I was given an action item at Saturday’s Pro-Track meeting. I have to find out what information is of most value to people planning to do business overseas.

Can you help me?

Do you or someone you know plan to live and work overseas? Or do you deal with people in other countries on a regular basis as part of your job? If so, I’d really like to hear from you.

Please leave me comments below or send me an email to ian.griffin@exec-comms.com.

On a scale of 1-5 with 1 = not at all important and 5= most important

You need resources and guidance on:

[1] Practical information — visas, work permits, drivers license, accommodation and health insurance. So you hit the ground running.

[2] Understanding cultural differences — dress, language, food, religion. So you don’t offend anyone.

[3] Communications tips — on the telephone, in meetings, giving formal presentations. So you are at least as effective overseas as at home.

[4] Working with overseas colleagues — project planning, setting goals, expectations, managing foreign staff. So you can operate effectively as part of a global team.

However, maybe these four questions are not important. Is there something else altogether you need to know? What is the biggest question you have about doing business overseas or ‘going global’?

If you have a moment to let me know what’s important to you I’d really appreciate it. I’ll publish the results in this blog in four weeks time.

Thanks.

Fundamental to every professional speaker is the topic they speak on, about which they are informed, articulate, passionate. It’s one of their eight competencies. Good speakers are on fire with a passion for their topic. As The Buddha said:

The ear is on fire; sounds are on fire; . . . the nose is on fire; odors are on fire; . . . the tongue is on fire; tastes are on fire; . . . the body is on fire; things tangible are on fire; . . . the mind is on fire; ideas are on fire; . . . mind-consciousness is on fire; impressions received by the mind are on fire; and whatever sensation, pleasant, unpleasant, or indifferent, originates in dependence on impressions received by the mind, that also is on fire.

And with what are these on fire?

With the fire of passion, say I, with the fire of hatred, with the fire of infatuation; with birth, old age, death, sorrow, lamentation, misery, grief, and despair are they on fire.

Saturday found 30 of us wanna-be pro speakers kindling the first flames this passion at the second NSA/NC sponsored Pro-Track training. Before the day was over we had been give the opportunity to choose our topic; outline it; make it interesting; market it and deliver it with style and panache. We were directed in this by two awesome ladies whose passions burned, as they say, as bright as a thousand sun’s.

Francine Ward: Topic Development

Francine Ward, has a topic that grabs you and won’t let go. An ex-hooker, junkie and high-school drop-out who walked through her fear and came out on the other side. Now a Georgetown educated lawyer, successful entrepreneur, twice published author, philanthropist, and loving wife. She speaks left-brained topics: trademark and contract law, where she’s a resource to the best speakers in the NSA. She speaks on right-brained topics: motivational speeches based on her unique biography.

We were given the benefit of her experience. She mapped a clear set of guidelines on how to develop a topic. It’s a journey that starts with an evaluation of what cements you as a credible, marketable expert who people would pay to listen to. She took us through in-depth considerations about ways to research our topic (my fave: ask the audience what they want to hear you speak on!). She ended with a slew of practical tips n’ tricks on marketing our expertise. We heard what works for her. We learned how she turns her knowledge into products. Check out her web site. Have your credit card ready.

Angela DeFinis: Presentation Skills

I wonder how many in the room felt a pang of regret for not having taken Pro-Track last year? Those who did were lucky enough have had Angela as a classmate. She’s been coaching Silicon Valley executives in delivery skills for over twenty years. She stands out in the somewhat crowded field of speech coaching for one very simple reason – she delivers results. We saw this in the brief time she was able to work with the Pro-Trackers who gave their showcase presentations. She worked miracles.

Her litany of things an effective public speaker needs to be mindful of include eye contact, posture, facial expression, purposeful movement, inflection, enunciation and rate of speech. The goal: to become unconsciously competent in the key areas of visual image, vocal and verbal skills.

Most speakers overlook the fact that only 7% of a message is conveyed by the words they use; 55% of the message is conveyed by their face and body signals and 38% by their vocal characteristics. The good news for those of us who are paid the big bucks to write those words and create the content for corporate speeches is that most executives are clueless about this. They focus on content almost exclusively. The bad news is that most executives are clueless about this. The audience listens as the audience does: looking more, hearing less.

There’s little point in blogging about Angela’s class. It has to be experienced. If you think you need a speech coach, hire her. If you don’t think you need a speech coach, get a clue.

