Richard H. Feen: Speechwriting for all the marbles: So you want to be a policy maker …

As any seasoned speechwriter knows, drafting a major policy speech is not a simple process; in fact, it’s Herculean. It starts with grueling hours of meetings, moves to the scramble for subject experts, and reaches its peak with ego-busting clashes on obscure policy initiatives and esoteric language. Clearly, policy speeches are not for the faint of heart. Yet the chance to have an impact on a major corporate strategy or national policy, and possibly become a footnote to history, makes drafting policy speeches worth the pain.

The session promised to:

Richard H. Feen is director of speech management at Freddie Mac. He’s been drafting speeches for nearly two decades for a number of top Fortune 500 CEOs (IBM, Verizon and Bob Nardelli at Home Depot), several cabinet secretaries and Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel.

Richard provided excellent notes to his presentation, the text below is the annotated content of his handout.

I. Three central questions should be asked

First give it a taste test to see if indeed it’s a “real” policy speech

Then ask why the speech being given in the first place

And whether you should indeed be the speechwriter

II. Now that you’re truly committed and in the trenches …

Then cover the basics as in any speech assignment

Bring clarity to the policy speech!

But to have an equal seat at the table you must become knowledgeable

III. Time to switch roles, from scribe to diplomat …

Avoid committee writing by simplifying the clearance process

Handling the review process is always difficult

And even harder is the handling of the C-Suite

IV. Being present at the creation – when the speech is given.

Your attendance is definitely required

Follow up, Follow up, Follow up

At the proverbial end of the day

Clark S. Judge: Opening Keynote - Your client is not a speaker! You are not a speechwriter!

Clark S. Judge is managing director of the White House Writers Group. This group of two dozen communications professionals shares one thing in common — they’ve all worked for Republicans. The West Wing Writers, on the other hand, are staffed with freelance Democrats.

Judge was a speechwriter in the West Wing during the Bush/Reagan years. After two-and-a-half years serving Vice President Bush, he joined President Reagan’s speechwriting staff in 1986 and remained with Mr. Reagan through the end of his term. A member of the Moscow Summit speechwriting team, he was also the lead writer for the Toronto Economic Summit in 1988 and helped shape the White House approach to the 1988 presidential campaign. He’s proud of helping these leaders speak to the world about freedom, bringing market forces to the world and reducing the threat of nuclear war by ending the influence of the Soviet Union. As Managing Director of the White House Writers Group, Clark Judge provides strategic communications counsel to clients in industries ranging from financial services to transportation to high technology.

He offered the conference his strategic counsel, asking us to see and perform our work through a different lens and see a bigger picture.

We know the drill: The speaking requests come in. The speeches get written. The speaker delivers them. And everybody gets paid. What’s wrong with that? It’s not satisfying to the speaker, it’s not interesting to the writer and, generally speaking, it’s not effective for the organization.

“Speech making is part of a CEO’s job,” Judge says. “Clarity is part of leadership.”

A strategic viewpoint is important for speechwriters who want to become the director of corporate clarity. Speechwriters have a unique overview of every aspect of an organization.

US Presidents deliver speeches in different musical styles. Reagan was symphonic. Bush 1 was rock n’ roll. Clinton was improvisational jazz – brilliant riffs which sometimes clashed. Bush 2 is country music. Reagan had tremendous sensitivity to language. Bush 1 had respect for his audience. He did not want his speech cards to weigh too much. He’d ask “why are we doing this event, anyway?” Speechwriters hear this question a lot. It’s one we should take seriously. It raises questions about our role as speech advisors and causes us to ask if the speaker is carrying a message to an audience who matters?

The three aspects of a strategic speechwriters role:

Integration of the message into whole scope of messaging. Ask: does the work we do contribute to larger purpose of company?

Negotiation involves communicating. When an executive talks to Wall St, customers, or employees they carry a core set of messages. These must be integrated with advertising, other executives’ messages, and so on. The more you integrate the speech with broader messaging the more powerful it is. This begins to answer question Why are we doing this event anyway?

Integrity Words become powerful when they are used with integrity. Reagan’s “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this Wall” was drafted by speechwriter Peter Robison who went to Berlin on an advance trip, where the US Embassy advised he not mention the wall. At dinner ordinary Berliners told him personal stories about living with the wall. The hostess for the evening said if the Russians were serious about perestroika they’d tear down the wall. First drafts of speech included this — against the wishes of the State Department. Reagan demonstrated integrity when he used it. “The boys at State are going to kill me for this but it stays in.”

