Executive Summary:

Company: Phoenix Technologies Ltd. Taipei office 
Headquarters: Milpitas, California 
Industry: Firmware, core system software 
Employees in Taipei : 120 
Session I: February – May, 2007 
Session II: June – September, 2007 
Objectives: 
1.To provide opportunities for Phoenix employees to practice communication and public speaking skills 

2.To provide opportunities for participants to improve English writing, speaking, and listening skills 

3.To learn effective evaluation techniques in offering helpful feedback by highlighting speaker strengths and pointing out focus areas for future improvements 

4. To allow participants to get to know team members from different functional teams by sharing experiences and backgrounds.
5. To learn the importance of time control and developing skills in conveying main points under time constraints 

Phoenix Mini-Toastmasters classes are based on the Speechcraft program module of Toastmasters International’s Success/Communication Series and adopted for specific learning needs of the Phoenix participants. 

Meeting times: 
Class 1: Tuesday 6:00-7:30pm (10 participants) 
Class 2: Thursday 12:00-1:30pm (10 participants) 

Meeting venue: Phoenix Taipei office Training Room 
Cost for each participant: FREE 

Results: 
Completion of 3 C7 project: Beryl Wang, Price Tsai, Niny Chang 
Completion of 4 C10 project: Kevin Hung, Victor Lan, Pinky Chen, Winfred Chiang 

Introduction: 
You have heard of Toastmasters, but do you know what Mini-Toastmasters are? No, they are not smaller sizes of Toastmasters, nor are they younger Toastmasters. Do you know about the Speechcraft program that’s designed to run eight sessions as a member recruiting effort? When I first started working at Phoenix Technologies Ltd.’s Taipei office 4.5 years ago, a co-worker asked me about Toastmasters because she had heard that it was a great training program for improving presentation skills. I referred her to the website, but she never had a chance to visit a club meeting. Three years later, our senior HR specialist found my photo on the District 67 website and she was so surprised that I was the District Association Secretary, a fancy title that impressed her. Knowing what the work demand and what the working hours are like for the 120 employees, I realized it was not possible to start a new club, but I wanted to introduce Toastmasters to my co-workers. I looked at the Speechcraft program and revised it so we could still run a modified version. Since everything was shorter and smaller, I invented the new term “Mini-Toastmasters”. 

Each participant received a folder with the following materials: 
1.      “Where do you Stand as a Speaker” self-analysis questionnaire 
2.      C1-C10 Project list (English and Mandarin) 
3.      Toastmasters advanced communication and leadership program manual list 
4.      Self-evaluation guide 
5.      Individual project descriptions and also the evaluation guides in both English (from the Speechcraft Participants handbook) and Mandarin Chinese (from the Mandarin Basic Communication and Leadership Manual) 

Participants were encouraged to deliver a speech at the weekly meetings. They had a choice to either deliver the speeches in English or in Chinese. They could also help out as the timer or ah counter. Each speaker was assigned an evaluator to complete the evaluation pages and provide a brief observation. Their progress was amazing and all of them could see the difference in each other. In their first ice breakers, several speakers rocked back and forth and a few looked at the ceiling while others looked at the ground. Most of them couldn’t even speak for 3 minutes. However, by C5, everyone was complaining how there was not enough time and we extended the time limits to 5-7 minutes using the Mandarin Manual as our guide. The number of ah’s also decreased dramatically. As an encouragement, every speaker received a half page “mini-certificate” upon the completion of a speech delivery.

Since a few participants looked at my CTM badge with admiration, I encouraged them to finish their 10 speeches. I ordered the badges for the speakers who had already finish 7 speeches. We continued with Mini-Toastmasters II and invited others to join us. Although a few people dropped out after the first few classes, they certainly understood what Toastmasters was all about and would be the best Membership Vice Presidents because they were promoting our Mini-Toastmasters with enthusiasm and passion. Sometimes classes had to be canceled due to various trainings or project deadlines, but a few die hard participants plodded along and on September 27, we presented the Competent Communicator badges to 4 participants. Their C10 speeches were truly amazing. Only one of the participants had visited the Happy Mandarin Toastmasters meetings with me but amazingly, all of them were able to prepare, deliver, and evaluate C10 speeches with very little guidance. They combined all the delivery skills and supported their messages in a logical organized structure that truly inspired the audience. I was really proud of all of them. 

If you would like to help an organization get started with Toastmasters, the Speechcraft program is a wonderful alternative. You can expand it to a “Mega-Toastmasters” or shrink it down to “Mini-Toastmasters”! 

To learn more about the Speechcraft Program: 
http://www.toastmasters.org/Members/MembershipBuilding/Speechcraft.aspx 

Want find out more about Mini-Toastmasters? Contact Helen Chen at <helen_hc1@yahoo.com>. 

案例摘要

•        公司: 鳳凰科技台北辦事處

•        總部: 美國加州Milpitas

•        產業：核心系統軟體

•        台灣原工數：120人

•        階段I: 2007年2到5月

•        階段II: 2007年6到9月

目標：

1. 提供鳳凰科技員工練習溝通和公開演說技巧的機會

    

2. 提供參與者改善英語聽說寫作技巧的機會

    

3. 關注演講者的力道並指出為改善的重點，提出有意的回饋，

    

        以學習有效講評的技巧

4. 讓參與者從不同功能的團對中認識會員，裨瞭解背景並分享經驗

    

5. 學習在時限內傳達重點技巧，因兩者同樣重要

    

鳳凰科技的迷你課程根據國際演講會成功溝通的系列模式，為參與者的特定學習需求作安排。

例會時間：

第一班：週二晚上六點到七點半（共十人）

第二班：週四中午十二點痣一點半（共十人）

例會地點：

鳳凰科技台北訓練室（免場地費）

目標成果：

完成七講計三人：Beryl Wang, Price Tsai, Niny Chang

完成十講計四人： Kevin Hung, Victor Lan, Pinky Chen, Winfred Chiang