toastmasters – a different table topics

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When I was an area governor, one of my clubs complained that meetings weren’t fun enough. I tried a few things including some different formats for table topics to mix things up. One of them resulted in a lot of laughter. I’ve done it twice since at my own club.

The approach

I wrote sets of five words on a piece of paper. I tried to pick words that had nothing to do with each other. I also tried to pick a word or name that meant something to the club to create a shared reference. For example, suppose the President of the club was named Bob and the words were:

  1. elephant
  2. Kansas
  3. necktie
  4. sofa
  5. Bob

I then had people get up in pairs. The first person was told to speak for 60-90 seconds telling a story that uses those five words. Then the other person had 30-60 seconds to “agree” and support the story as if they were there. For example, suppose the first person said they saw an elephant wearing a necktie. The second person could say that he ran into the first person at the zoo, saw the elephant and couldn’t believe it.

Why it works

Putting together random words into a story tends to be funny whether the speaker is funny or not. Sticking in the shared experience (person’s name, company specific info, etc) makes people laugh as well. It preserves the spirit of speaking impromptu. It also creates a faster rhythm.

Eclipse – easily looking at Java bytecode

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A fellow moderator asked me to weigh in on this question at CodeRanch. The gist is whether this code creates one String or two:

String s = " " + 3;

How to find out the answer

The most definitive way to verify this is to check the bytecode. I had downloaded the bytecode plugin when working on our Java 8 OCA Study Guide because sometimes you just have to know what actually goes on behind the scenes to be accurate.

Using the plugin is easy. You go to Window -> Show View -> Other -> Java -> Bytecode. Then every time you save the Java file, the bytecode window is automatically updated. Great for lots of iterations.

The test

I wrote a simple Java class:

package jb;
public class PlayTest {
  public static void main(String[] args) {
    String s = "" + 3;
  }
}

The generated bytecode is:

// class version 52.0 (52)
// access flags 0x21
public class jb/PlayTest {

  // compiled from: PlayTest.java

  // access flags 0x1
  public <init>()V
   L0
    LINENUMBER 4 L0
    ALOAD 0
    INVOKESPECIAL java/lang/Object.<init> ()V
    RETURN
   L1
    LOCALVARIABLE this Ljb/PlayTest; L0 L1 0
    MAXSTACK = 1
    MAXLOCALS = 1

  // access flags 0x9
  public static main([Ljava/lang/String;)V
   L0
    LINENUMBER 8 L0
    LDC "3"
    ASTORE 1
   L1
    LINENUMBER 14 L1
    RETURN
   L2
    LOCALVARIABLE args [Ljava/lang/String; L0 L2 0
    LOCALVARIABLE s Ljava/lang/String; L1 L2 1
    MAXSTACK = 1
    MAXLOCALS = 2
}

external motivation on unpleasant tasks

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I’m usually good at being intrinsically motivated. Once in a while I hit a scenario where I know I have to do something and don’t really want to.  I was talking to a co-worker about how I handle this and realized I use a similar technique for the rare occasions this happens at work and when working on the book.

I’ve only needed to do this a handful of times over the years. But it has really helped when I did need to.

Step 1 – Pick someone technical that I respect a lot

For work, I picked a co-worker that I work very closely with. For the book, I obviously picked my co-author Scott. It would have worked with our tech editor Ernest as well though.

The key is to pick someone who I’ll be embarrassed to tell that I didn’t do what I said I was going to do. It can’t be a manager. Because the point isn’t really to be accountable to the person. It’s to feel accountable. (I’ve only done this in advance of the due date so I don’t procrastinate. IF I waited for the deadline, I’d actually be accountable, but then I’d be more stressed.)

Step 2 – Figure out a way to feel accountable

The next step is to figure out a way that I would be embarrassed if I didn’t do the work. Sometimes this is just mentioning it. When I was really stressed, I asked my co-worker to send me an email reminding me to work on it. That way I could look at the email as a reminder. I haven’t needed this in a while. Lately, I’ve been able to just imagine it.

Step 3 – Do the work

The whole point is to do the work before it is due so it is off my plate. And strangely this approach has worked for me.