Her parting gift was an awesome booklist to sink our teeth into:

7 Steps to Fearless Speaking by Lilyan Wilder
Give Your Speech, Change the World: How to Move Your Audience to Action by Nick Morgan
Grammar Smart by Princeton Review
How to Prepare, Stage, & Deliver Winning Presentations by Thomas Leech
Improving Your Storytelling by Doug Lipman
Kiss, Bow, or Shake Hands: How to Do Business in Sixty Countries by Terri Morrison, Wayne A. Conaway, George A. Borden
Nonverbal Communication in Human Interaction by Mark L. Knapp, Judith A. Hall
Nonverbal Communication by Albert Mehrabian
Power Talk: Using Language to Build Authority and Influence by Sarah Myers McGinty
Powerful Communication Skills: How to Communicate With Confidence by Colleen McKenna
Presentations That Persuade and Motivate by Harvard Business School Press
Say It Right: A Guide To Effective Oral Business Presentations by Garth A. Hanson
Silent Messages by Albert Mehrabian
Speaking Skills for Business Careers by Dennis Becker, Paula Borkum Becker
The New Talkpower: The Mind Body Way to Speak Without Fear by Natalie Rogers
The Story Factor: Inspiration, Influence, and Persuasion Through the Art of Storytelling by Annette Simmons
Toastmaster’s International Guide to Successful Speaking: Overcoming Your Fears, Winning over Your Audience, Building Your Business & Career by Jeff Slutsky, Michael Aun, Toastmasters International
Working the Room: How to Move People to Action through Audience-Centered Speaking by Nick Morgan
Women Seen and Heard: Lessons Learned from Successful Speakers by Lois, Ph.D. Phillips, Anita Perez Ferguson

On leaving the meeting I walked out into the February evening. The wind crossed the brown land, unheard. I spoke neither loud nor long. But at my back in a cold blast I hear the rattle of the bones, and chuckle spread from ear to ear.

Garr reveals that even world-class public speakers, like Steve Jobs, sometimes make mistakes.

We are our own worst critic. All Toastmasters quickly learn the audience’s evaluation of you is not nearly as bad as you expected. People are not just being polite when they say this. It really is difficult to judge how well we come across on stage. Striving for perfection makes most speakers too uptight.

Imperfections are what make us real. Artists and musicians use deliberate mistakes to heighten the audience reaction and enjoyment. Jazz musicians know this.

The flubbed line, stumbling over a word — today it’s positively Presidential.

So don’t worry – surprise you audience with your own willingness to be a little goofy. Laugh at yourself on stage and the world, as they say, will laugh with you.

Jane has great insights on the Jared Sandberg Cubicle Culture article in the WSJ (which I can’t read ‘cos I don’t have a subscription to the online edition – darn!).

Seems that outrageous unprofessional behavior can give competitive advantage in today’s corporations: it gets you noticed.

The trick is knowing how far to push the envelope. And which audience you are playing to.

Radio Shack CEO David Edmondson was forced to resign today after padding his resume with two bogus degrees.

Edmondson, 46, had claimed degrees in theology and psychology from Pacific Coast Baptist College in California, which moved in 1998 to Oklahoma, where it was renamed Heartland Baptist Bible College.

The school’s registrar told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram that records showed Edmondson completed only two semesters, and that the school never offered degrees in psychology.

There are obvious lessons for anyone who works in corporate America.

One. Why bother to pad your resume with bogus degrees when many successful executives never even finish college and openly boast about it? Microsoft founder Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard as an undergraduate. Microsoft #2 Steve Ballmer dropped out of Stanford Business School. Apple CEO Steve Jobs never went to college.

Two. If you are going to bother going down this road, why pick Heartland Baptist Bible College? I’d much rather have a bogus degree from NYU, Oxford or The Sorbonne.

The truth will out. And when it does the final lesson from this sorry episode is not to issue the type of statement attributed to Mr. Edmondson:

Better to say “I lied” and bow out gracefully.

Speechwriting has played a part in a range of fascinating careers.

Marty Sklar once wrote speeches for Walt Disney. A report in the LA Times notes that the 72-year-old just retired as principal creative executive of Walt Disney Imagineering, the company’s storied theme park design and development arm.

Sklar condensed Walt Disney’s ideas into a widely circulated creed called “Mickey’s Ten Commandments.”

