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Mother of the Year
In recognition of superlative parenting
Elizabeth Nino
is awarded
2012 Mother of the Year
May 9, 2012
MOM
Smash That Like Button: Facebook’s Chris Cox Is Messing with
One of the Most Valuable Features on the Internet
Inside Facebook’s Decision to Blow Up the Like Button
The most drastic change to Facebook in years was born a year
ago during an off-site at the Four Seasons Silicon Valley, a 10-
minute drive from headquarters. Chris Cox, the social network’s
chief product officer, led the discussion, asking each of the six
executives around the conference room to list the top three
projects they were most eager to tackle in 2015. When it was
Cox’s turn, he dropped a bomb: They needed to do something
about the “like” button.
The like button is the engine of Facebook and its most
recognized symbol. A giant version of it adorns the entrance to
the company’s campus in Menlo Park, Calif. Facebook’s 1.6
billion users click on it more than 6 billion times a day—more
frequently than people conduct searches on Google—which
affects billions of advertising dollars each quarter. Brands,

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publishers, and individuals constantly, and strategically, share
the things they think will get the most likes. It’s the driver of
social activity. A married couple posts perfectly posed selfies,
proving they’re in love; a news organization offers up what’s
fun and entertaining, hoping the likes will spread its content.
All those likes tell Facebook what’s popular and should be
shown most often on the News Feed. But the button is also a
blunt, clumsy tool. Someone announces her divorce on the site,
and friends grit their teeth and “like” it. There’s a devastating
earthquake in Nepal, and invariably a few overeager clickers
give it the ol’ thumbs-up.
Changing the button is like Coca-Cola messing with its secret
recipe. Cox had tried to battle the like button a few times
before, but no idea was good enough to qualify for public
testing. “This was a feature that was right in the heart of the
way you use Facebook, so it needed to be executed really well
in order to not detract and clutter up the experience,” he says.
“All of the other attempts had failed.” The obvious alternative,
a “dislike” button, had been rejected on the grounds that it
would sow too much negativity.
Cox told the Four Seasons gathering that the time was finally
right for a change, now that Facebook had successfully
transitioned a majority of its business to smartphones. His top
deputy, Adam Mosseri, took a deep breath. “Yes, I’m with you,”
he said solemnly.
Later that week, Cox brought up the project with his boss and
longtime friend. Mark Zuckerberg’s response showed just how
much leeway Cox has to take risks with Facebook’s most
important service. “He said something like, ‘Yes, do it.’ He was
fully supportive,” Cox says. “Good luck,” he remembers
Zuckerberg telling him. “That’s a hard one.”
The solution would eventually be named Reactions. It will
arrive soon. And it will expand the range of Facebook-
compatible human emotions from one to six.

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Cox isn’t a founder, doesn’t serve on the boards of other
companies, and hasn’t written any best-selling books. He’s not a
billionaire, just a centi-millionaire. He joined Facebook in
2005, too late to be depicted in The Social Network, David
Fincher’s movie about the company’s early days. While
Zuckerberg manages an expanding portfolio of side businesses
and projects—Instagram, WhatsApp, the Oculus Rift virtual-
reality headset, a planned fleet of 737-size, carbon-fiber,
Internet-beaming drones—Cox runs “the big blue app.” That’s
Facebook’s term for the social network that we all compulsively
check a few dozen times a day. He’s also the keeper of the
company’s cultural flame, the guy who gives a rousing welcome
speech to new recruits every Monday morning at 9 a.m. It’s a
safe bet that all 12,000 Facebook employees know his name.
He’s probably the closest thing Internet users have to an editor-
in-chief of their digital life. Cox’s team manages the News
Feed, that endless scroll of Facebook updates. Invisible
formulas govern what stories users see as they scroll, weighing
baby pictures against political outrage. “Chris is the voice for
the user,” says Bret Taylor, Facebook’s former chief technology
officer. “He’s the guy in the room with Zuckerberg explaining
how people might react to a change.”
Cox’s ascension has been gradual and, for the past few years,
clearly visible to Facebook watchers. Many first met him during
the 2012 initial public offering roadshow, when the company
distributed a video of executives talking about its mission.
Along with Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Zuckerberg
and Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg, the film included
Cox, who gazed earnestly into the camera at close range while
employing some seriously overheated rhetoric: “We are now
changing within a generation the fabric of how humanity
communicates with itself.”
He’s frequently seen at Zuckerberg’s side. Here are Zuckerberg
and Cox running a three-legged race for a company game day,

