Writing in the Weekend FT, Matthew Engel highlights the benefits of modern railway systems and notes that the UK and US both have their unique limitations.

The British invented the railways and spread them across the world. I grew up in the rail town of Crewe, which was always considered something of a joke, as depicted in the 19th Century music hall song Oh! Mr. Porter

Oh! Mr Porter, what shall I do?
I want to go to Birmingham
And they’re taking me on to Crewe,
Send me back to London, as quickly as you can,
Oh! Mr Porter, what a silly girl I am.

Many in Britain have had the experience of changing trains on Crewe Station. A select few call the town of 60,000 their home. It’s been in decline since the locomotive works closed and Rolls-Royce motors moved (although luxury Bentley’s are still manufactured there).

High Speed Network planned

However, plans are afoot to change the whole basis of a Victorian rail network trying to compete with French TGV’s and Japanese and Chinese bullet trains.

Engel notes it is facing an uphill struggle:

HS2, the planned multibillion pound, 170mph high-speed line from London to the north that is the government’s pet project, is almost universally derided. The concept is indeed flawed — it offers too few useful connections with existing lines — but on all current projections it is essential, not for its extra speed but for the extra capacity to deal with record numbers of passengers.

The local Crewe newspaper recently announced that a £5bn HS2 “super hub” station will be built in Crewe. It’s slated to open in 2027 and will help deliver more than 120,000 new jobs and see over 100,000 new homes built across the region. Anyone wanting to enjoy the bucolic Cheshire countryside would be advised to do so while it remains.

Good Morning, America, How Are You?

The rail network in the US is quite different. As generations of hobos and Matthew Engel have noted:

..the 140,000 miles of railroad are synonymous with freight trains, which still play a major part in the US economy. Indeed, outside the Amtrak-owned Boswash corridor, the freight companies own the tracks: if there is a question of priority, it’s the passengers who are likely to get shunted into a siding. (This is almost exactly the opposite to the UK, where freight traffic has always been marginal and is now in decline yet again, because of the closure of coal-fired power stations, the withdrawal of biomass subsidies, and the collapse of the domestic steel industry.)

Plans to launch high-speed trains between LA and San Francisco and cities a similar distance apart in Texas and the North East, are, like Britain’s HS2 plans, being measured in decades, not years.

All of this is in stark contrast to the rail network in China where over 10,000 miles of track serves over 2.5 million riders.The 800+ mile journey from Beijing to Shanghai takes just 5 hours.

Engel concludes:

A successful public transport system is a national benefit. William Gladstone understood this in Victorian times; Japan, China and most of western Europe accept it explicitly. For much of the world, the past 40 years have indeed been the second age of the train. British politicians get the point implicitly but execute policy furtively and cack-handedly; only American Republicans are visceral and obstructive deniers.

Felicity H. Barber is a speechwriter, executive communications specialist and coach. She write speeches, advises business leaders on messaging and coaches people to deliver stellar presentations and pitches. Before moving to San Francisco from London she was an in-house speechwriter at Lloyd’s of London, the global insurer. She wrote speeches and prepared business executives for presentations, panel discussions and conferences all around the world. And, she once wrote a book presented as a gift to HM The Queen. This posting appears with her express permission.

It’s exactly a year since I waved goodbye to family, friends and a stable job as an in-house speechwriter in London’s Square Mile (the city’s financial center). On 31 July 2015 I stepped off the plane, into the San Francisco fog and started a new life as a freelance speechwriter and communications consultant in Silicon Valley.

After twelve months working in the world’s high-tech mecca I want to share some of the biggest differences between doing business in Fog City and the Big Smoke.

Everyone has a side hustle

When I told people at home I was planning on becoming a solo entrepreneur in San Francisco most of them thought I was mad. My friends were in agreement: moving to a new country and setting up a business can both be done, but are best not attempted at the same time! Nonetheless, I persevered: I networked, I blogged, I got on the social media bandwagon, and eventually I won my first client, then another, and another. I put my success down to my passion for what I do, dogged determination, but also how positive the Bay Area culture is about entrepreneurs. Everyone here has a start-up, a freelance gig or a side hustle. As a result there are systems here to support new ventures, whether that’s incubators, angel investors or co-working spaces. What’s perhaps even more important is that the ‘home of the free’ is also the land of innovation: there’s a willingness to try what’s untested. It doesn’t matter that you’re new in town; most of the people you meet here came from somewhere else and were new themselves once. They will give you a go and if they like you they’ll keep coming back for more.

