The National Speakers Association Northern California Newsletter goes out monthly to over 600 subscribers. Each month we profile one of the Pro-Track training group. This month I’m breaking new territory by including a podcast of an interview I recorded to supplement the written profile.

Pro-Track Profile: Nannette Carroll

Nannette Carroll approaches all management challenges as communication opportunities. For over 20 years, her upbeat management seminars have helped participants use their process skills to discover root causes for people problems. With this knowledge, managers can implement lasting solutions. Her background as Director of Management Development/ Training for a Fortune 100 gives her a uniquely helpful perspective on aligning process, project and people management.

Nannette sets high standards for achievement while creating a fun, supportive, collaborative environment for participants in both workshops and speaking engagements.

As well as being a member of the National Speakers Association she is active in the California Writers Club and has a book coming out soon.

Nannette and I talked in a rather noisy hotel lobby during a break in the Pro-Track Saturday training on March 17, 2007 – St. Patrick’s Day!

Podcast Note: The opening and closing royalty free music is from a track called Games by the band Sour Monkey found on the Public Music Project website.

Click below to hear my interview with Nannette Carroll.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 6:24 — 2.9MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS

A recent podcast of the wonderful BBC Radio 4 programme, Start The Week, featured an interview with Bamber “Your Starter For Ten” Gascoigne, host of the long-running TV quiz show University Challenge. This was a fixture on British television during my formative years. I’m still embarrassed to admit I failed the qualifying rounds at Leicester Univeristy in 1972 and so never appeared on the show along with the other scruffy undergraduates of the era.

Gascoigne is an established author and historian who has launched a fascinating Web 2.0 venture – Timesearch – an intelligent search tool that organizes results on historical time lines.

Timesearch is an invaluable tool for the professional speaker or speechwriter. Suppose, for example, you are an executive at the Hewlett-Packard Company scheduled to speak in Sydney at a Chamber of Commerce event. A simple query in Timesearch focussed on Australia in the 1930’s would show the major events that occurred at the time Bill & Dave were establishing HP:

you can immediately see that the Sydney Harbor Bridge was only seven years old when HP was started in the Palo Alto garage in 1939. Robert Menzies became Prime Minister that year. Both useful local references to build into your notes. Icons to the left and right side of each reference link to Google Images and other website search results to enable easily building your speech content on this topic. So far, so good.

But what if Timesearch allowed wiki-like user generated content to be added to the 10,000 entries Gascoigne has entered into the current database? Now that would be way cool. It would, for example, allow HP’s archivists to add the company timeline and show the intersection of HP’s history with world events. Family histories and details of individual lives and locations would enrich and extend the tool. Gascoigne revealed plans on Start the Week for this exciting option as the next stage of development for Timesearch.

For now, the tool offers a valuable source of ideas for your next speech.

Consider one more example, using fascinating historical cross-references to demonstrate cultural sensitivity. Say you were addressing a visiting delegation from Korea:

How impressed would they be to hear you quote the fact that Koreans invented bronze movable type 60 years before Gutenberg built his press in Germany?

Use Timesearch today to enrich your presentations. And check back shortly to see if it allows you to load your own data into it so your biography becomes a part of world history. Timesearch: when things happen to good people.

Creating a Bestseller and a Bestselling Career: 101 strategies and tactics

Over 100 NSA/NC members and guests enjoyed a morning with the “NSA power couple� Karyn Buxman-Godek, CSP, CPAE, and Greg Godek, ABC, RSVP. One of NSA’s most romantic and successful couples shared their secrets for creating a “best-selling career� – combining public speaking and writing books. They promised to deliver the goods on how to:

• Write books quickly
• Create killer keynotes
• Employ humor secrets from comedians and storytellers
• Successfully and effectively market like a maniac
• Generate speaking opportunities
• Harness your creativity

Karyn has been a fulltime keynote speaker for 20 years. As humorist, she founded The HumorLab, an organization that researches the art and science of humor. Greg is best known for his 2.5-million-copy self-published book, 1001 Ways to Be Romantic. Around NSA he is known as the editor of the Writers PEG e-zine, and as a marketing maniac willing to brainstorm with anyone.

Karyn and Greg built best selling careers as information brokers by combining the best of both worlds. She’s a speaker who writes; he’s a writer who speaks. Between them, they cover a lot of territory. It is summarized in their list of 101 Strategies and Tactics for success — no matter if you are more comfortable holding the pen or walking the podium. In the hope that I won’t contravene the Fair Use copyright laws I’ll list those that impressed me – to get the full list you would’ve had to have paid your $70 fee to attend the event.