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with Cox wearing a banana suit; embracing after Facebook
started trading on the Nasdaq (Zuckerberg hugged Sandberg
first and Cox second); riding a float together during San
Francisco’s gay pride parade.
Zuckerberg says Cox is one of his closest friends and “one of
the people who makes Facebook a really special place.” He
mentions Cox’s IQ and EQ—emotional intelligence—and how
“it’s really rare to find people who are very good at both.” He’s
also cool in a way that Zuckerberg, in particular, isn’t. Cox,
who moonlights as a keyboard player in a reggae band, dresses
fashionably, usually leaving a button open on the top of his
neatly tailored work shirts. He’s also irksomely handsome and
displays the casual cheer of someone who knows it.
Look a little deeper, though, and Cox’s record isn’t quite as
tidy. He’s been in charge of some of Facebook’s biggest duds: a
nicely designed news-reading app for smartphones called Paper,
which no one used, and a major revamp of the News Feed that
was scrapped because it didn’t work well on small screens. If
you look at the things poised to deliver big growth opportunities
at Facebook—Instagram and WhatsApp being the biggest—
they’re mostly acquisitions, not reinventions of the big blue
app.
In Silicon Valley fashion, Cox prefers to recast past mistakes as
healthy experiments and valuable learning experiences. “I think
any good company is trying things, is forcing itself to try
things, and you need to be able to put things out there and try
and learn,” he says. “People only get in trouble if they’re not
honest about failure.”
Cox first heard of job opportunities at Facebook while pursuing
a master’s degree in computer-human interaction at Stanford. A
roommate already worked there and badgered Cox to interview,
primarily because there was a $5,000 recruiting bonus. Cox was
skeptical. Wasn’t Facebook just a glorified dating site?

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The headquarters back then were on University Avenue, Palo
Alto’s main drag. When he got there, co-founder Dustin
Moskovitz described Facebook as a crowd sourced directory of
everyone. He drew circles on a whiteboard, then lines
connecting them to represent “friending” on the site. By looking
at each other’s profiles, friends could bypass the first awkward
five minutes of every conversation—those rote questions like
“where are you from?”—and move on to deeper connections.
Cox was riveted.
He dropped out of Stanford (naturally) and joined the company
when it had about 30 employees. His first job was developing
the News Feed, the feature that made Facebook a global
addiction. At the time, though, he and Zuckerberg badly
misjudged user reaction: People hated it. They felt as if their
private interactions were suddenly being exposed. “It wasn’t our
best product rollout,” Cox concedes. He learned that people
tend to be suspicious of well-capitalized Silicon Valley startups
preaching lofty values such as “openness” and “sharing.”
In late 2007, after Facebook hired its 100th employee,
Zuckerberg decided he needed to put someone he trusted in
charge of personnel. This became Cox’s strangest career move:
Zuckerberg asked him to become the company’s first human
resources chief. Zuckerberg now says he thought it was “an
opportunity to take a different approach than other companies
and to bring a technical spirit to defining all these different
aspects” of the company’s culture.
Cox scheduled one-on-one meetings with every employee and
became a sort of in-house therapist. “He had to endure the
slings and arrows of people’s complaints from all over the
company,” Yishan Wong, an early employee, wrote on the
community website Quora. “And he did so without becoming a
cynical, uncaring shell of a man.”
Cox says the HR job gave him a way of looking at things
through other people’s eyes. It also led him to ponder

