Disclaimer: I work as a corporate speechwriter in a Silicon Valley high technology company. Most of the ‘speeches’ I write are a series of Power Point slides with speaking notes.

Given that perspective, here’s what I took away from the conference, and some suggestions on ways it might be improved in future.

Demographics: Baby boomer’s don’t retire, they just do freelance speechwriting

There were 250 registered attendees, and it looked like about 60% were male with a predominance of Boomer graybeards. More than one person commented that speechwriting was a ‘senior job’ and CEO’s want someone with experience they can trust. However, my colleague Russell had a conversation with the speechwriter for GM’s CEO who was a woman in her 20’s.

Question: what happens when this current generation of speechwriters retires?

Another question: what age are the speechwriters who support CEO’s like Sergey and Larry at Google? Do guys in their 20’s and 30’s running companies want someone writing their speeches who is old enough to be their father?

The attendees were overwhelmingly from North America. I met two women from The Netherlands and heard a couple of British accents but perhaps, like me, they live here.

Speechwriters: In love with the past, or looking to the future?

The graybeards love classical rhetoric. Many quoted Lincoln, FDR, JFK, MLK, Shakespeare, Robert Green Ingersoll and so on. It’s ironic that few of these masterful orators actually used the services of a speechwriter.

When the next generation of speechwriters comes along will they still look to the past for inspiration? Or will they look forward to messages that are crafted for an age of fragmented media?

Many of the “Greatsâ€? delivered speeches that were absorbed by an audience at one time (in Ingersoll’s case often two or more hours at one sitting). But who would listen to a two hour speech these days? How will messages be received in the future? Will we see more asynchronous communication via blogs, podcasts, streaming media archives? What will be the best way to achieve mind- and market-share with an audience that turns on, tunes in, tunes out, turns off? What do you write for an audience with one hand on the remote? When the keywords you meta-tag your transcripts with bring more web-surfers to the soundbites – what matters the rhetoric? (he asked rhetorically)

Ragan: The shoe-makers children?

Since much of the actual content of the presentations can be found in the many excellent books on the craft of speechwriting at your local Barnes & Nobel for $20, why pay $895 for a conference? And if you do pay that, do you have a right to expect a flawlessly run event? My minor quibbles include:

On the positive side:

But I did find it embarrassing that some of the presenters were unable to practice what they preached in terms of rhetoric and speech delivery.

Whither speechifying?

Unlike dramatic shifts in the worlds of the music, art and literature there seems to have been no sea-change in effective rhetoric since the nineteenth century. When a speaker from the 1880’s is held up as an example to study, and speeches form Shakespeare are quoted with relish, whither speechifying?

Modern writers must deal with the novel after Joyce and the poem after Ginsberg. Contemporary Artists must paint in a world turned upside down by Impressionism, Cubism and later movements. In the time Ingersoll was speaking, The Academy was refusing to exhibit Manet and since then the establishment has banned works ranging from Lady Chatterly to Howl.

What paradigm shifts have we seen in the world of the public speaker? Why are we still recommending that speakers “Tell ’em what you’ll tell ’em; tell ’em and then tell ’em what you told ’em”. Is anyone listening any more?

I’d like a future Ragan conference to bring in the rap singers, greeting card sloganeer’s, comedy writers, Hollywood script-meister’s, advertising executives, graffiti taggers, punks and poets who know how to create messages with impact.

I’d like future conferences to feature presentations by people whose first language isn’t American English. Let’s hear from Japanese, Thai, Indian, European, Australian and Fijian speechwriters. Let’s especially hear from those British political speechwriters who cut their teeth on Prime Minister’s Question Time!

I’d like to hear presentations on what it’s like to write a speech for the generals in Iraq; a political speech in both the Red and Blue States; for NGO’s like Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth. I’d like to hear from a Toastmaster Champion and the best the National Speakers Association has to offer.

One great visionary who knows that communication ‘business as usual’ does not work anymore is the Wizard of Ads, Roy H. Williams. His Monday Morning Memo recently asked us to create speeches:

[Find and replace used to customize ‘advertising’ for ‘speechwriting’]

Monsoon Wedding Eulogy

Since much of what I prepare in my day job is delivered by senior executives who I enjoy close contact with, I feel safe from offshoring. At least, I did until I reached page 31 of The World is Flat on the plane ride home:

Friedman says that where most of the research can be gleaned off the web and summarized in a standard format then the speechwriter who only offers this amount of value to an organization is ripe for offshoring… (gulp!).

Let’s invite someone from Brickworks to the next conference – before they replace us all…