Things move at lightening speed

I spent the first few years of my career in the public and charity sector. It will be no surprise to you to hear that things moved s l o w l y. In 2012 I decided it was time I experienced what life was like in the private sector, or the ‘real world’ as my civil service friends affectionately called it. I took a job at the insurer Lloyd’s of London. The move was one of the best I’ve ever made. I worked with some wonderful people and learned a ton, but the cogs of specialist insurance don’t exactly turn at breakneck speed either. This is in huge contrast to the lightening pace of business in the Bay Area. In the UK I’ve waited weeks to hear back after a job interview; in San Francisco I’ve pitched for business on a Monday and had a contract signed on Tuesday. The change of pace is refreshing, but it does mean that you need to be ready to spring into action at a moment’s notice. Slow coaches need not apply.

Get used to a new dress code

In my corporate office in London I was constantly tripping on my heels, tugging down my skirt or looking for a reasonable dry cleaner for my dresses. This is not a problem in the Bay Area! As I do 90% of my work from home I can of course work in my birthday suit if I so choose! (Indeed, there are reported cases of Silicon Valley workers doing just that.) However, I prefer to greet the day and my work fully clothed. Even when I go to a client’s office I leave my heels at home. San Francisco is decidedly more casual that London. Not everyone goes for the Zuckerberg jeans and T-shirt combo, but you’re probably safe to ditch your tie and swap your crisp, white shirt for a plaid one.

Sometimes when I’m at a clients’ office sitting around on beanbags, it must be said, I miss the formality of London. But the entrepreneurial spirit, the give-anything-a-go-once attitude, and the quick pace all make the Bay Area a fantastic place to do business.

In a book that is in part the machinations of The Good Wife and in part the political farce of Yes Minister, Barton Swaim shares insights he gained into the life of a speechwriter during the second term of South Carolina governor Mark Sanford.

The author of The Speechwriter does not dwell on the series of unfortunate events that led to the downfall of the governor of South Carolina. For those who need to validate the details, it’s all in Wikipedia.

In the end, it was all part of the rich tapestry of American political life: a moralizing public figure is betrayed by peccadillos that would not be worthy of comment in many countries. However, the public delights in destroying, if only temporarily, the careers of its leaders. Sanford survives to live out his term, leaving the speechwriter to edit his form letters and remove references to ‘family’, ‘integrity’, ‘honesty’ and, of course, ‘Argentina’.

This speechwriter’s lot was not a happy one. Swaim captures the arc of his career in excruciating detail. From initial enthusiasm and surprise that he was to become the chief wordsmith to a sitting governor where ‘the idea of turning phrases for a living seemed irresistible’, to despair at his lot and envy of the janitorial staff in the government buildings who were happy just checking lightbulbs for a living. He dreaded going into the office and the strain of the job was almost unbearable.

What went wrong?

After an all-to-brief honeymoon period, Swaim discovered the ‘stark difference’ between the charming public persona of the governor and the realities of dealing with the man in private. His boss has a unique relationship with the English language that deeply offends the writer with the PhD in English. He copes by creating a list of stock phrases that mimic the ‘voice’ of the man he’s writing for. He uses phrases such as ‘in large measure’ and ‘frankly’ to pad speeches, op-eds, letters and other written communications that are an endless demand on his time. As is typical, he’s responsible for much more than speeches. He regularly produces four or five options of each speech for the governor to review, and learns to keep one in reserve for the times all his written drafts are thrown back at him.

The governor berates him with requests to re-do speeches ‘again’ and returns drafts with terse demands that they ‘need work’. Despite his best efforts, he’s often the butt of withering scorn.

However, Swaim has the insight that none of this is meant personally. He highlights the sheer volume of communication a politician must generate, and points out that people

…don’t know what it’s like to be expected to make comments, almost every working day, on things of which they have little or no reliable knowledge or about which they just don’t care.

Cork Bored

The need for the governor to heap abuse on the speechwriter had nothing to do with being hurtful:

For him to try to hurt you would have required him to acknowledge your significance. If you were on his staff, he had no knowledge of your personhood … he was giving vent to his own anxieties, whatever they were. It was as if you were one of those pieces of cork placed in the mouth of wounded soldiers during an amputation. The soldier didn’t chew the work because he hated it but because it was therapeutic to bite hard. Often I felt like that piece of cork.

