Ragan Speechwriters Conference: Dangling Conversations

Business Communication,Keynotes,Public Speaking,Speechwriting

As with any conference, you don’t just go for the formal presentations — it’s the conversations with fellow delegates that make the trip worthwhile. Where else on the planet would I be in a room with 250 people who all, more or less, do the same job? I met some great folks.

Vinca runs an independent consulting operation in the DC area. She really did work in the West Wing – writing President Clinton’s foreign policy speeches. Traveling on Air Force One, heads down over her laptop, she wrote his November 1995 speeches given in Derry and Belfast, Northern Ireland. There’s still work for Democrats who write speeches in DC, just not in the West Wing at the moment.

Kathryn works for a Silicon Valley High Tech company where she’s the only writer supporting 13 executives. She also finds time to use her own speaking skills, developed as a member of the National Speakers Association, by offering presentation skills classes to the staff. She asks her students to consider the two key questions all audience members ask when a speaker starts a presentation:

1. Should I stick around? Not just literally, but if you don’t grab their attention in the first six minutes of a speech they will check out. Thoughts about the laundry, shopping or the cutie in accounting with the winsome smile will occupy their attention, not whatever it is you are saying.

2. So What? Meaning, what’s in it for me? If you don’t answer this question every time before moving onto a new topic (or a new PowerPoint slide) you will have lost some or all of the audience. A good few of the presenters at this conference omitted the ‘So What?’ in their presentations.

Colin has a web site that helps freelance speechwriters find work. He offers a free eZine and bonus marketing workbook. Maybe he’ll start a blog one day soon?

Damien is a lobbyist for the American Insurance Association. He writes for the ex-Governor of Wyoming who now runs the place. His main challenge is frosting the road apple of his subject matter. No matter which way you spin it, commercial insurance is plain old BORING.

I had conversations with a whole number of other people whose names I don’t remember. But the variety was impressive:

  • The Dutch woman who writes for the Minister of Health in The Netherlands and came from a background in journalism. I wondered if European political speeches differed from American ones? Of course they do. Next question?
  • The communications guy for the east coast Public School District. He only writes the occasional speech. He’s a jack-of-all-trades who does most everything from interview School Board members to record the minutes of school district meetings.
  • The freelancers who were prospecting anyone with a corporate connection for work. I think more companies will be using freelancers in the future, for the same reasons companies are looking at outsourcing peak load IT data processing needs: why invest in idle capacity year-round with full-time staff when you can contract work out? The local guilds and website’s like Colin’s can help as switchboards for freelancers. Not all of them will need to be based in the USA, or charge five figures. You can buy a wedding speech from the internet for $9.95 here or an instant eulogy speech for $16.41 here. Cookie cutter speeches for cookie cutter people – but no-one has ever lost money…(and the man who sells these bargain basement speeches is one of the wealthiest speechwriters and public speaking coaches in America today.

    • And last but not least:

  • Patricia Fripp, doyenne of the National Speakers Association, who graced the conference in her assorted hats and shared her insights on presentation skills and telling a personal story from the podium with many of us.

    • All in all, the conference attracted writers with a love of the spoken word rather than speakers with an interest in the written word. Bookish intellectuals rather than the extrovert glad-hander’s at speaking conferences. People were willing to share the tools of their trade and had a contagious enthusiasm for their craft.

    I’ll share more of my overall impressions of the conference in my next posting.

    posted by Theboss on 02.12.06 @ 11:28 am | 3 Comments

    3 Comments so far
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    Nice post; I was particularly struck by the second-last paragraph. I’m sorry we didn’t wind up chatting, but I hope our paths cross at the next one!

    By Rob Cottingham on 02.12.06 4:05 pm

    Very true. I picked up as much from my colleagues as I did from the speakers.

    By Damien on 02.13.06 6:31 am

    […] Thanks to the Ragan Speechwriters Newsletter for acknowledging my blog on their Speechwriters Conference. For those of you who want to read those blog entries, you’ll find them starting here and continuing here, here, here and here. Technorati Tags: Speechwriting […]

    By Executive Communications » Ragan Speechwriters Newsletter on 04.19.06 3:29 pm

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