Judge Mike Heavey speaking about the wrongful conviction and then just release of Amanda Knox
To speak with power it is not enough to have knowledge and passion, willingness to learn and practice are essential as well. Judge Mike Heavey exemplifies these characteristics. He came to me with a goal of improving and streamlining his presentation on the innocence of Amanda Knox who was wrongfully accused and convicted of a murder of her roommate in Italy in 2007. He is passionate about this case and has been trying to find justice for Amanda for over four years. But he was caught by the two traps of public speaking, the curse of knowledge and the curse of passion.
The curse of knowledge is when you know too much about the subject and not pay attention to what the audience needs. The curse of knowledge caused Judge Heavey to go into too many details and at the same time not providing enough framework to understand the background of the story. The curse of passion is when you care so much about the topic that you throw organization to the wind and go on tangents. The curse of passion caused Judge Heavey to go on too many side notes, introduce too many characters and run over time (by 20 min).
In working with me, Judge has shown willingness to learn new ways of structuring his speech and put in good practice time outside our sessions to rewrite and then to practice the presentation. The result was a very powerful presentation made Wednesday, May 28th, 2012 at Seattle 4 Rotary club. To see the full presentation go to http://youtu.be/c6co6MGFOWQ.
Great job, Judge!
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