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Facebook’s mission in the world, which is when he started
reading the works of communications theorist Marshall
McLuhan. Each wave of media technology, McLuhan wrote, is
initially greeted with anger and mistrust.
That was comforting to Cox, because it explained some of the
hostility that Facebook was encountering. “We were in this
period back then where people really didn’t understand
Facebook and didn’t believe it could become anything,” he says.
“McLuhan helped tell that story in a broader context.”
Cox returned to engineering in 2008, but he’s still the
company’s cultural ambassador. He weaves McLuhan’s lesson
into his Monday morning speeches to the new recruits. The talks
usually start with a question: “What is Facebook?” He lets the
room hang in silence until someone is brave enough to say, “It’s
a social network.” Wrong. Facebook is a medium, Cox says,
referring to McLuhan’s famous dictum, “The medium is the
message.” In other words, how Facebook presents content and
the way in which it allows users to read, watch, comment on,
and like that content influences how all 1.6 billion members see
the world around them.
Cox spends most of his days in the new Frank Gehry-designed
Building 20 on the Menlo Park campus. The structure is a huge,
430,000-square-foot rectangle. A grassy park is on the roof,
with a hot dog stand on one side and a smoothie shop on the
other. Inside the cavernous space, full of rustic art and
chalkboard walls, Facebook employees tie silver balloons to
their movable standing desks to mark their “Faceversary,”
celebrating how long they’ve worked there. Cox had his 10th
Faceversary last fall.
On a Wednesday in November, he enters a conference room for
the second of five meetings and confesses that he’s breaking the
rules: Executives are discouraged from scheduling meetings on

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Wednesdays, which is supposed to be a day engineers and
designers can work without interruption. Nevertheless, Cox and
his team need to talk about tailoring the Facebook smartphone
app for India. On a screen at the front of the room, there’s a bar
chart of Indian users on Android phones, broken down by the
estimated speed of the cellular network they use most often—
2G, 3G, and so forth.
“Can you just hang on that stat for a sec?” Cox asks, peering at
the chart with his elbows on his knees. “4G is a whopping 0.2
percent.”
“It’s just one guy hanging out there,” says a product manager,
Chris Struhar.
The team can’t afford to wait for India to speed up its mobile
networks—frustrated users will simply stop using Facebook. (Or
worse. The company recently faced street protests in the
country for its plan to offer Free Basics, a stripped-down, free
Internet service that includes Facebook and not much else.)
Struhar proposes to use less data in the app, in part by recycling
older stories that don’t have to be freshly downloaded. Cox
agrees. “My intuition, which we could prove wrong, is people
just want more stuff,” he says. He imagines himself as the user,
looking for any hit of digital nicotine that will stave off
boredom at, say, a bus stop. “That’s definitely what I want. I
just want more stories.” Cox then reviews a couple of other
ideas, like a spinning icon on photos that will let users know the
app is loading, potentially decreasing what the company calls
“rage quits.”
Near the end of the meeting, he wonders aloud how to get other
Facebook employees to start thinking about the particular
challenge of building features that will work on yesterday’s
mobile networks, still in use around the world. Someone
proposes switching everyone at the company to a 2G connection
once a week. Cox loves the idea. “This is our tool for empathy,”
he says. “Happy Wednesday, you’re in Delhi!” Two weeks later,
the company implements 2G Tuesdays.

