Awesome!
One request I'd have is to make the group private or otherwise hidden from Google searches. I've had this problem with Google Groups before, and if we're going to be sharing video links to practise exercises, I think we'd all like these to not come up when Google-searching for our names or usernames.
It's currently set up so that only members can see our posts, and I have to approve membership requests manually. If there are any other privacy features you'd like me to turn on, let me know what they are. (I couldn't find anything else in five minutes.)
\ Googles\ Huh, Toastmasters is in the Netherlands, too. Their site doesn't appear to be working right now, but I'll certainly have a look at it later. I'd love to do a course with LWers, but I think I prefer to learn this stuff in my own language; also I really need to get out of the house more.
Signed up too, and I plan on attending toastmasters this summer. Improved public speaking is one of my goals for the summer.
ETA: ModusPonies has set up a Google Group for everyone doing this. It looks like it's officially a Thing.
I originally asked this on the London Less Wrong mailing list, but then realised the internet doesn't just have a ten mile radius.
There's been some interest in public speaking on LW lately, and it cropped up a couple of times at the London practical meetup as an area people would like to work on. I volunteered to collate some exercises and resources on the subject.
Since then, I've noticed a Coursera course on public speaking which is starting in a little under two weeks. I've signed up for it, and would like to encourage other LessWrongers to sign up for it alongside me. My reasons for this are as follows:
- The course involves the option of recording your progress and sharing it with other participants. As several of us have discovered on the Less Wrong Study Hall, seeing the faces of people you chat to on the internet is fun, sociable and motivational.
- We can read posts and articles on the subject all day long, but having an externally-imposed syllabus will provide the structure and motivation to actually act on it.
- There is an aspect of rhetoric and persuasion to the course, (cf. 'dark arts'), and having epistemically hygienic fellows will help keep participants on the straight-and-narrow.
- Turning a large number of aspiring rationalists into erudite and persuasive speakers can't be a bad thing.
So who else is in?
(Also, before anyone mentions it, yes, I am very, very aware of the existence of Toastmasters. They seem to be the default suggestion whenever public speaking comes up. For anyone who isn't aware of them, they are an international organisation of clubs practising communication and public speaking. Google them if you're interested. I'm not, for social- and time-commitment reasons.)