Initiative Demonstrated by speechwriter who has unique license to go around the company and demonstrate leadership.

Coaching tip: Corporate executives are already have skills in extemporaneous speaking. They’ve had to sell in one form or another and can persuade and communicate on the fly. Working with a prepared text or presentation is totally different: it requires they have the discipline to rehearse so they master the text. They can then move on to a state where they’re comfortable enough to sell the message of the text. This knowledge will start to come across in their delivery.

Interesting post from Jane on the value of blogging in establishing a personal brand for old-media types wanting to break into the new world of social media:

Start a blog with Typepad.com. It only costs five bucks monthly and, again, gets you into new space. Progress on the learning curve takes about three months but, not to worry, you have a survival job or two, right. Having a blog is the new cost of entry. And while you’re blogging your heart out, learn about bells and whistles such as video feeds and digital photos. Will this be exhausting? Yes, the new economy hath murdered sleep.

Some might find that the advice to journalists and speechwriters also applies to old-school public speakers and seminar leaders who limit their activity to face-to-face presentations to live audiences and don’t leverage their content with blogs, video feeds, DVD’s, CD’s and other ways to broker knowledge in a digital world.

I was given permission by Clinton White House speechwriter Vinca LaFleur to post her article on President Bush’s State of the Union Speech. LaFleur was special assistant and foreign policy speechwriter for President Bill Clinton and wrote scores of speeches for the president and his national security advisors. It’s an honor to have her as a guest on my blog.

Her comments form an interesting contrast with those of Communications expert Bert Decker, who takes a far more positive view of Bush’s speech, which he evaluates in terms of body language, mannerisms and behavior as well as content.

It’s not surprising that people can disagree over the impact of a political speech. Pollsters report that there was an even split in the country, half the people liked the speech, half didn’t. Speechwriters and communications coaches are people too.

Here’s Ms. LaFleur’s view:

A Speechwriter’s Take on the Speech
By Vinca LaFleur

As someone who has labored to meet tough deadlines and satisfy tough audiences myself, I sympathize with the task the White House speechwriters faced with this year’s State of the Union. Drafting this annual address to Congress is rarely an enjoyable exercise; my former Clinton administration colleague Michael Waldman once described it as boiling down “gallons of advice into a few tablespoons of intense sauce,” while former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson reportedly dubbed the process the “seven-day death march.”

This year, however, the White House speechwriting team faced an exceptionally difficult task.

With President Bush’s approval rating at an all-time low, an emboldened Democratic majority in Congress, and the inescapable backdrop of carnage in Iraq, many critics had concluded the speech would flop well before the president stepped to the podium.

The White House had tried to generate interest by promising a new and improved address – one that would focus on a few broad themes, not a lengthy list of initiatives. Yet, given President Bush’s lack of trust among Democrats and shrinking confidence and support among Republicans, he never had the political capital to propose a far-reaching agenda. Indeed, as spokesman Tony Snow admitted, part of the impulse behind the new formula was that the White House “want[ed] people to watch” – suggesting they feared the electorate was already turned off and tuning out.

The president’s pens were thus multiply challenged in making their boss look good. It wasn’t within their power to turn small steps on domestic policy into giant leaps for mankind; nor could they reorient the president’s wildly unpopular position on Iraq. But they were the ones who would find the words with which the policies were presented, the ones who would articulate the arguments and bring the benefits of action to life.

Unfortunately, words failed them.

First, the president’s speech lacked a narrative structure to draw listeners in and along. The first part of the address half-heartedly employed the promise of a “future of hope and opportunity” to stitch its key points together, but that framework was jettisoned as soon as the president made the pivot to foreign policy. This was an odd decision, since winning what Bush calls a “decisive ideological struggle” presumably is essential to our nation’s hopeful future as well. By abandoning the phrase, however hackneyed it might have been, the speech’s authors undermined whatever impact it might have had – and lost a chance to connect the end of the address to the beginning.

In contrast, Senator Jim Webb, in the Democratic response, made clear at the outset that he intended to explain the differences between the parties on two key issues – the economy and Iraq – and his speech proceeded to do just that, up to and including its dramatic conclusion.