That is not what I meant, at all

As a record of the daily life of a speechwriter this account rang all too true. My own experience in corporate America has often mirrored the account Swaim presents of speechwriting in the political arena. The one major difference being that very few corporate leaders have to communicate as frequently as politicians. However, there can be the same demands for endless revisions, fact checking of obscure points and navigation of outsized egos as Swaim describes. The role of speechwriter as alchemist, ploughman, and motley fool has not changed since attendant lords, full of high sentence, advised princes of power in Medieval times.

My one beef with the book is that it lives up to its subtitle as ‘A Brief Education in Politics’ and is too short. Mark Sanford has since gone on to be re-elected to Congress for South Carolina’s 1st District. Just as much of the intrigue of The Good Wife happens after the initial fall, so I can’t help but wonder what sort of a book the current speechwriter to Congressman Sanford might write. A sequel surely awaits.

A memoir by a shy and retiring British aristocrat with the unlikely title Cold Cream: My Early Life and Other Mistakes would not usually grab my attention, or warrant a review in this blog.

However, Ferdinand “Ferdy” Mount’s autobiography is a delightful book filled with tales of a vanished world. He grew up a member of the British upper class. His family was never wealthy, but he was in line for a Baronetcy and they had enough money to send him to private schools and on to Eton and Oxford. Throughout his life, relatives, friends and acquaintances saw to it that Ferdy was alright. His career required “the oxygen of influence” from members of the Establishment who take care of their own. After working as a children’s nanny and gossip columnist, he did a stint as a leader writer on the now defunct newspaper the Daily Sketch. Following his time as a newspaperman, Ferdy then spent a few haphazard years assisting various Conservative Party politicians with reports and considered running for Parliament in a half-hearted way.

Margaret Thatcher

Then, out of the sky blue yonder, on p. 281 of his life story, the phone rings:

By the time Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister I had long ago abandoned any thought of a political career and had happily settled for a life of writing anything that came to hand or mind. So it was a total surprise when her economic adviser Alan Walters rang up on 3 March 1982 and asked whether I would care to come and work for her.

He’s offered the job of running the policy unit and Number Ten Downing Street.

Mount comments “…I had never run anything and had zero experience of the workings of government.” Not a concern to the Iron Lady.

It transpired on meeting Mrs. Thacher that there was a fundamental misunderstanding: he thought of himself as a policy wonk, she hired him as a speech writer. Oh well, thinks Ferdy, “…I suppose many marriages have started on a worse basis.”

His description of life inside Number Ten is astute and hilarious. The strategic position of the gents loo allows cabinet ministers respite from their colleagues. He details where Dennis Thatcher keeps his golf clubs, how the residence of the Prime Minister was accessible via a back stairway where he could slip last minutes notes in the PM’s briefing boxes late at night, where the Downing Street cat sleeps. He confirms the accuracy of the way the Civil Service is portrayed in the BBC series Yes Minister.

Speechwriting at Number Ten

Mount reveals the “full horror” of the speechwriting process in preparing for major events.

The first draft I served up was there simply to be torn up and binned, while she began to think what she might actually want to say.

Politicians would submit jokes for his consideration. They were ignored.

Eccentric members of the ruling class would offer suggestions for speech content, including one who “sported a thin Mafioso moustache and grubby tennis shoes under a pinstripe suit (who) claimed to have a squad of West Indians on roller skates whom at a moment’s notice he could despatch all over London to find out what word on the street was…”

In addition to speech content, Mrs. T. needed coaching in delivery:

Her ear was unfailingly tinny and, though she could be devastating and inspiring in unscripted harangues, the sight of a written text would make her freeze. Even though the words might have been of her own devising…at first reading they would fall lifeless from her lips.

A “portly, fruity” playwright “redolent of the old West End” was there to advise on delivery:

‘Come on, darling, they want you to show you really feel it.’ She would look at him, bewildered but dutiful, the novice on her first engagement in rep.

Preparing her address to the annual Conservative party conference in a year when she was not challenged for leadership (that would come later) bemused Mount. Thatcher spent 18 hours preparing “for the one speech in the year in which she was assured of receiving a rapturous standing ovation.”

The final version of the speech contains none of his “smart phrases” but has the conventional “more direct, brutal way of putting things that she felt comfortable with.”

He acknowledges that speeches like this are where politicians focus their energy because they are about the “mechanics of getting and holding power.”

The humble manner in which Mount tells of his time in the corridors of power make this a delightful read and a lesson in the many ways speechwriters can function. Recommended.

The Weekend FT continues to delight with unexpected and refreshing views.

