Canadian freelancer Colin Moorhouse writes about his proven formula for finding new clients:

• Publish a Web site and/or blog showcasing your expertize
• Teach speechwriting seminars
• Publish articles on the subjects of speechwriting and rhetoric in consumer and trade publications

You can find out more about Colin by reading his website or blog and signing up for his free newsletters.

Thanks to KC in the Toastmaster’s group I belong to for a link to Changing Minds.

This website has over 2500 suggestions on how we can change the ways others think, believe, feel and do. Since the point of all pubic speaking is to change the audience’s mind (otherwise, why bother?) there’s a boat-load of useful tips and tricks for speakers and speechwriters in here. Everything from the persuasive power of Storytelling in a presentation to confidence tricks to watch out for (heaven forbid you’d actually consider using them!)

While some of the material, though fascinating, is tangential to public speaking, most is right on the money. Here’s an example of the importance of the power of three in a speech:

Use three related words or phrases to grab attention, encapsulate, summarize.

This can be three single words, three phrases or three complete sentences.

The three items can be any three items that fit together to make an impact, including:

• The same item each time, hammering home the point.
• Three key themes that together cover a wide area.
• Three items that act in sequence to get to a desired goal.
• Two problems and a solution that resolves the problem.
• Two actions or objectives and a solution that will result from achieving these.
• The three items can be connected in by a rising or reducing pitch for each one. Going up increases emotion, going down closed on finality and certainty.

Example:

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears. (Mark Anthony)

Our objectives are clear: Saddam Hussein’s forces will leave Kuwait. The legitimate government of Kuwait will be restored to its rightful place, and Kuwait will once again be free. (George Bush, Snr, 1990)

There is no cause for pride in what has happened in Selma. There is no cause for self-satisfaction in the long denial of equal rights of millions of Americans. But there is cause for hope and for faith in our Democracy in what is happening here tonight. (L.B.Johnson — ‘we shall overcome’ speech, 1965)

This website deserves to be bookmarked for future reference.

As good a definition as any is found in Wikipedia. This contains the insight that:

A speechwriter must be able to work directly with senior executives, to determine what points, themes, positions, or messages the executive would like to cover. As well, speechwriters need to be able to accept criticism and comments on the different drafts of the speech, and be able to incorporate the proposed changes into the draft. Speechwriters have to be able to work on several different speeches at once, and manage their time so that they can meet strict deadlines for finishing the speech on time. Speechwriters must also be able to accept anonymity, because with few exceptions, speechwriters (like ghostwriters) are not officially credited or acknowledged.

S’true.

Unlike the last two years at this time, I will not be able to attend the Ragan Speechwriters Conference in Washington, DC. This due to a conflict with the National Speakers Association conference here in San Francisco which starts tomorrow.

I was intrigued to read this report that highlights some of the concerns and opinions of attendees this year. Asked why they are involved in speechwriting:

• 4% of speechwriters are in it for the money
• 14% simply want to add speechwriting as another skill set on the résumé
• 27% do speechwriting simply because they’re given the assignment
• 55% are interested in speechwriting because it’s “close to the power in the organization, a chance to make a difference.”

To find a speechwriter: Look everywhere. While “executive communications” is the department in which Speechwriters Conference attenders most commonly reside, 67% of speechwriters come from elsewhere in the organization—internal communication, PR or media relations, corporate communication, or somewhere else.

Finally, an interesting sidebar:

We asked Speechwriters Conference attendees to vote for the major U.S. presidential candidate who gave the best speeches, and Barack Obama won in a landslide, garnering 83% of the vote. Hillary Clinton got 9% and Mike Huckabee got 5%, Mitt Romney picking up 2% and John Edwards getting 1%.

John McCain, not insignificantly, received not a single speechwriter’s vote as the leading rhetorician.

This seems to imply that there might be competition for speechwriting jobs the further to the right of the political spectrum you go; until one reaches the current Office of the President where there seems to be a total absence of writing talent (sorry, cheap shot!). Or is it just the case that this profession, like the media in general, is full of pinko commie sympathizers?

So I wish all attendees at this years Speechwriters Conference good luck and a great conference. I look forward to reading your newsletter updates and blog reports.

An excellent website to add to your bookmarks is the archives of all the Pulitzer Prize winning journalists going back to 1917. Full texts, photographs and cartoons are available for Journalism winners from 1995 - 2006 only.

This is a fantastic resource for the best reporting on a wide variety of topics which can add relevance to your next speech.

One of the gems in Andrew’s list of public speaking blogs was Jessica Hagy’s wonderfully witty blog Indexed.

Jessica creates inspiring sketches on Index Cards. These simple outlines of ideas are a great model for your next PowerPoint slide deck. Here’s a couple of examples.

What concepts or ideas in your next speech could you reduce to a simple visual?