Second, the drafters missed opportunities to humanize the speech. People connect with people, not policies, yet even on issues like education and health care that lend themselves to real-life success stories, the president spoke primarily in dry terms and generalities. When compared to Senator Webb, who so effectively wove his family’s story of service and sacrifice into his remarks, President Bush’s address had a compulsory feel, as if it was an exercise he had to get through instead of a set of exciting ideas he cared about getting across.

Finally, though the White House wisely resisted excess rhetorical flourish, the final text was more flat than fireside chat, bereft of compelling images or descriptions. President Bush’s supporters have praised his preference for plainspoken language, but excising anecdotes, allusions, and poetry from a speech does not automatically make it forceful; to the contrary, as Mark Oppenheimer recently argued in the Wall Street Journal, “The best speeches…depend for their power on the ability to strike chords that already exist within us.”

Once again, the contrast with Senator Webb’s performance was stark. Despite the Senator’s inherent disadvantage of speaking before a television camera instead of a live audience, he was able to convey more personal intensity and engage more directly with his listeners by using language that was straightforward but not simplistic, and drawing effectively on history, quotations, and rhetorical devices to drive his arguments home.

Thus, for the first time in history, the response to the State of the Union was far superior to the speech itself. But in fairness to President Bush’s speechwriting team, the substance and style of his national address were undoubtedly set from the top. The speechwriters wouldn’t have gotten the credit if the president’s speech had been a smash, and they are not the ones who should be blamed for its shortcomings. A successful State of the Union address is always more than words.

Great speeches, as any speechwriter knows, depend on great ideas. That is why, despite the gracious nod to Speaker Pelosi at the start, and the uplifting stories of American heroism at the end, this State of the Union fell short on eloquence and failed to inspire enthusiasm.

Vinca LaFleur was Director for Speechwriting and Special Assistant to President Clinton. She now runs Vinca LaFleur Communications, an executive speechwriting firm in Washington, D.C.

First, a disclaimer. Cingular is a wonderfully reliable cell phone provider. Our 4-line family plan is a bargain and I have absolutely no complaints about the service. That said, pity the poor CEO of Cingular, Stan Sigman, who discovered to his cost at the recent MacWorld in San Francisco that Steve Jobs is a hard act to follow.

Within a day of the Jobs keynote, communications blogs exploded with an analysis of the failure of the Cingular CEO to come up to the mark during his time on the podium.

First, blogger Seth Godin posted a scathing report which called attention to the speaker’s failings in both style and content (or soul and substance):

Stan sure could use some help. He’s dressed all wrong. Not buttoned down enough to be a CEO, not casual enough for the Valley. And his jacket fits funny. Sort of like he’s at his son-in-law’s second wedding.

Stan gives his talk from 3 x5 index cards, which he holds awkwardly on stage. And he doesn’t really say anything.

This was picked up by the Dale Carnegie Training Center blog which posted the YouTube video and let us see for ourselves what Sigman does that stands in stark contrast to Jobs:

Sigman enters 4:30 into the clip above.

The Dale Carnegie folks place the blame at the feet of the communications team at Cingular who advised their CEO (the Executive Communications team that is, not the guys who give us dial-tone):

Who advised Stan? Here is where they should have been:

Use a teleprompter or earpiece.

Practice, practice, practice.

Talk to the lawyers again, there must be a better way.

Practice

Don’t say it at all. Give us your heart and enthusiasm then sit down. Leave the rest for the press release.

I hope Stan is surrounding himself with people that can be honest with him. This is another testament on how critical presenting yourself is in business.

Next, Garr Reynolds picked up the story, and drew a telling contrast between the Cingular CEO and Jobs, Google’s CEO, Dr. Eric Schmidt, and Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang. A picture gallery shows the contrast:

Reynolds suggests it’s the use of the notecards that scuppered the talk. I disagree. In my stint as Scott McNealy’s speechwriter, I created bullet-point notecards for Scott to use onstage. He was relaxed and confident using them. Indeed, he relished using them as a prop in Tonight Show-style “Top 10 List” gags that the audience loved. He’d toss the notecards aside accompanied by goofy sound-effects:

Some speakers clutch the slide clicker as a security blanket, others grab onto a pen or a pointer as an outlet for nervous tension. Notecards in and of themselves are not the problem, inadequate preparation and coaching in their use is.

Notice, by the way, that we provided Scott pale blue notecards which show up better on camera. The Cingular team gave their man the bright white ones that cause glare.