I’ve noticed before that, unlike any American newspaper I know of, it has no problem using explicatives when the context calls for them.

The latest example is Sarah Churchwell’s article on censorship at the cinema.

She notes that The Wolf of Wall Street

“…is the sweariest mainstream film in cinema history, with some viewers counting as many as 569 audible instances of the word “fuck” over its three-hour duration.”

What’s remarakble about the article is that the FT prints the word as above, not as “f**k” or “the F-word” or even “the f-bomb” as most American newspapers would.

Indeed, the article quotes the word eight times (including “motherfucker” and “fucker”) and a search on the ft.com site reveals a rich store of articles on a variety of topics that include ‘fuck’ in the text.

Personally, I find it refreshing (even fucking amazing!) that a word the majority of FT readers use on a daily basis (pace The Wolf of Wall Street, those who work on trading desks in finance perhaps more than most) is not censored from the pink ‘uns pages.

What this says about the laws governing the press in the UK vs. the USA, the Puritanical roots of American culture, and the decline of Western civilization, I leave for my blog readers to comment on.

Christopher Caldwell writes in the Weekend FT about a new book, The Age of the Image: Redefining Literacy in a World of Screens, by Stephen Apkon (available tomorrow on Amazon).

Apkon argues that there is a new kind of global literacy, based not on words, but images. This looks like a significant book for anyone involved in executive communications, speechwriting or professional speaking. The Amazon review states:

We live in a world that is awash in visual storytelling. The recent technological revolutions in video recording, editing, and distribution are more akin to the development of movable type than any other such revolution in the last five hundred years. And yet we are not popularly cognizant of or conversant with visual storytelling’s grammar, the coded messages of its style, and the practical components of its production. We are largely, in a word, illiterate.

But this is not a gloomy diagnosis of the collapse of civilization; rather, it is a celebration of the progress we’ve made and an exhortation and a plan to seize the potential we’re poised to enjoy. The rules that define effective visual storytelling—much like the rules that define written language—do in fact exist, and Stephen Apkon has long experience in deploying them, teaching them, and witnessing their power in the classroom and beyond. In The Age of the Image, drawing on the history of literacy—from scroll to codex, scribes to printing presses, SMS to social media—on the science of how various forms of storytelling work on the human brain, and on the practical value of literacy in real-world situations, Apkon convincingly argues that now is the time to transform the way we teach, create, and communicate so that we can all step forward together into a rich and stimulating future.

Caldwell quotes Elizabeth Daley, Dean of USC’s School of Cinematic Arts, who believes writing today is like Latin on the eve of the Renaissance–the language of scholars. YouTube clips are now the street language and the medium of creative thinking–the equivalent of vernacular Italian.

Apkon’s book includes chapters on why the brain sees pictures first and the rules of grammar in the age of images.

This sounds like a fascinating and provocative book and I’ve just pre-ordered my copy. I’ll overlook the fact that this is 260-page printed book and not a 120-minute movie. I’ve always considered myself more of a scholar like Cicero than some street-smart guy haggling on the Via Salaria.

Marianne Gobeil is the CEO and founder of Leading Communicators. A recognized expert in the area of strategic leadership communications, Marianne is a trusted adviser to executive leaders — so devoted to helping them advance their leadership goals and objectives that she formed a company around it.

I was watching the film “The King’s Speech” again the other day, and it struck me that executive leaders today have a lot in common with King George VI. Not because they both stutter – although some certainly do, at least strategically. But because each faced a cosmic shift when it comes to communication. And in both cases, the disruptor was technology.

For King George, it was the “wireless” that fundamentally changed how he engaged with the British people. Have a listen to the counsel his father gives him:

Suddenly, centuries of tradition were disrupted. The old ways of ruling – from a distance, seen and heard by few – had been supplanted by a device that forged an immediate, close connection between the King and his people. The radio meant he was now present in their homes, and created the perception that he was speaking to them personally. What he said, and how he said it, now mattered, as there was a direct and immediate connection to them.

And now the same is true of executive leaders. We’ve all been customized for many decades at having people speak to us in our homes through radio and television. It had already started to surface in a different level of expectation outside the home as well; people wanted to feel that same sense of connectedness whenever someone spoke to them, even across a podium.

But now it’s different. People not only expect a speaker to connect with them; they expect to be able to connect right back. Social media is the great disruptor of our age. It’s opened the channels, and made one-way communication insufficient and perhaps ultimately obsolete.

