Another year older, another year wiser.
I leave Tuesday for Washington DC and the 2007 Ragan Speechwriters Conference.
As I did last year, I plan to blog my impressions of the event. In 2006 I did one long entry for each day of the conference. This year I’ll do a separate posting for each presentation – the better to link back to them later.
Since my birthday posting last year revealed that I was born on this day in 1952, simple math reveals that today I’m as old as the speed limit for trucks with trailers on American highways:
I kinda like the sound of the double-nickel age. It has the resonance of rhyming slang used by British bingo callers:
11: Legs eleven; chicken legs.
22: Two little ducks.
33: All the feathers; two little fleas; ‘all the trees, Sherwood Forest, 33’.
44: Droopy drawers.
55: Snakes alive.
66: Clickety-click.
77: Sunset strip.
88: Two fat ladies.
On Tuesday I’ll be able to reap the benefit of having reached this grand old age, and claim my 10% discount for “seniors” at Ross Dress for Less when I buy my next pair of those light blue boxers I wrote about last year. I can’t stand the excitement!
I’ve found inspiration as a speechwriter in the writings of Roy H. Williams. “The Wizard of Adsâ€? brilliantly analyses the impact of advertisements and other forms of communication. His wide-ranging ideas are sourced from fields as varied as neuroscience and historical analysis; mountaineering, religion and art. His three books in the Wizard series are a must-read for anyone interested in the impact of language on audiences, on sharpening their tools of persuasion.
HINT: When reading, mentally find and replace all occurrences of ‘advertising’ and ‘ads’ with ‘speechwriting’ and ‘speeches’. Example:
Speechwriters typically assume that people are seeing and hearing their speeches. Yet rarely is this the truth. In reality, the content of a speech that gushes toward the mind is like a fire hose aimed at a teacup: there’s simply too much coming at us to contain. Most of the information aimed at the brain is deflected, spilled, lost. At the end of the day precious little information is retained.
Will your speech be part of that precious little, or is it being deflected, spilled, lost?
The Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience is a publication read primarily by doctors and medical students who want to understand how human beings recognize and identify objects; use visual mental images; read, produce, and comprehend language; move and store new information in memory; and many other such things. (I think it makes sense for speechwriters to read this stuff, too.)
Modified from Secret Formulas of the Wizard of Ads, p48
Williams does not shy away from deep science to explain business behavior. He’s inspired me to embark on a series of blog entries I’ll categorize as the “Deep End” of speechwriting and public speaking. I plan to undertake an extended journey into academic theories (Sociology; Rhetoric; Criticism; Semiotics) and see what I can find that is of practical use in my day-to-day work as a speechwriter.
I’ll still comment on the “Shallow End” of executive communications and write on the lighter side of life. All work and no play makes Ian a dull boy.