As Reynolds concludes, we can all learn from Stan Sigman’s mistakes:

My only point in highlighting his short speech was to show what the rest of us must never ever do. Like it or not, our customers, employees, and colleagues judge us in part on our ability to stand and deliver a successful talk. Stan Sigman’s performance was a wonderful textbook example of what not to do. We must find our own voice and our own style, of course, but we must never make the same mistakes made by Mr. Sigman.

Finally, Bert Decker contrasts Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech with the content we’ve discussed above. This is a low blow. We’d all come off the worse for comparison with the great orators. However, Bert is right on when he says it is to the world-class speakers we need to look for inspiration.

That, and a good speech coach, can make all the difference. And thinking twice before you follow Steve Jobs onstage.

Now you’re smiling out the window
Of that crummy hotel
Over Washington Square
.
.
Speaking strictly for me
We both could have died then and there

Joan Baez Diamonds and Rust

Wednesday morning I really did smile out the window of a building over Washington Square. But it wasn’t a hotel, and Joan Baez wasn’t gazing at me from the bed (in my dreams). No. I was on the 10th floor of the NYU Student Center in a mirrored room with 250 of Manhattan’s movers and shakers. Gotham sparkled under clear Autumnal skies.

I was attending the Liminal Group’s half-day Articulate Executive seminar. Coming hard on the heels of Saturday’s NSA Northern California meeting, this was a study in contrasts for me, illustrating cultural differences between the West and East Coasts:

The crowd – was different in very predictable ways. I saw more neckties on power-suited men (both bsd’s and bsd-wanna-be’s) than I’ve seen in a year in Silicon Valley and more attitude on power-suited women than I’ve heard since Carly left HP.

The event – Big Apple prices ($482 for a half-day) contrasted with sub-$100 cost for a full-day at the NSA. For the money we got a catered breakfast and lunch and complimentary copies of the FT, Business Week and a free book. On the other hand, Fripp gave us two free CD’s and discount on her DVD. There was more structure to the program in NY. Toogood & Rose — the names alone sound like a Wall St investment firm — complimented each other. An outline of general rules was followed by the specifics of pitching VC’s. NSA’s coaching session was all Fripp all the time. Not a problem if you like one-woman riffs.

That said, the event organizers in NY were bedeviled by a/v gremlins. They spent big bucks on an a/v crew in vain. Dual pro-video cameras at the back of the room, a roaming steady-cam, a hyperactive still photographer, and still the sound guys could not get a working lav on Granville no matter how they tried (at one point he had triple redundant systems strapped to his belt and the sound was still a problem!).

These contrasts aside, there were more similarities than differences. Both events drove home the point that it’s counterproductive for senior executives to hide behind their PowerPoint slides and effective communications relies more on how you emotionally connect with an audience than just speaking quickly and delivering a boatload of facts.

So it was six of one, half a dozen of the other. Both events showcased professionals at the top of their game. Both audiences came away delighted with unique insights into the mystique of Executive Speech Coaching.

Speech coaches make better lovers

Staff in Corporate Communications departments in the Fortune 500 are like faithful spouses. We’re kept on hand to service the needs of one executive in one company, monogamously supporting a single C-level exec quarter-in, quarter-out, in, ‘till death (or the next re-org) do us part. Meanwhile, we do the housework: clean up your PowerPoint; take out the garbage from the business groups; put daily fare on the table; fact check and nit-pick. We enjoy close access to those in power (the corporate breadwinners) and that’s got its own rewards. But frankly, my dears, things sometimes get a tad….stale. It’s hard to keep the spark alive when you see so darn much of each other.

Gentlemen, he said,
I don’t need your organization, I’ve shined your shoes,
I’ve moved your mountains and marked your cards.

Dylan, Changing of the Guards

Then there’s the professional speech coach. Skilled in the arts of the podium, sharing special talents you can’t get at home. Charging more by the hour than we make in a week. A four-hour session makes you feel like a new man. Not afraid to spank you if you need it (oh, how you’ll need it); transforming your weaknesses to strengths; putting lead in your pencil; some zing in your thing. Here today, gone tomorrow. Don’t ask where. You are lucky to see them once a quarter. Whatever the coach does behind closed doors, stays there. Utmost discretion assured (not like those gossiping fishwives in the cubicles). There’s no question. Speech coaches make better lovers.