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“Empathy” is a word Cox throws around a lot, and which his
colleagues often use about him. Facebook blundered in the past
when it didn’t take the time to talk to and understand its users.
In the old days, product teams tested features in New Zealand,
which has the advantage of having an isolated, English-speaking
population but is hardly an accurate representation of the world.
Under Cox, Facebook’s product team is tackling more sensitive
subjects, such as designing a way for accounts to become
memorials after someone’s death, or helping users navigate the
aftermath of a breakup by selectively blocking pictures of the
ex. His goal, which he admits Facebook hasn’t reached, is to
make the News Feed so personalized that the top 10 stories a
user sees are the same they’d pick if they saw every possibility
and ranked it themselves. A side effect of making things easier
for users: happy advertisers. Under Cox, Facebook found a way
to make advertising work on its smartphone app, and came up
with video ads that play automatically.
Since Cox was elevated to chief product officer in 2014, his
team has consulted with an outside panel of about 1,000
Facebook users who rate every story in their feed and offer
feedback. There are also a handful of product test stations
scattered around Facebook’s offices that look a little like
interrogation rooms—tiny spaces with brightly lit desks. A
camera is attached to a test subject’s smartphone to film their
actions while Facebook employees watch through a one-way
mirror. Sessions can go on for hours. Sometimes they’re live-
streamed to a larger audience of employees.
Cox applied this testing regimen to the revamping of the like
button. He wasn’t part of the team that originally developed the
button from 2007 to 2009, but colleagues have war stories about
how hard they had to work to get Zuckerberg on board.
According to longtime executive Andrew Bosworth, there were
so many questions about the button—should likes be public or
private? would they decrease the number of comments on
stories?—many thought the feature was doomed. Even its

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champions had no idea of the impact it would have on the
company’s fortunes. It was simply meant to make interactions
easier—just click like on someone’s post about their new job,
instead of being the 15th person to say congratulations.
Eventually the button became a crucial part of how Facebook’s
technology decides what to show users.
If you like beauty tips a friend shares from some Kardashian or
other, the software calculates that you should also see ads and
articles from People magazine and Sephora. “The value it has
generated for Facebook is priceless,” says Brian Blau, an
analyst at Gartner.
It’s a way of creating a connection, even if it’s superficial. If
users click like on a post about the Red Cross’s disaster relief
efforts, they feel as if they’ve done something to help. (In
January, Sandberg went so far as to suggest that likes could
help defeat Islamic State: By promoting the posts of survivors,
users could somehow drown out the hate.) Liking someone’s
photo is an awkwardness-free way to make contact with
someone you haven’t seen in years. Alternatives to like will let
Facebook users be a little more thoughtful, or at least seem to
be, without having to try very hard.
Facebook researchers started the project by compiling the most
frequent responses people had to posts: “haha,” “LOL,” and
“omg so funny” all went in the laughter category, for instance.
Emojis with eyes that transformed into hearts, GIF animations
with hearts beating out of chests, and “luv u” went in the love
category. Then they boiled those categories into six common
responses, which Facebook calls Reactions: angry, sad, wow,
haha, yay, and love.
The team consulted with outside sociologists about the range of
human emotion, just to be safe. Cox knows from experience that
he doesn’t have all the answers: When the company redesigned
the News Feed in 2013, it looked great on the iMacs in

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Facebook’s headquarters but made the product harder to use
everywhere else. “There are a million potholes to trip over,”
Cox said.
Facebook Reactions won’t get rid of like—it will be an
extension. Within the company, there was some debate on how
to add the options without making every post look crowded with
things to click. The simpler Facebook is to use, the more people
will use it. Zuckerberg had a solution: Just display the usual
thumbs-up button under each post, but if someone on her
smartphone presses down on it a little longer, the other options
will reveal themselves. Cox’s team went with that and added
animation to clarify their meaning, making the yellow emojis
bounce and change expression. The angry one turns red, looking
downward in rage, for example. Once people click their
responses, the posts in News Feed show a tally of how many
wows, hahas, and loves each generated.
This update may seem trivial. All it’s doing is increasing the
number of clickable responses. People already comment on
posts with emojis or, in some cases, actual words. But the
feature will probably make Facebook even more addictive. And
it will certainly give Cox’s team a lot more information to
throw into the News Feed algorithm, thereby making the content
more relevant to users—and, of course, to advertisers.
In October the team got close enough to a final design that
Zuckerberg felt comfortable mentioning the project in a public
interview, giving no details except that there wouldn’t be a
dislike button. Cox worried it was too soon to talk about the
emotions Facebook picked. (Yay was ultimately rejected
because “it was not universally understood,” says a Facebook
spokesperson.) Cox says he spent the next morning parsing
through responses to the announcement, reading what users
thought the social network needed and preparing to start over if
necessary.

