November 4, 2013 Club Meeting

The following is a summary of the minutes from our November 4^th meeting.

 Meeting Location:   The Hillsdale Mall, San Mateo, CA     6:15 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.

Attendees:

Present at the meeting were: Samya Boxberger-Oberoi, Randy Lee,  Lara Miller, Suzanne Mulcahy, Emily Panos, Sharon Pappas, Ruth Wadsworth and Venkat Senapati.  There were two guests, Ayuko and Phoebe.

Suzanne was the Toastmaster; Ruth was the General Evaluator; Samya was the Grammarian; Randy was the Ah Counter and the Vote Counter; Lara was the Table Topics Master; and Sharon was the Timer.

The theme of the meeting was: “Harvest”; the word of the day was: “Reaping”.  

Speaker #1:  Emily - “The Paradox of Choice” 

 Advanced Manuel Series – Project #4

Emily gave a speech about the paradox of choice, specifically, the benefits and the pitfalls of consumers having too many options.  Emily studied marketing during her graduate work and researched advertising and the reasons why people buy.

We make hundreds of choices each day.  Emily shared her passion for jeans and used this as an example of the two main categories of making choices.  That is:

·         Satisficers:   Those happy with their choices and once they make a choice, no longer think about it.

·         Maximisors:  Those that want to make sure that they have made the right choice and keep looking for something better.  They are never happy with their choices.

Most people are on the spectrum from one extreme to another.  Emily gave a wonderful speech with which we could all easily relate.

Evaluator:  Venkat

Venkat stated that Emily used many descriptive words and had the proper use of words.  She used a subject with which the audience could easily identify.  Emily gave her personal experiences to emphasize her topic, which was very effective.  She also used good images.  Emily gave the example of making a health care choice and Venkat suggested that she could have elaborated more on this example, but the overall topic and delivery were excellent.  

 

Table Topics:  Lara hosted the Table Topics session and almost everyone participated.

  

Samya asked for feedback from the guests and then closed the meeting.