Granville Toogood Creating the Blockbuster Presentation

He’s not Italian-American but he’d like to be. He trades Greek quips so I’m guessing there’s more Onassis than Vito Corleone in his family tree. Silver hair swept back, worn long on the collar. A consigliere to the CEO, able to go mano-a-mano with Jack Welch (“It took me five years to change his mind…”). Granville is a piece of work. His advice comes straight from the trenches. Hard won and hard bitten:

His wisdom on what executives need to do to make an impression on stage is priceless. Buy his book The Articulate Executive in Action: How the best leaders get things done and read it, twice.

The principles of what he terms Communications Value Add (CVA) are a series of systematic changes that executives can implement to become instantly more effective in front of an audience. There are five keys in his POWER formula:

P – Punch up your opening with one of eight options:

1. An anecdote or illustration
2. A personal story
3. Begin with the ending, make a strong statement. Tell them the bottom line or sum total of your talk up front.
4. Ask a rhetorical question “What’s the worst that can happen to your business?”
5. A quotation “As it said in today’s FT…”
6. A future projection “My hope is that the new system will reduce costs”
7. A look into the past “Five years back it took 6 hours to provision…”
8. Humor – used carefully, best based on a true story.

Fripp added a 9th - an interesting statistic to captivate the audience.

O – Make sure you have One clear theme which you can discuss in many different ways.

W– Windows, or examples, anecdote that provides proof.

E – speaking for the Ear – conversationally, don’t ‘speechify’.

R – aid Retention in any of the following six ways:

1. Summarize key point or points
2. Loop back to the beginning
3. Ask the audience to do something specific
4. Project into the future
5. Deliver good news/bad news
6. Tell a symbolic story that embraces your message

Granville claims that learning and using the POWER formula “could be the single most important decision you will ever make in your working life.” (I wonder if Jack Welch agrees?).

Other tips:

Using PowerPoint (Assuming it’s a necessary evil that your corporate culture forces on you):

Be aware of the 18 minute wall. Adults turn off after listening to one speaker for more than 18 minutes. To counter this, either deliver your message in fifteen or intersperse videos, cameos from other people onstage, panel discussions, audience interaction or just tell ‘em a story.

As valuable as these tips are, frankly, anyone can read them in his books. What made the event worthwhile for me was seeing him in action — coaching volunteers from the audience. He showed how difficult it is for any speaker to actually implement systematic change, to step out of their comfort zone. This, assuming the strong cultural barriers in your organization to considering radical change in presentation style have been breached to the extent that a coach is permitted to work with executives.

There was an absolutely astounding session with a lady in the Investment Banking business (who dripped New York attitude) where he first observed her current pitch to investors. And then, “like squeezing toothpaste from a tube until you see what comes out of the nozzle at the end” he ran her through his drill. He asked first for a 3 minute version, then a 2 minutes version, then a 1 minute version, then a 30 second and finally an 8 second version of the same speech. This is his ‘8 second drill’. He rarely put words in her mouth, apart from occasional reminder to keep a strong opening and a single theme. We saw how utterly effective this discipline is in distilling the essence of a speech. The beauty is, anyone can run this exercise with a buddy at work. How many will? In under an hour the results will surpass countless meetings to outline the essence of a speech.

I did disagree with one recommendation. Granville stated that he does not spend much time coaching executives on body language or drilling them in gestures or stage mannerisms:

“I’m not into charm school, how you walk on stage. That’s cosmetics.”

This ignores the distraction of a speaker who paces (as Mr. Toogood himself does from time to time) and the way mannerisms, mirrored gestures, fidgets and other outlets for nervous energy dull the power and impact of a speaker. Knowing acting techniques and being aware of the effect of body language is a must.

One nit — his book on page 5 attributes to a quote to my ex-boss, Sun CEO Scott McNeely (sic). I doubt his ex-boss Jack, umm, Welsh appreciates his golfing partners’ name being mangled.

At the end of the day, Granville is too good to ignore. Forgive me. I resisted using that obvious pun for 1,500 words.

David S. Rose, Successful Business Fundraising

Successful entrepreneur, angel investor, David Rose puts his money where his mouth is. He specializes in taking the dozens of start-ups who pitch his New York Angels group each month through a presentation boot camp. He makes this a requirement. They all suck at presenting. If this isn’t a niche for presentation coaching I don’t know what is – the future of a start-up rides on a 15 minute pitch. They might not be able to afford high-fee coaches, but can they not afford to invest in communicating a clear message before they ask others to invest?