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A few weeks later, the team began testing Reactions in Spain
and Ireland, then Chile, the Philippines, Portugal, and
Colombia. In early January, Cox flew to Tokyo to sell Reactions
to Japan. “You can love something, you can be sad about
something, you can laugh out loud at something,” he said to a
crowd of reporters at Facebook’s offices in the Roppongi
district. “We know on phones people don’t like to use
keyboards, and we also know that the like button does not
always let you say what you want.”
He explained Facebook’s goal: a universal vocabulary that lets
people express emotion as they scroll through their feed. In a
sense, Reactions is an adaptation of digital culture in Asia,
where messaging apps such as Line and WeChat have already
established a complex language of emojis and even more
elaborate “stickers.”
Cox says Reactions’ biggest test so far was during the
November terrorist attacks in Paris. Users in the test countries
had options other than like, and they used them. “It just felt
different to use Facebook that day,” he says.
Facebook won’t give a specific date for when Reactions will be
introduced in the U.S. and around the world, just that it’ll be
“in the next few weeks.” Cox says the data he has looks good
and that users will take to Reactions, though he takes pains not
to sound in any way triumphant. “We roll things out very
carefully,” he says. “And that comes from a lot of lessons
learned.”
Source: Frier, S., “Smash That Like Button,” Bloomberg
Businessweek, February 1–7, 2016. Copyright © 2017. All
rights reserved. Used with permission of Bloomberg L.P.
Questions for Discussion
1 How would you describe Chris Cox’s personal leadership
style, and what sources of power does he possess?
2 What traits do you think he is high on, and to what extent
does he engage in consideration and initiating structure?

12.
3. Do you think Cox is a transfor-mational leader? Why or why
not?
4. Do you think Cox is high on emotional intelligence? Why or
why not?
Leadership Case Guidelines
The following Guidelines are to be helpful in analyzing the
cases. The Guidelines are not intended to be a rigid format,
however, that the student just mechanically goes through. Each
question is intended to surface information that will be helpful
in analyzing and resolving the case. Each case is different, and
some parts of the Guidelines may not apply in every case. Also,
the student should be attentive to the questions for discussion at
the end of each case. These questions should be answered in any
complete case analysis. The heart of any case analysis is the set
of recommendations made. The Problem and Issue Identification
and Analysis and Evaluation steps should be focused on
generating and defending the most effective set of
recommendations.
GUIDELINES FOR ANALYZING CASES
Problem and Issue Identification
1. What are the central facts of the case and assumptions you
are making based on these facts?
2. What is the major overriding issue in this case? (What major
question or issue does this case address that merits its study in
this course and in connection with the chapter or material you
are now covering?)
3. What subissues or related issues are present in the case that
merit consideration and discussion?
Analysis and Evaluation
4. Who are the stakeholders in the case and what are their
stakes? (Create a stakeholder map if this is helpful.) What