“He understands the Disney way because he learned it at Walt’s knee,” said Jim Cora, a former chairman of Disneyland International. “He is the keeper of the keys, the conscience, the Jiminy Cricket for the organization.”

For years, Sklar headed the creative development of Disney’s theme parks and led the company’s ventures in the cruise business, interactive TV, housing development and the redesign of Times Square in New York.

How cool is that?!

Sad to note the passing of a speechwriter, who, as is often the case, brought his ability to tell a great story to his craft of speechwriting:

Peter Benchley, whose novel “Jaws” made millions think twice about stepping into the water even as the author himself became an advocate for shark conservation, died Feb. 11 of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, a progressive and fatal scarring of the lungs, according to his wife. He was 65. Thanks to Benchley’s 1974 novel, and Steven Spielberg’s blockbuster movie of the same name, a simple dip in the ocean became synonymous with fatal horror. Born in New York City in 1940, Benchley graduated from Harvard University in 1961. He worked at the Washington Post and Newsweek and spent two years as a speechwriter for President Johnson, writing some “difficult” speeches about the Vietnam War, Wendy Benchley said. The author’s interest began with childhood visits to Nantucket Island in Massachusetts and heightening in the mid-1960s when he read about a fisherman catching a 4,550-pound great white shark off Long Island, the setting for his novel.

Last week at the Ragan Speechwriters Conference David Kusnet asked how politicians can best communicate in the post-rhetorical era. One example of a public figure making waves recently is Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berluscino.

Alexander Stille’s profile in Friday’s Financial Times (subscription required) highlights the many bizarre aspects of the Italian Premier’s bid for re-election. He has “alternately compared himself, in the space of abut a week, to Napoleon, Churchill and Jesus Christ while also vowing to give up sex until after the April poll.” The Italian premier courts publicity, any publicity. His outrageous behavior endears him to voters, especially those who get most of their information from television.

Mr. Berlusconi is perhaps the first truly post-modern politician to turn many of the old rules of his trade upside down. Traditional politicians – closely connected to a party, an ideology and a set of programs – did not need to be personally charismatic. In a post-ideological age, what Mr. Berlusconi is selling is Mr. Berusconi, not a party or program. By dominating the media…he controls the political discourse and silences his critics..

We’ll know in April if the Italian voters are swayed by style over substance. If so, there’s a lesson here for corporate speakers and those who manage their external communications. Don’t just focus on the message. Fancy rhetoric, facts and supporting evidence have their place. But don’t lose sight of the impact that the unexpected, outrageous and plain bizarre has with today’s audiences.

This amazing documentary by Maurizio Benazzo and Nick Day captures the sights and sounds of Kumbh Mela, an extraordinary spiritual festival attended by more than 70 million pilgrims (70 Million! That’s not a typo, there are 25 million people there at any one time, living in tent villages, sharing food, noise, dust and joy).

It’s the largest gathering of people on the planet (Woodstock Nation ain’t got nothing on this). Held every 12 years (for more than 2,000 years) near Allahabad, India, Kumbh Mela attracts young Hindu monks, wise old sages, honored guest the Dalai Lama and other Hindu and Buddhist leaders.

Maurizio is a fellow student in the the Pro-Track meetings sponsored by the National Speakers Association.

His colleague Nick Day shares a remarkable insight into cultural differences in an interview with the filmmakers on the DVD. Commenting on what it was like to make the film:

Amen.

I rented the movie from Netflix.

Hallmark know all about effective messaging.

The process of creating a card for Valentine’s Day — the industry’s second most popular holiday, behind Christmas — can begin up to two years before it finds its way to a loved one’s hands. An 80-person research staff’s analysis of Hallmark’s 2004 card sales was the initial impetus for this year’s line. That combines with more than 100,000 annual customer interviews, focus groups and in-store observations to lay the framework for roughly 2,000 cards in Hallmark’s core Valentine’s Day line as well as another 2,500 offerings through sister brands offered at supermarkets, Wal-Mart and elsewhere.

Writers and artists and others at the company say everything they do is aimed at helping a consumer express a sentiment. That, of course, translates to sales.

I wonder what would happen if corporate communications staff and speechwriters put as much effort into the content of their next presentation? Executives might be able to make the audience fall in love with what they have say. Or, at the very least, make their hearts beat a little faster…