David addressed the familiar problem of Subject Matter Experts (SME’s) using too many jargon-laden slides that give too much information and fail to communication the basic message a VC needs to hear. A good VC pitch has 10 requirements:

1. Integrity – show us we can trust you.
2. Passion – show us you care about your company.
3. Experience - Experience is a hard school and some will learn through no other (Ben Franklin)
4. Knowledge – show us you know your onions.
5. Skill – show what skills you already have and where you’ll recruit those you lack.
6. Leadership – exude it or fail.
7. Commitment – will you follow through?
8. Vision – show what your aims are.
9. Realism – show you know what is realistic.
10. Coachability – will you listen, especially to a presentation coach!

It’s interesting to compare this with the famous 10/20/30 Rule for pitching VC’s proposed by Guy Kawasaki - 10 slides in 20 minutes in no less than 30 point font that cover:

1. Problem
2. Your solution
3. Business model
4. Underlying magic/technology
5. Marketing and sales
6. Competition
7. Team
8. Projections and milestones
9. Status and timeline
10. Summary and call to action

His coaching of Oren Michels, ex-Feedster VP, now CEO of start-up Web 2.0 Mashery, was awesome. He took him apart piece by piece and put him back together again. Wordy slides (Michaels: “You probably can’t read this”) were transformed into bold, simple text that conveyed the essence of the company. Less is more.

Here is your throat back, thanks for the loan.

Dylan, Ballad of a Thin Man

I was blown away by Mashery’s business plan. But that’s a topic for another blog.

Our September Pro-Track class linked up with the Northern California Chapter in a banger of a meeting with over 100 attendees. As Chapter President Scott Q. Marcus noted, “Organizing one of these events is a little like making sausages, enjoyable to experience, but you really don’t want to know what went into putting it together”. As for the meeting, so for a speech.

Indeed. Now I’m a Board Member, I was privy to some of the logostics involved in bringing together the outsized ego’s who presented today. But, unlike other Boards in Northern California, the NSA Board is 100% leak-proof, so any discussion remains firmly off the record.

The day began with ten concurrent ‘Meet the Pros’ sessions, where experts in the field of public speaking shared words of wisdom for 20 minutes. We could attend any two of the sessions.

Victoria Squier Professional Speaker Coaching

Victoria is on the staff of Speakeasy Inc. I’ve taken their outstanding delivery classes from Throckmorton Theatre owner Danny Slomoff. Speakeasy Inc are in my mind the best of the companies serving corporate executives in need of developing a more powerful presence on the platform or in one-on-one communications. Speaking with authority is achieved with small changes to posture and by practicing the simple technique of pausing. Connecting with the audience increases the impact of your communication.

Ed Brodow Acting Techniques for Speakers

Ed’s public speaking skills spring from his creative side — as a professional actor. A veteran member of Screen Actors Guild, he is often recognized from his many starring roles in feature films, made-for-TV movies, a soap opera, and commercials. He won the lead in the European film Jackpot, and appeared opposite Jessica Lange (Frances), Ron Howard (Fire on the Mountain), Christopher Reeve (Love of Life), and other Hollywood luminaries.

His niche as a professional speaker is training audiences on negotiation skills.

His books include Negotiation Boot Camp and Beating the Success Trap: Negotiating for the Life You Really Want and the Rewards You Deserve .

The secret of great speakers is their ability to connect with the audience by telling great stories. The acting techniques which speakers can use include:

Personalization - bringing aspects of yourself into a speech. Instead of memorizing a script or relying on PowerPoint bullet points as prompts, simply share experiences with the audience. As you re-live experiences you’ll easily be able to visualize them in your head. Personalization is the actor’s secret for being real. You’ll have no lines to forget. You’ll get the audience involved. And people remember stories.

Improvisation - allows you to relate great stories to your speech points. Improvise to develop aspects of your story for a specific audience and play with the content. Practicing a scripted speech with improvisation words allows a speaker to discover the language and mode of delivery that feels most comfortable.

Drive - is the objective and point of view of your speech. It’s the call to action or belief you’ll want to share with the audience.