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challenges, threats, and opportunities do these stakeholders
pose?
5. What economic, legal, ethical, and discretionary
responsibilities does the company have, and what exactly is the
nature and extent of the responsibilities?
6. If the case involves a company’s actions, evaluate what the
company did or did not do in handling the issue affecting it.
Recommendations
7. What recommendations do you have for this case? If a
company’s strategies or actions are involved, should the
company have acted the way it did? What actions should the
company take now, and why? Be as specific as possible, and
include a discussion of alternatives you have considered but
decided not to pursue. Mention and discuss any important
implementation considerations.
Award Speech Outline: Friend of the Year
I. Introduction
a. Attention Getter
i. We meet so many people in our lives, but only a handful make
us feel loved, they have a special place in our hearts, and we are
able to connect with them on a deeper level.
ii. I have been blessed to have one such person in my life who
has proved to be an amazing friend and with whom I have
forged this incredible relationship.
b. Introduce Awardee and Name of Award
i. The person I would love to bestow with the “Friend of the
Year” award is one of my best friends, Seum Karim.
c. Preview Main Points
i. To understand why Seum is special to me, it is important to
know about the nature of our relationship and how it began.
ii. I will then go over some of Seum’s award-winning
characteristics.
iii. Finally, I will explain some of her accomplishments not only

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as a person, but her accomplishments as an amazing friend.
II. Body
a. Relationship
i. Seum and I met back in 2008 through another one of our best
friends. The very day we met each other, we found that we had
so much in common. We had this instant connection and from
that day, we became best friends. I had just moved across the
country from Phoenix to Edison, New Jersey and she was one of
the few good friends I made after the move.
ii. We have this great mutual understanding in which we can go
to each other with anything and expect the other to be receptive
and listen with an open mind. She can tell me secrets and I can
tell her secrets, and they always stay between the two of us.
Transition Statement: Now that you know about our relationship
and how we met, I will go over some of Seum’s award-winning
characteristics.
b. Characteristics
i. Seum is one of the funniest people I have met and she is
always making people laugh and smile. She knows how to turn a
bad situation into something we can smile about or just make it
into something positive.
ii. She’s also very calm and mature. If I do something wrong or
tell her something that others will find shocking, she won’t be
upset or angry, but she’ll help guide me through it with reason.
iii. She’s a very amicable person and everyone who meets her
feels welcome and at ease.
Transition Statement: Her several award-winning characteristics
have molded many people’s image of her, but there’s more to
her that adds to this great reputation and those are her
accomplishments.
c. Accomplishments

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i. Seum is an amazing artist and her art has been featured at
North Lake College and at various events back in New Jersey.
Her drawings and paintings are beautiful and they reflect her
wonderful personality.
ii. She has always reminded me of the good in life and has
steered me away from the bad, whether she knows it or not. A
person is shaped by their friends, and the actions and
personality of friends. Her good decisions and thoughts have led
me to do the same and avoid the bad in life.
III. Conclusion
a. In conclusion, Seum has done so much for me as a friend and
is truly deserving of the Friend of the Year Award. Our
relationship began with a great start, she has many
distinguishing characteristics, and she has accomplished a lot.
Her friendship has influenced me greatly and I would just like
to take this time to thank Seum for being an amazing friend and
for having an immense positive impact on my life.
MotheR of the year
this certificate is awarded to:
Elisabeth Cruz
in recognition of
Unconditional Love and Support!
_____________________________
5/9/2015
AWARD SPEECH – Speech 1311, Dr. Sherry Dean
The Award speech is a 2-3 minute speech with the purpose of
acknowledging a person who has made a significant

16.
contribution to your personal or professional life. This must be
someone you know personally and with whom you have a
personal relationship.
You want your audience to appreciate the accomplishments of
the person receiving your award. You will select your awardee
(person to whom you are giving the award0. You will also
create an award title to be approved by Dr. Dean AND a visual
aid for this speech. It can be in the form of a paper certificate,
a PowerPoint slide that includes the award, or even a plaque or
trophy.
Please the following steps to create your Award Speech outline.
A. Introduction
1. Use an attention-getting device to begin your speech. This
can be a question, a quote, a statistic, an anecdote or humor.
2. Refer to the occasion. It can be the end-of-the-semester in
your speech class at Richland OR another occasion that you
want to create.
3. State the name the award. Then, state the name of your
recipient.
4. Give a preview of your main points. Example, “I am first
going to tell you about the accomplishments of this individual.
Second, I am going to share two personal qualities that
additionally make (name of person) so special.”
B. Body
(Recount the personal worth and the accomplishments of the
person to whom you are giving the award. In this part of the
speech you tell the audience what qualifies this person to
receive your award.)
1. Accomplishments

