Beginning of November, I gave my first formal speech at the Toastmasters club I joined recently. The point of the speech is to talk for a few minutes about myself. Personally, I find talking about myself to be really tough. I could go on for hours about a technical subject, but having to bare personal information in front of others, on the spot, just seems much more difficult… So, I was very proud to receive the Best Speaker Ribbon for that speech 
“Be yourself, everyone else is already taken”. I love this quote from Oscar Wilde and I am here today to tell you a little bit about who I am, from A to Z.
Madam Toastmaster, fellows toastmasters and welcomed guests,
A is for Arthur, my 10 years old son, and
B is for Bath, the beautiful town in the UK where he is born.
C is for Cooking, an activity which I started very seriously when we moved to the UK….
D is for Dreams… “Let me be a dreamer” as per the famous the Supertramp’ song.
E is for Ecosystem, business ecosystems. It is the subject I’m currently working on as a consultant, organizing workshops to help companies develop their own ecosystem.
F is for French. I am born near Bordeaux where I spent my childhood. I have also lived near Paris, in Grenoble, in Bath, and now I am in geneva for 4 years now.
G is for geek. I am a geek.I share my office with a wifi rabbit, I read my books on an amazon kindle, I have an automated iRobot’s hoover at home, I listen to podcasts on my iphone…
H is for high-tech. I have studied microelectronic at school and work in the semiconductor and electronic market since then.
I is for Ideas. I like Ideas. I believe that Big ideas are… small ideas that no one killed too soon.
J is for Job. I am Self employed marketing consultant.
K is for Kaizen. It is a japanese word which means “improvement” and is commonly used as “continuous improvement.” It is my philosophy, improve step-by-step, little-by-little every day.
L is for Life. Trying to “Live with Passion” as The Coach Tony Robbins keeps saying since 30 years.
M is Marketing. Even though I studied microelectronic, I have been working as a technical marketing since 15 years now.
N is for Nespresso. “What else?”. I am part of the success of Nespresso, you know… Yeah, with my 4 to 6 cups of coffee per day.
O is for Optimistic. Not only is the glass always half full, I’m sure I can find some “happy” around here somewhere for your glass as well..
P is for Painting. I started painting this year, acrylic and oil… and I really like it.
Q is for Quick. I don’t like to wait, I want quick results.
R is for read. You’ve heard of alcoholics. You’ve heard of workaholics. Well, I am a reader-aholic.
S is for Speaker of course. What I’d like to become, my goal for the next years, a professional speaker.
T is for Time. I have a problem with time, I’m sure my days don’t have 24hours…
U is for Ulysse, my 4 years old son. Life with him is already an odysseus.
V is for very, very happy to be here.
W is for webmaster. I launched a website to share industry presentations 2 years ago. It allowed me to meet many people virtually.
X is for Xtremely annoyed I can’t find any good X-words
Y is for year. Each year I decide new things I want to do.
Z is for Ze end.
We have arrived, now, where we began. I told you 26 things about me, about who I am. Everyday, I try To truly be myself, as everyone else is already taken…
To find out more about Toastmasters:
I'm a trend watcher, business innovator and marketing strategist. For most of my career, I worked in the consumer electronic business. 
6 Responses
Nathalie: Congratulations on reaching this first Toastmasters milestone. It can be difficult to speak about yourself, but getting personal is a key to connecting with the audience too. You’ve done a great job on this speech. The innovative A-to-Z format provides a straightforward structure to the speech, and you’ve easily achieved the objectives for this speech. Bravo!
@Andrew: Thank you for your comments :-). Your blog really helped me!
Awesome! This format is brilliant for an icebreaker!
Congrats from a fellow toastmaster (still at talk number 5) that landed here a few weeks ago loving your drawings at flickr. By the way, don’t forget to keep uploading them there!
@Xavier: Thanks for your feedback on the speech and on the drawings
Your Comments Excellent, I feel like I do know you better know!
At least this speach looks like your blog and Web site, Complete (none of the letter are missing) very professionnal (all letters are in the right order).
Keep up this superb flow and level of information.
@Daniel: thank you. I really like “the complete and very professional”