The impact on executive leaders is huge. The two-way nature of social media has changed the rules of engagement. Like old kings ruling from a far, executive leaders can no longer lead from on high; they need to engage. They must be seen and heard by their employees and other stakeholders. What they say, when they say it, and how they say it matters because it carries far and fast.

So here’s the new reality for executive leaders: Speak up. Engage well and often. And when you speak, whether at a podium or across a meeting room, be sure you speak to the actual people in the room. Show them that you are aware of their specific interests and concerns, use the language and level of detail that they understand, and give them an opportunity to respond. The old days of one-way communication are gone, and clinging to them will reflect badly on your leadership.

This post originally appeared in Marianne’s blog. It is re-posted here with her express permission.

A report in today’s Financial Times notes that the newly appointed governor of the Bank of England, Canadian Mark Carney, was chosen for his communication skills:

As Jennifer Jeffs, president of the Canadian International Council, a think-tank, puts it: “He doesn’t speak like an economist; he speaks like a human being.”

Evan Solomon, the Canadian writer and broadcaster, suggests those communication skills may be the greatest asset that George Osborne, the chancellor, saw in him, to restore confidence not just in monetary policy, which will be Mr Carney’s direct responsibility, but in the UK economic strategy as a whole. “The administration needs someone who can speak to the people,” Mr Solomon says. “People will not just trust him, but feel he’s a human being.”

Given the turgid prose employed by many central bankers, the bar is not set too high for a plain-spoken Canadian to win the hearts and minds of the British. Of course, when you’ve got them by their mortgage rates, their hearts and minds will follow.

The first Elizabethan Age lasted 45 years from 1558 to 1603 and saw a flowering of English influence through international expansion and naval triumphs. It witnessed a renaissance in poetry, music and literature, most noticeably the works of William Shakespeare.

The Second Elizabethan Age began on February 6, 1952 and celebrations are currently being held to mark the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II. There has undoubtedly been a decline in English influence and, the Falklands War aside, few naval triumphs. Nevertheless, England produced the Beatles, Rolling Stones and The Who and so was responsible for a renaissance of sorts.

Since my life has been almost exactly coterminous with the Queen’s reign I can claim, even more than Shakespeare could, to be an Elizabethan. Although I left England over 30 years ago, I still hold a British passport. I love my Marmite, Cheshire cheese & Branston pickle and admit to getting a chill down my spine when I heard them play Land of Hope and Glory on Sunday.

So here’s to Her Majesty who, as the Beatles sang is “a pretty nice girl, but she doesn’t have a lot to say.”

Rachna Srivastava is a passionate speaker. Her goal is to inspire and empower girls, women and other underrepresented groups in science, technology, engineering and math. Her vision is of a global program that nurtures and encourages technical and mathematical skills in women and other minority groups. Rachna is a software developer with 15 years experience in software analysis, design, development and implementation. Her educational background includes a Masters in Business Administration in Finance (MBA), Masters in Science in Statistics (MS) and Project Management Professional (PMP) certification. She is currently a Software Engineer at HP working with development teams in a complex, globally-dispersed environment. Before joining HP in 2010 she worked as a Software Engineer at IBM for nearly nine years.

Women in Information Technology

Rachna asks, “Did you know that in the next decade, the national demand for scientists and engineers is expected to increase four times that of all other occupations? But where are women? The population of women in information technology has dropped from 40% of the workforce in 1986 to only 20% now and the number is still dropping.”

The importance of inclusion and diversity

Rachna lists three reasons why we should care about having women leaders in technology:

1. A recent study done at MIT shows that a well-managed diverse group produces more innovative solution to problems than homogeneous groups. Why is so? We know that to create innovation we have to have diversity of thoughts and in order to have diverse thoughts we need to have diverse set of people bringing these ideas.
2. Women tend to be emphatic and empathy creates a more complete picture of issues, which contributes to changing consumer behavior. This understanding is critical to both product development and product marketing.
3. Women are good collaborators, they are more likely to ask for advice and consider other peoples opinion. They encourage employees participation, and when employees participate they feel powerful and important and get them excited about their work. This is good not only for employees but also for the organization.

You can read more on this and other topics on her Geek Woman Speaker blog.

Pro-Track Profile

I met with Rachna and asked her about her background and the initial steps she is taking on her journey to get the word out about her important message. To hear what she told me, and her impressions of the National Speakers Association Pro-Track class that she is part of, click on the podcast icon below.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 6:06 — 1.4MB)

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