Writing in the UK Guardian, speechwriter Philip Collins argues that there is a lack of “grand causes” in developed nations to match those which formed the backdrop to the oratory of Churchill, King, Havel and Mandela. A drab political landscape gives rise to dull speeches. The lack of commonly accepted touchstones such as the Bible or Dickens limits the ability of British politicians to match the assumptions of their audience to the language of their speeches.

Collins’s challenge to speechwriters is to not let this become an insurmountable obstacle:

But, for all that, it is still possible to write well rather than badly. Some things are axiomatic no matter what the countervailing forces: strive to be clear, avoid anything you suspect of being a cliché. Don’t use the phrases community, fast-changing world, agenda, stakeholders, hard-working families, unless you really do have a gun to your head. Remember that you have to answer why they should care before you regale them with a list of your achievements. Don’t write for yourself and people like you; they already agree. Don’t caricature the opposing view: the audience can tell.

Solid advice.

And as the wheel of life turns, coming crises will undoubtedly become grist for the mill for stirring speeches of the near future. All change!

A new book, The Great Speeches of Modern India, catalogs religious, economic and political speeches of the 19th and 20th Century. The author, Rudrangshu Mukherjee, presents a view of modern Indian history through the speeches of her leaders.

I have not been able to locate a convenient source for the book, but this review contains some fascinating commentary. He contrasts speeches by world leaders such as Churchill, Gandhi and Nehru, who wrote their own content, with today’s reliance on speech writers ‘ghosting’ the speech which began with JFK and Ted Sorensen. Modern politicians, he claims “don’t feel confident enough to handle the language in the succinct way a speech-writer can.”

Mukherjee observes the distinction between great speakers and great speeches:

Great speakers do not always make great speeches. The yardstick for judging the latter is whether the words retain their power with the passing of time. Nehru was not a great orator in the traditional sense of the term, his voice was not loud and words did not come in a torrent as they do with great orators, he did not pause for effect but he made many memorable speeches and coined phrases that have become part of the nation’s vocabulary.

Finally, he refers to the stunning address given by Vivekananda at the Chicago World’s Parliament of Religions in 1893. The 7,000 delegates went into rapture and responded with a standing ovation that lasted for more than three minutes:

Sisters and Brothers of America,

It fills my heart with joy unspeakable to rise in response to the warm and cordial welcome which you have given us. l thank you in the name of the most ancient order of monks in the world; I thank you in the name of the mother of religions; and I thank you in the name of the millions and millions of Hindu people of all classes and sects.

My thanks, also, to some of the speakers on this platform who, referring to the delegates from the Orient, have told you that these men from far-off nations may well claim the honor of bearing to different lands the idea of toleration. I am proud to belong to a religion which has taught the world both tolerance and universal acceptance. We believe not only in universal toleration, but we accept all religions as true.

Since India is one of the great sources of speeches given in the English language, this book, when it more widely available, will be a valuable addition to any speakers’ library.

American Rhetoric is a wonderful resource for speechwriters and public speakers. This ‘online speech bank’ contains a library of over 5,000 speeches on video, audio and transcript. The cornucopia of speeches includes everyone from Cate Blanchett (as Elizabeth I) unifying the Church of England in the 16th Century to Barack Obama unifying the Democratic Party in the 21st Century.

In addition to speeches from politics, religion, the movies and more, other treats on the site include scholarly definitions of rhetoric, like this from Gerard A. Hauser:

Rhetoric is an instrumental use of language. One person engages another person in an exchange of symbols to accomplish some goal. It is not communication for communication’s sake. Rhetoric is communication that attempts to coordinate social action. For this reason, rhetorical communication is explicitly pragmatic. Its goal is to influence human choices on specific matters that require immediate attention.

What is your favorite speech on the site, and why?

I’m ploughing through an excellent book on Britain in the 1950’s. Having It So Goodby Peter Hennessy chronicles the decade I arrived on the scene in the UK. There’s wonderfully detailed stories about coal fires; the Suez Crisis; early television and more. A unique cast of characters parade across the pages with names like Mountstuart Elphinstone; Home Secretary Sir David Maxwell Fyfe (known to the Welsh as Dai Bananas); Meta Strachan; Glubb Pasha; Walter Monckton and, last but not least, Supermac - the British Prime Minister Sir Harold Macmillan.

Macmillan attributed his superior public speaking skills to decades of practice in the House of Commons and acknowledges the role of a particular mentor. David Lloyd George had been Prime Minister during the First World War. In 1924 he came to Macmillan and congratulated him on his first speech in Parliament, but advised him ‘you have no idea how to make a speech’. The great orator offered the following advice:

Never say more than one thing. Yours was an essay, a good essay, but with a large number of separate points. Just say one thing; when you are a Minister two things, and when you a Prime Minister winding up a debate perhaps three…Of course you wrap it up in different ways. You say it over and over again with different emphasis and different illustrations. You say it forcefully, regretfully, even perhaps threateningly; but it is a single clear point…there must be continual variation; slow solemn phrases, quick, witty amusing passages…Finally, don’t forget the value of the pause.

Having It So Good p. 567