17.
2. Personal qualities
C. Conclusion
1. In the conclusion, state, “In conclusion, it is my honor
(pleasure), to present the _______Award to ___________. I
know you will agree with me that (name of person) is deserving
of this honor. Please join me in giving (name of person a warm
round of applause. Congratulations, (name of person)!
Note: Your speech MUST be a minimum of two minutes. There
is a 15 point penalty for speeches that do not meet this time
requirement.
Name of Award
Is hereby granted to:
Name
For…(write one line of gratitude here)
Granted: April 29, 2020
Presenter Name and Title

18.
Award Speech Evaluation
Course: SPCH 1311 Online
Instructor:
Semester: Fall 2015
Awardee (Person receiving Award) and Award Title:
Student Name:
Points Explanation: 0(Missing) – the element is not present in
the speech or outline and will not be awarded points
1 - (Incoherent) – the element is present in the outline but not
the speech
2 - (Poor) – the element is present in the outline and speech but
is unclear
3 - (Fair) – the element is present and somewhat clear but could
be improved for a college level course
4 - (Good) – the element is present, clear, and meets the
expectations for a college level course
5 - (Excellent) – the element is not only present and clear, but
exceeds expectations for a college level course
0 pts
1 pt
2 pts
3 pts
4 pts
5 pts
Comments
Introduction – 20 points
Attention Getter

19.
Credibility/Audience Motivation
Thesis
Preview of main points
Body – 40 points
Main points - Development
Main points - Organization

20.
Compelling content
Transitions
Conclusion – 10 points
Summary of main points
memorable closing remark

21.
Delivery/Expression – 30 points
Vocal delivery
--volume/pitch/rate/emphasis
-- vocal fillers
Extemporaneous – Use of notes
Eye contact
Physical delivery
--posture/gestures/facial affect
-- distractions

22.
Within 2-3 minute time limit (-1 every 15 seconds over/under)
Dressed appropriately
Outline and Works Cited – 25 points
General and Specific Purpose
Full Sentences

23.
Standard outline formatting
Potential Deductions
Audience (up to -20 pts)
Late
Other Deductions (noise, lighting, recording issues, etc.)
Total Points*:
[Type here]
Award Speech Outline- Daniel Melander, Speech 1311, Dr.
Dean
I. Introduction
A. Attention Getter- How many of you have ever been around
someone that made you feel like the most important and special
person in the world by just being in their presence? I have been
so lucky to have just a person in my life. This person has
influenced hundreds, perhaps even thousands of people due to
her example of love for others.
B. Introduce Awardee & Name of Award:

24.
C.
The person I am here to honor today is my very grandmother,
Nona Melander. I am bestowing upon her the prestigious
Golden Rule Award.
D. Preview Main Points
1. I will you first about her humble beginnings
2. Second, I will share some of her personality characteristics
which make her so special
3. Third and last, I will share several of her many
accomplishments
II. Body
A. Humble Beginnings
1. Nona was born in 1929, the year of the stock market crash
and the beginning of the Great Depression. She grew up on a
farm in Annos, Idaho, and her family was very poor. She had
what most people would think was a very hard childhood, but in
her mind she the most blessed person alive. Her father left her
mother and the family for another woman when she was a young
girl. Her mother was remarried 4 different times during her
adolescence and she had to leave the home at the age of 13 to
live with her older sister in Boise because her mother’s new
husband was abusing her and the other children. I know it must
have been difficult.
B. Personality Characteristics
1. BUT, if you asked Nona about her childhood, she would tell
you only the wonderful things that happened to her and that
everything was a blessing. I was around my grandmother a lot
growing up. I honestly never heard her say one unkind thing