Jump off the cliff

Take risks with your business. Avoid paralysis by analysis. Mimic the software industry — release version 1.0 and then refine and re-release. Version 1.0 of a your book may be 3 pages each of 12 chapters that will expand and grow as you gather feedback from people you share ‘pre-publication’ copies with in exchange for proofreading and their suggestions about what to add. (NOTE: Some use a blog in the same way – as a test market for your ideas and a forum to gather feedback.)

Write a great title

Books like Who Moved My Cheese? and Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus are mega-hits because of their title. Likewise, those that people ask for in Barnes & Noble as that seven habits book or the Prophecy thing sell as much by virtue of their title as their content.

To test-market a title share the idea with your favorite Starbucks barista then casually ask the next time you are in there if they remember the title. If a couple of dozen strangers can recall it then you have a winner.

Invest in designing the book cover

People do judge a book by its cover. So invest in the services of a pro designer to create your cover. Avoid covers that scream ‘Self Published’ to the world. Greg finds it useful to ask his designer for three concepts:

1. The cover you want
2. The cover Random House would create
3. A wild and crazy cover — within reason

Select the best font and images from these three and the result will be a killer book cover. The cover must address the audience. Be wary of putting your picture on it unless it’s a souvenir book (to sell from the Back of Room after speaking when the audience is fired up and wants a piece of you.)

Writing the book is the easy part

It’s all about marketing, positioning and branding. Publishing is a detail. Publishers are not really interested in selling books. They look first to grow their catalog with new titles. It’s your job to push product. Greg recommends negotiating long and hard to get a couple of thousand extra copies at cost + 10% (NOT wholesale – that’s one way the publisher rips off authors!). Use these books to power your publicity machine. Send a dozen at a time to local radio stations that will interview you and then give away copies to listeners who call in. Run a coordinated and relentless publicity campaign. Use the book to build your reputation and career. Professional speakers use their book to secure speaking engagements. Reach media people via the Radio-TV Interview Report. Use the book to generate articles about you. Tie into topics people are interested in. Coordinate with the annual cycle of news coverage (Valentines, Christmas etc.)

Speaking tips

As much as Greg told us about being successful in the publicity and publishing worlds, Karyn shared more about what makes a successful speaker. Writing might net you $1 a copy, speakers can command fees of $3-10K a speech. So you wanna make $100K a year? Do the math.

Look for humor in real life

Use stories instead of jokes. Funny means money. You don’t have to make stuff up – real life is full of humor. Audiences appreciate humor that makes you the fall guy. Most adult humor comes from pain. Triples are funny (A-one, A-Two, A-Three). Use funny words: “Chihuahua” beats “a dog”. Keep a humor file. Keep a file of ‘saver’ moments (for when things go wrong on the podium – lights fail, mike cuts out, PowerPoint goes black, you trip over). Get Jeanne Robertson’s book Don’t let the Funny Stuff Get Away and Terry Paulson’s book Making Humor Work.

Look for sponsors

If an event can’t afford your fees, get a sponsor. Local and regional sponsorships from major corporations are easier to come by than a national contract. Approach sponsors who want access to your audience. Tie the benefits of your speech back to product they wish to sell. Check out Aldonna Ambler’s talk from the 2oo4 NSA Convention on Corporate Sponsorship on the NSA website.

Look to improve

Invest in annual coaching. Invite other speakers to come see you. Join a Mastermind group. Always over-deliver. Stay active in the NSA. Read in your field and keep a clipping file. Study your competition. Use Mind Mapping to develop ideas. Show up to the conference early and attend other sessions. Track your topic with Google Alerts. Invest in an audio recorder and keep it with you.

Thanks to NSA member and Search Engine Optimization maven Steve Mertz for highlighting Wordtracker – a keyword research tool. This is invaluable for anyone writing a blog, researching a book or conducting a marketing campaign. It’s simple to use. Just enter a keyword see the ranking of the most popular uses of that term for the past 90 days.

Why bother?

If you are delivering online content the best keywords to use in your copy are those words and phrases commonly typed in by your potential customers, but which aren’t used much on your competitor’s websites. Wordtraker lists popular search terms.

For the cultural anthropologist or sociologist this also provides fascinating insights into contemporary mores. Here are a couple of examples.

Culture

An edited list of the rankings:

6104 the culture show
2324 mexican / mexico culture
1904 japanese culture
1867 chinese culture
1171 italian culture
1055 brazil / brazlian culture
1035 french culture
881 american culture
707 spain culture
650 aztec culture
631 native american culture
594 irish culture
592 german culture
590 african culture
587 indian culture
582 greek culture
569 jamaican culture
529 india culture
514 spanish culture
458 organizational culture
453 mayan culture
167 british culture
162 corporate culture

I’d never heard of the BBC program The Culture Show – it looks interesting and its popularity means it outranks the next five searches combined.