If you are nervous and uptight before speaking then channel this energy by concentrating on the details which will make the speech work. Remember, you can punch-up the opening of a speech by starting your story in the middle “I was stuck in the elevator with the bellman and the guy in the chimpanzee suit when I suddenly remembered the reason I don’t like visiting Cleveland in December…”. However, before ending the speech the stories you tell must have been brought to closure and the reason you told them made clear to the audience.

Ric Giardina Polishing Your Performance

Ric had tutored Pro-Trackers back in March when he spoke on how to sell yourself to the Corporate market. This afternoon he spoke on “performance” - meaning the sytems that professional speakers need to have in place to support their business.

He strongly recommends watching the DVD of the movie The Secret to understand the Law of Attraction: whatever you are thinking about you’ll get more of. So focus on what you do well, not what is dysfunctional. In being aware of your thoughts you can create a new reality for youself and transmit this to others. Avatar Adi Da Samraj has clearly stated that you become what you meditate on:

Everyone transmits. All of you are transmitters. You reinforce these limitations in one another and you transmit them to one another. Each one of you emits invisible forces that are locked up in limited messages that reinforce the same limitations in others.

Professional speakers with a modicium of realization about their topic can transmit new information to an audience to break down their limitations. To do this effectively requires you start doing something differently:

If we don’t change direction soon, we’ll end up where we’re going.

Ric’s Top 10 things to do as you take your speaking career to the next level are:

1. Be Yourself - be consistent on and off the platform.

Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is You’re than You.

2. Be Flexible - Don’t just imitate other speakers.

3. Keep Your Agreements - remember the Golden Rule.

4. Under-promise and Over-deliver - surprise conference organizers.

5. Customize, Customize, and then Customize some more - use just-in-time techniques to deliver customized communications every step of the way. Arrive early before a speech, mingle with audience, find what’s on their minds and work their issues into your speech via improvisation.

6. Keep track of everything - notes in Outlook and your other online systems help you to keep these logistical agreements.

7. Manage you client - people have a lot on their plate. Double-check so there will be no misunderstandings.

8. Don’t be a Prima Donna - you role is to make the client look good.

9. Send thank you cards, notes, letters, email and gifts - Ric has a small folder of note cards for penning thank you’s on his flight home. Source interesting and unique gifts that fit with your brand. Ric’s a rock-solid guy who has this Sonoma County outfit carve custom messages.

10. Make ‘Long Term Relationships’ your mantra - Use electronic newsletters, blogs and other techniques to keep your name fresh with booking agents and clients.

Patricia Fripp Good to Great Performance Techniques

Sister of King Crimson founding guitarist Robert Fripp, Patricia Fripp, CSP, CPAE is one of the NSA’s most successful speakers. She spent three hours sharing the secrets of her success. Many more of her suggestions are online here. I highly recommend reading her many articles and checking out her DVD’s and CD’s for professional speakers.

Fripp used a one-page speech planning template to walk us though the steps of effective speech writing and content creation. It was wonderful, appropriate, unforgettable, sanguine.

Start with a strong opening: a story, quote or interesting statistic captivates, mystifies, and create an emotional bond that keeps an audience in the palm of the speaker’s hand. Script, rehearse, transcribe and edit the opening so that each and every word adds impact. Use picture words that the audience can “see”. Make sure your opening answers unspoken questions about the “How” and the “Why” of your topic. Then answer these questions with your main points of wisdom in the body of your speech with examples and stories.

In planning a speech be absolutely sure you can state the premise in one sentence. A strong premise leads to clear thinking and a strong outline.

Make sure the “I-You” ratio of words is heavily weighted to “You” - to the audience, to what’s in it for them? Focus on the receiver of the message, on the audience needs (that you would’ve found out if, as Ric and Fripp both suggest, you arrive early, schmooze often).

Hollywood screenwriter Robert McKee says Storytelling is the most powerful way to put ideas into the world today.
Stories are key to emotionally connecting with an audience. Fripp has taken screenwriting classes to learn Hollywood’s secrets to writing compelling story scripts. A speech relies far more on the screenplay (written for the ear) than the novel (written for the eye). Speechwriters: always read your words aloud before sending to your client! The more specific the story details the clearer the audience will grasp the situation, solution to the dilemma and successful outcome. And the more they will remember.

The secret of an effective close? First, summarize the key elements of the speech. If you’re planning to take questions from the audience, say, “Before my closing remarks, are there any questions.” Answer them then.

The last thirty seconds of your speech must send people out energized and fulfilled. Finish your talk with something inspirational that supports your theme.