25.
about another person.
2. One experience really sticks out in my mind: I remember a
time when her youngest son Greg was complaining about a
neighbor boy and every time he said something bad about this
person she would say something good in response. This went
back and forth about 5 times when she finally said “Greg, you
are going to have to leave the house and you are not allowed to
come back until you have something nice to say about him”.
3. I remember her saying often if you can’t say something nice
about a person then don’t say anything at all.
C. Her Accomplishments- She had many accomplishments
throughout her life.
1. She loved my Grandfather Vernon very much. They were
married for 48 yrs. before he passed away suddenly at the young
age of 65. They had 11 children, 6 boys and 5 girls one of whom
died shortly after childbirth.
2. She was a gifted writer. She wrote journals her whole life,
which now represent a special treasure for our family.
3. She was a woman of great service to her family, church and
community. Anyone that knew my grandmother felt like they
were her very best friend.
4. I remember her telling me often that I was her favorite. I
remember being surprised at her funeral when hundreds of
people felt the same way I did.
III. Conclusion
A. Why this award?
1. My grandmother came from a difficult childhood but always

26.
saw the positive in others.
2. She had amazing character and wonderful hug.
3. Her accomplishments will impact generations to come.
4. Thank you Grandma for being my Heroine. You have made a
difference in my life and countless others! I am pleased to
present this, “The Golden Rule Award,” posthumously to my
grandmother Nona.
Name of Award
Is hereby granted to:
Name
For…(write one line of gratitude here)
Granted Date
Presenter Name and Title

27.
Award Outline Template
Name:_________________________________
Instructions: Fill in the blanks with your information and
sentences You should delete anything in parentheses in the text
of the speech because those are just directions to you and
REMOVE the parentheses. Those are just there so that you
know what to write in place of them. Replace them with your
words, in complete sentences. The only thing that should remain
is the format: I. A., B., C., 1., 2., etc. and the indentations. Fill
in the line for the Transition statement. It does not need to have
a letter or number in front of it. You can have more main points
than shown here, you can also have more or less supporting
details or sub-supporting details than shown here. Remember to
HIGHLIGHT or BOLD your internal references/verbal citations
in the body.
Fill in this Information for the instructor:
*Topic:
*General Purpose: To
*Specific Purpose: By the end of my speech, my audience
will….
*Do NOT say this information ^ out loud. Start your speech at
your Attention getter.
(Type the Title of Your Speech Here)
Introduction
I. (Attention Getter: opening line of your entire presentation)
II. (Thesis Statement: What your speech will be about – can be
“II.” or “III.” in outline/speech)
III. (Credibility and Audience Motivation: How you are
knowledgeable about this person and why the audience should
care to listen about the accomplishments of this person)
IV. (Preview your main points: First, I’ll tell you about,
Second, I’ll tell you about, and Last, I’ll tell you about…)

28.
Transition statement:
Body
I. (Write your first main point here)
A. (Write your first Supporting Detail to first main point here)
1. (Write any Sub-supporting detail here, you fill in or eliminate
as you need)
2. (Write any Sub-supporting detail here, you fill in or eliminate
as you need)
B. (Write your second Supporting Detail to first main point
here)
1. (Write any Sub-supporting detail here, you fill in or eliminate
as you need)
2. (Write any Sub-supporting detail here, you fill in or eliminate
as you need)
Transition statement:
II. (Write your second main point here)
A. (Write your first Supporting Detail to second main point
here—continue the format as shown above)
1.
2.
B.
1.
2.
Transition statement:
III. (Write your third main point here)
A. (Write your first Supporting Detail to third main point
here—continue the format as shown above)
1.
2.
B.
1.
2.

29.
Transition statement:
Conclusion
I. (Summary of main points - First I told you, second I told you,
finally I told you…)
II. (Memorable closing remark: Say, Please join me in
recognizing (name of person) as I bestow upon him/her the
(name of award). Congratulations!