The listing of different country cultures contains some surprises. Mexico is the most popular individual country. Combining Mexican / Mexico/ Spanish and all the Latino countries (including Mayan) gives a total count of 8708. The next most popular individual countries are in Asia. Then Italy, Brazil and France. There’s a drop off to American culture (an oxymoron?). However, the real loser is British culture – the sun long since set on that yardstick of civilization.

At the bottom of the list, deservedly, is corporate culture. The ultimate non sequitur.

Speech

I did a detailed analysis that combined the many variations of ‘Wedding Speech’ ‘Best Man Speech’ and ‘Free Best Man Speech’. The result clearly shows the overwhelming interest of the general public in the wedding ceremony as the ultimate public speaking venue. One can only imagine the sweaty palms of the fathers of the bride and the best men across the nation furiously Googling their way out of a tight corner.

Martin Luther King’s I Have a Dream speech lives on as the single most influential call to action ever delivered. I don’t believe he employed a professional speechwriter for that one, did he? The next most popular individual speaker was also, unfortunately, influential in his own way. The third name on the list has never, ever, delivered an influential speech. Period.

19956 wedding speech
8013 i have a dream speech
3102 freedom of speech
2411 persuasive speech topics
1088 famous speeches
693 parts of speech
631 text to speech
911 free retirement speech
419 hitler speech
368 speech recognition
347 great speeches
336 figures of speech
540 speech writing
289 speech therapy
264 bush speech
261 free retirement speeches
259 graduation speeches
234 state of the union speech
192 speech pathology
190 informative speeches
188 informative speech
178 demonstration speeches
172 funny speech topics
146 christmas speeches
144 speech writing services
142 buy a speech

Other interesting keyword searches using Wordtracker: thin, free, green, paint, print, stock, Bill, Ian.

What have you discovered with Wordtracker? Leave a comment.

Shakespeare wrote his plays for the ear, not the eye. His punctuation is sloppy, the stage directions minimal.

It’s much more difficult to understand one of his plays if you just read the text silently. It’s only when you read aloud, or, better yet, see the play performed, that the power of the words is evident.

Example: Read the text of Henry V’s inspiring speech to his men before they go into battle against the French:

WESTMORELAND

O that we now had here
But one ten thousand of those men in England
That do no work to-day!

KING HENRY V

What’s he that wishes so?
My cousin Westmoreland? No, my fair cousin:
If we are mark’d to die, we are enow
To do our country loss; and if to live,
The fewer men, the greater share of honour.
God’s will! I pray thee, wish not one man more
.
.
.
Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host,
That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart; his passport shall be made
And crowns for convoy put into his purse:
We would not die in that man’s company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.
This day is called the feast of Crispian:
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when the day is named,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say ‘To-morrow is Saint Crispian’
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars.
And say ‘These wounds I had on Crispin’s day.’
Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot,
But he’ll remember with advantages
What feats he did that day: then shall our names.
Familiar in his mouth as household words
Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,
Be in their flowing cups freshly remember’d.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember’d;
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.

(Act IV, Scene iii)

Now hear the speech as delivered by Kenneth Branagh.

Branagh’s voice brings out the nuance, subtlety and power of the speech that we miss when we just read the words.

The King literally brings his audience toward him from among the trees with a fine display of ethos – building a bond with the “band of brothers”. The bond is strengthened by contrasting their role with those “now a-bed”. He inspires them by painting in words a glorious future: their part in a story that will be told from “this day to the ending of the world”.

Very little of the power of the speech relies on gesture. Branagh is restrained. His fist is rigid, gloved and powerful. He relies instead on his voice, moderated at first, rising to a crescendo with the “ending of the world”. Then, seconds later, cracking to a whisper for “we few, we happy few” in preparation for the final lines delivered first with restrained humor, then mocking indictment and the final rousing claim which cues the troops to cheer.

Executive Communications Lesson

Find a corner of the office, or a space outside (perhaps in the woods like Henry), where you can read every speech you write out loud. Try reading it at different speeds. With different emphasis. Then, when you are happy with it, take it to your executive and make them do the same. You’ll probably have to insist, most speakers would rather skim the text in the back of the car on the way to the event.

But then, they never had to ask their audience to go fight the French.