Fripp closed the afternoon with some revealing one-on-one speech coaching where her expertise was apparent in the way she took presenters apart and put them back together again. Her executive coaching skills are second to none.

At the end of the day I felt like I knew more about the sausage, from the inside out.

Thanks to Kare for a pointer to Josh Hallett’s extensive list of tips on how to blog a conference. I wish I had known this before I attempted to blog the recent NSA National Convention. Josh highlights how effective conference coverage needs a coordinated team of bloggers. His tips include planning a pre-conference strategy to effective use of video and audio for podcasts and more. I look forward to a day when more blogs offer first-hand impressions of conference speeches as well as a rich source of resources:

What additional information can you get from the speaker? Is the speaker willing to provide copy of the handouts or some other elements of their presentation? Upload them and link them. Did the speaker show a video? Can you link to it on YouTube or get a copy of it from the speaker?

It would be fantastic if the members of the NSA Bloggers Group covered the 2007 Convention in San Diego as a team.

Peter Schweizer’s recent article on the apparent hypocrisy of Al Gore championing climate change in his Inconvenient Truth movie while living in three homes and flying in private jets raises some interesting questions.

As I noted in my review of the film, Gore’s travel schedule imposes a beefy carbon footprint, but given the urgency of his message may be justified.

Schweizer ad hominem critique highlights a number of areas where he claims Gore’s personal behavior is hypocritical:

Schweizer concludes:

Maybe our very existence isn’t threatened.
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The issue here is not simply Gore’s hypocrisy; it’s a question of credibility. If he genuinely believes the apocalyptic vision he has put forth, and calls for radical changes in the way other people live, why hasn’t he made any radical change in his life? Giving up one of his homes is not asking much, given that he wants the rest of us to radically change our lives.

I think these are cheap shots. Asserting that someone’s argument is wrong because of something discreditable about the person rather than addressing the soundness of the argument itself is a classic logical fallacy.

Consider. Gore has an important message he is trying to deliver across the planet. He can’t do this effectively if he was to travel by bicycle to talk to audiences. Flying in a private jet is environmentally damaging, but the captains of industry do it daily. If he is to be effective he can’t have one hand tied behind his back.

Secondly, the homes he owns are not a-typical of those owned by the elite in America. If he was to sell them and move into modest housing someone else would be burning energy to heat and cool them. What’s he to do, demolish them? Better he stays and tries to run them energy-efficiently.

Finally, any of us with a diversified 401(k) have shares in mining and petroleum companies. Of course, we could sacrifice returns and stay with socially responsible funds, but these often underperform the market.

The response that is needed to global warming is not necessarily to adopt a hair-shirt lifestyle. American public opinion is not receptive to those who’ve tried this. The reputation of Ralph Nader, President Carter and “Governor Moonbeam” Brown of California were not helped by their nods to personal sacrifice and low rent accouterments.

It’s not Gore’s personal lifestyle that’s in question. Rather, it’s the potential impact of climate change on a global scale. He’s done an excellent job communicating the urgency of this in his book and movie. Tripping him up for not living up to the suggestions he made to reduce carbon emissions distracts from the scale of change that is really needed.

Sure, we all need to try and reduce our carbon footprint. And those of us lucky enough to live in advanced economies will need to adjust our material consumption downward by a significant amount. The small percentage of the world’s population that live in the United States cannot continue to consume many times our fair share of energy resources.

Personal choices made by Americans play a role in helping the planet. But serious policy changes (for instance in the CAFE standards for average gas consumption) have a much larger effect. These changes will occur due to legislation resulting from democratic debate as the scale of the crisis unfolds.

Even larger changes will result in response to global forces unleashed by the rest of the world against those who foul the planet. A terrorist campaign with roots in the climatically dispossessed is not unthinkable. The way we deal with it is worth consideration.

And the largest role of all will be played by the planet. Once the ice melts and sea levels rise there probably won’t be a home in America that only has one family living it in. Refugees from the coasts will be billeted in the all of the Gore’s fancy residences. The water lapping at the doors of the Hoover Institution will give Peter Schweizer more concern than Gore’s personal lifestyle.

The good news is that the Handouts from the sessions at the NSA Convention are now available online.

In addition, you can download audio files of all the sessions and video of the main tent meetings.

These are valuable resources for anyone looking for tips and tricks on executive presentation techniques, public speaking and more.