your talent and your energy. I hope you will judge yourselves not on your professional accomplishments alone, but also on how well you have addressed the world’s deepest inequities †¦ on how well you treated people a world away who have nothing in common with you but their humanity. † I think the organization of Bill’s speech was very good, because everything was included and nothing was unnecessary. For the materials to support the speech, Bill Gates used the AIDS as an example, â€Å"The broad goal, of course, is to end the disease. The highest-leverage approach is prevention. The ideal technology would be a vaccine that gives lifetime immunity with a single dose. So governments, drug companies, and foundations fund vaccine research. But their work is likely to take more than a decade, so in the meantime, we have to work with what we have in hand–and the best prevention approach we have now is getting people to avoid risky behavior. Pursuing that goal starts the four-step cycle again. This is the pattern. The crucial thing is to never stop thinking and working–and never do what we did with malaria and tuberculosis in the 20th century–which is to surrender to complexity and quit. The final step–after seeing the problem and finding an approach–is to measure the impact of your work and share your successes and failures so that others learn from your efforts. † This example told people how to help those people who were suffering from disease. Also it told people to solve the problem when they met. The audiences were responded lively. When Bill Gates stood on the stage, all the people stood and began to clap. When Bill Gates used humor to deliver his points, audiences would laugh or clap. When Bill Gates was talking, the audience would be silence. It showed that the speech was interesting and meaningful that they would like to listen. Also, they showed the respect to the people who were the richest one in the world. After I watched the video, I think Bill Gates did very well on his speech. He gave an interesting and meaningful speech to people. He let people laugh; at the same time, he let people think.