My first major series of Deep End topics is an assessment of a sociological theory known as Ethnomethodolgy to see if it’s got anything useful to say for those of us involved in public speaking, presentation skills coaching, speechwriting and executive communications.

Ethnomethodology is an obscure branch of sociology. It’s concerned with the ways in which social order is maintained. It describes the practices (the methods) people use to describe social settings.

Ethnomethodology was all the rage in the mid-1970’s when I was a graduate sociology student. It attracted those of us who were looking for an alternative to structural-functionalism (Talcott Parsons seemed such a boring old fart) and were tired of mainstream Marxist sociology (Karl Marx was another boring old fart).

It was a ‘hip’ social theory. It promised the excitement of Street Theater and Happenings. It didn’t take the fact of social order for granted (Yeah! Anarchy Rules, OK!) It encouraged people to see things around them as if for the first time. This resonated for students who’d experimented with hallucinogenic drugs. It was an intellectual cleansing of the doors of perception. It appealed to anyone enthralled by the afterglow of the sixties that bathed the student population of Europe in the early 1970’s.

It was cool. Obscure. Angular. Immediate. Some went on to build careers out of theories like this. The rest of us got $20 haircuts, entry-level jobs in corporations and conveniently developed amnesia for these angry critiques of our late adolescence.

So it’s with a sense of deja-vu I return to Ethnomethodology to see if it has any value for my life, thirty-five years after I first studied it. Are there any useful nuggets I can find to help my work in executive communications in the 21st Century? Will I see speechwriting as if for the first time?

My search, inspired, as I have said, by Roy H. Williams, is a deep dive into and report on the core elements of the theory that are relevant. I’ll strip out the academic jargon. And, frankly, plagiarize the academic sources without the usual attribution, but I will include a full set of references for sources I use.

My next posting in the series will examine what the heck Ethnomethodology is all about and why should speechwriters bother examining what everyone else takes for granted?

My inspiration for a ‘deep dive’ into science and philosophy as it affects executive communications (which I’m classifying as ‘Deep End’ postings) is ad-man extraordinary Roy H. Williams.

Before I launch into the first deep dive of my own, I’ll try and show how useful Roy’s insights derived from ‘complicated stuff’ can be.

Apart from his books, be sure to check out his archives of Monday Morning Memos – fascinating and instructive notes he emails every week.

Take as an example Chapter 21 of his book Secret Formulas of the Wizard of Ads.

In four brief pages Roy clarifies the visual and auditory processing power of the brain and how two key areas are involved when people hear and see advertising messages: Wernicke’s area where the visual and auditory associations meet and we assign names to objects and comprehend spoken language; and Broca’s area where language processing, speech production and comprehension occurs.

Roy concludes the chapter by saying:

Describe what you want the listener to see, and she will see it. Cause her to imagine taking the action you’d like her to take, and you’ve brought her much closer to taking the action. The secret of persuasion lies in our skillful use of action words. The magic of advertising is in the verbs. Just ask Broca.

Having set this up, Williams then explains, in subsequent chapters, how to write compelling ads by ‘surprising Broca’.

Williams is not afraid to risk losing some readers in his detours into ‘advanced’ theories of neuroscience and medicine. The reward for those of us who stick with him is an incredible insight into the ways that communication works in the world of advertising.

My goal, in future Deep End postings, is to explore detours of my own and see what lessons can be learned.

Stay tuned.

Ever noticed there’s a slew of consultants out there who will offer advice on what the well-groomed public speaker should be wearing?

It all began with Dress for Success.

Now, for the executive on the fast-track, there’s outfits like Global Image Group who offer to

Perfect your understanding of industry appropriate business attire using The Style Scale System and define your own personal style.

Why sweat the details of speech structure, message and authenticity in communications when it can all be reduced to implementing the guidelines of confident dressing and dress for the position you want, not the one you have. Look for help from Michelle, a Certified Image Master.

If people are wow’d by the clothes you wear they’ll not even notice the sweat on your brow and upper lip; detect the fear in your eyes or even take much notice of your face at all.

Ways of Seeing

A winter’s day in DC. While I slept snow came shawling out of the ground…drifted out of the arms and hands and bodies of the trees; snow grew overnight on the roofs of the houses like a pure and grandfather moss, minutely-ivied the walls. (A Child’s Christmas in Wales, Dylan Thomas).

A brisk, crunchy, half-mile walk up the road, past Dupont Circle, I dropped into Teaism to breakfast on a pot of Assam and scrambled tofu. One tea shop and a hundred coffee bars in the capital of a nation that declared its Independence by a consumer revolt against the far leaves – will they ever, ever let us forget?

Around the corner to The Phillips Collection, America’s first museum of modern art, opened in 1921. Housed in the elegant home of Duncan Phillips (1886–1966), the collection includes Renoir’s masterpiece Luncheon of the Boating Party, along with other outstanding Impressionist paintings by van Gogh, Manet, Berthe Morisot, Degas and Cézanne.

The museum is wonderful, intimate and easy to navigate in a couple of hours. The most memorable corner of the galleries was the small room where four of Mark Rothko’s large canvas multiforms hang in close proximity “overwhelming the walls�, and a single bench in the center anchors the viewer. I sat down, breathed in, and spent a good five minutes gazing at each canvas in turn.

Strange and wonderful emotions arose in me as the colors drew me in. The shadow below the frame became part of the soft edges of canvas, included in my field of vision. By the time I turned to view the third canvas, Green and Maroon, things became really interesting.

Rather than looking at the painting I looked into the painting.

The maroon shade of the lower third of the piece began to flux. Paler and deeper areas revealing luminous patterns of inner light changed the longer and more profoundly I held my gaze. The upper section repaid extended observation by morphing from a swirl of dust that into turbulent cloud then eddying currents of deep water.

All this movement came as an utter surprise, an unbidden reward given by the pause in time I spent with Rothko’s masterpiece. In the space between these two elements – between the green and the maroon – there hung a distant horizon, a thundercloud over desert floor, or a glimpse of planet-fall from the window of some interstellar spacecraft. Then, with a sudden surprise I returned to the upper segment and found the smallest pinprick of white sitting in the green, like the evening star. The second I noticed it, it appeared to move across and around, a drifting point on a fluid background. My experience of the painting became utterly subjective, profoundly meditative, surreal and beyond the comprehension of the logical mind.

You won’t get any of this from the representation on the web page above, or the poster on sale in the museum shop. The scale of the original created the experience. Size mattered. The power of the sunset that overwhelms us on the shoreline is lost when we share a snapshot of the same with others. Reality bites.

Executive Communications Lesson

Artists like Rothko communicate non-verbally.

However, I believe astute professional speakers can learn from the response people have to great Art.

Remember that the audience is looking at you as well as listening to you.

Use words to paint pictures.

Be aware of the soft edges of your presentation.

Suggest, play with tone and vary the intensity of your message.

Shades of meaning and the open space around the big issues invite participation. Draw them in. Show, don’t tell.

Paint big; then bring it up close and personal. Overwhelm the walls – have your voice fill the halls.

Give the audience time to discover the hidden depth in your message.

Try this one on for size: use Green and Maroon as the outline of your next speech. Here’s how. Fill the majority of the talk with two main arguments which you lay on in thick, varied, contrasting colors. Then leave a thin space between to excite their imagination. Examples of a transitional area between bold statements that might work for your speaker:

• Night becomes Day with the beauty of Dawn; let us awaken to this new opportunity
• Good arises from Evil at the moment we make the Right Choice; that decision must be made
• The Sky meets the Ground at a Distant Horizon; will you take the journey there with me?

Father McKenzie writing the words of a sermon that no one will hear
No one comes near.
Look at him working. Darning his socks in the night when there’s
nobody there
What does he care?

All the lonely people
Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people
Where do they all belong?

The Beatles ‘Eleanor Rigby’

Quick! What do HP, the AARP and the FBI have in common? No, it’s not geeky guys over 50 with a penchant for spying! Each of these organizations sent six or more speechwriters to the Ragan Speechwriters Conference.

The speakers at the event exhibited a love of French Generals and English Queens; I Claudius and Animal House. There were exhortations for writers to blog; speakers to stand sideways; calls for better rhetoric and simpler slides.

There was a fascination with great orators with three initials: MLK; JFK; FDR and WRC.

There were spooky representatives from the military-industrial complex: men and women from three-letter Agencies mixed with Canadian Space Agency people and guys and gals who were Proud to Be Americans.

At the other extreme there were free-associating consultants who Photoshopped salespeople with Beatles haircuts and billed their clients with a smile.

There were Fishbone Diagrams and Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level scales; baseline surveys and blogging platforms.

There was ethos, logos and pathos; decaf, regular and Earl Grey.

There was bone-chilling cold.

There were 250 people looking for the secret sauce so they can write the words of a sermon they hope someone will hear.

Gentlemen, he said,
I don’t need your organization, I’ve shined your shoes,
I’ve moved your mountains and marked your cards
But Eden is burning, either brace yourself for elimination
Or else your hearts must have the courage for the changing of the guards.

Bob Dylan ‘Changing of the Guards’