No member of the National Speakers Association speaks to as many people on a daily basis as does Karen Jacobsen. Her voice is one of the options on over 100 million GPS systems and 300 million smartphones. She’s the one we hear when lose our way and the GPS tells us it is ‘recalculating’.

On Saturday she spoke to members of the NSA Northern California Chapter.

Oh Say Can You See?

Karen, a professional singer-songwriter raised in Australia and now a native of New York, began her presentation with a stunning rendition of the American national anthem — she’s sung The Star Spangled Banner in baseball stadiums across the country. She then gave the motivational speech she delivers to corporate clients, listing five ‘GPS Girl’ life-lessons, interspersed with her own songs:

• Is your inner GPS telling you that you are off your route?
• Are you willing to change direction?
• Have you clarified your destination?
• Are you ready to embrace the steering wheel?
• Accelerate!

Her speaker demo reel shows some of what we enjoyed:

Directions for Speaker Success

Following this showcase presentation, Karen shifted gears (so to speak) and shared her insights into success in the speaking business. She helped us navigate a list of 44 directions for speaker success in business, well-being, speech delivery and quality of life. They included recommendations on everything from being sure to stay hydrated (crucial for all speakers, not just singers), eating a diet of living foods, avoiding toxins, daily meditation practice and exercise to keeping an uncluttered office, participating in a mastermind group and working with a business coach. She emphasized these are a destination to aim for, not something we achieve immediately.

Taking Care of Business

Here’s the GPS Girl’s list of business goals:

1. I can describe the outcomes for my clients in one sentence.
2. I have a three minute Speaker Video I am proud of.
3. My website is updated regularly and clearly represents my brand.
4. I am using professional photographs taken in the past 12 months.
5. My business cards are on excellent high quality stock.
6. My social media strategy works for me and my online and offline presence are consistent.
7. I use Quickbooks (or an equivalent), my accounting is up-to-date and taxes are paid.
8. I know I look well-groomed and feel confident walking into any room.
9. I make daily phone calls as part of my marketing strategy.
10. I save at least 10% of my income.
11. I am earning my target revenue.

These are valuable goals for any freelancer, entrepreneur or small business owner, not just those in the speaking profession.

To hear a short extract from Karen’s presentation, discussing the first two of these business goals, click on the podcast icon below.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 4:54 — 1.6MB)

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Members of the Silicon Valley Speechwriters Roundtable joined David Murray on a conference call earlier this week. This is the third and final edited highlight of the call. In part one David talked about the way the profession has changed. In part two he reviewed highlights from the 2015 Ragan Speechwriters Conference.

In this third edited highlight, he discusses the importance of the Professional Speechwriters Association and shares some of his experiences as editor of Vital Speeches of the Day.

To hear what he said, click on the podcast icon below.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 8:27 — 2.9MB)

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Silicon Valley Speechwriters Roundtable joined David Murray on a conference call earlier this week. This is the second of two edited highlights of the call. In part one David talked about the way the profession has changed.

In this second edited highlight, he reviews the highlights from the 2015 Ragan Speechwriters Conference which took place in Washington DC last week.

David shares how impressed he was with the keynote by Rod Thorn, a Communication Executive at PepsiCo. In his talk Rod, who came from the humblest of origins, tells how he comes to understand his ultimate worth: “I am the people I’ve been flying over.”

David also comments on the initiative that Mark Buchanan shared about the ways they are changing the way people at Cisco write and speak. His team is helping people use language in simpler, more distinctive ways.

Finally, he touches on the presentation by Monique Visintainer, an Executive Communications Manager at Microsoft, who discussed how best to organize executive communications plans and set goals in the corporate setting.

To hear what he said, click on the podcast icon below.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 13:51 — 4.8MB)

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Members of the Silicon Valley Speechwriters Roundtable joined Vital Speeches of the Day Editor David Murray on a conference call earlier this week. This is the first of three edited highlights of the call.

David is executive director of the Professional Speechwriters Association and was the MC of the recent Ragan Speechwriters Conference. He’s been a fixture on the speechwriting scene since the early 1990’s.

In this part of the conference call, David reflects on the changes in the profession of speechwriting since the days of the “pipe smoking, erudite and slightly eccentric” gentlemen speechwriters of the old school.

To hear what he said, click on the podcast icon below.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 9:12 — 3.2MB)

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There are over 11 million corporate meetings every day in the United States, yet how often do we walk into a corporate meeting wondering why we are there? Or walk out angry that we’ve wasted another precious hour and accomplished nothing?

What makes for a good conversation, or a meaningful meeting? Why are good conversations so elusive? How can we use our communications and leadership skills to ensure that more conversations at work excite participants, enable them to connect deeply with each other, and enhance organizational productivity?

These were some of the questions raised in an NSA/NC Salon held last Sunday, hosted by Wendy Hanson, featuring Chapter President-Elect Jim Ware.

Jim is the author of Changing the Corporate Conversation (forthcoming) and a former Harvard Business School professor who has spent his entire career teaching clients how to invent their own futures. He is the founder and Executive Director of The Future of Work…unlimited, Global Research Director for Occupiers Journal Limited, and a Partner with the FutureWork Forum. He is also a co-founder of the new Great Work Cultures movement.

Jim believes that as leaders in organizations and communications specialists we all have an opportunity — and responsibility — to focus our energy of drawing out the unique insights and experiences that each of us brings to the workplace. Teams that understand the power of collaboration, rooted in authentic conversation, make the whole greater than the sum of the parts.

The Social Construction of Reality

My own interest in conversation pre-dates my life in the corporate world. Reading C Wright Mills in my Leicester University Sociology class left an indelible impression. His 1940 paper on Situated Actions and Vocabularies of Motive explains the social, rather than the psychological, reasons people say what they do in conversation with others. Certain statements will be acceptable in some contexts, not in others. Indeed, as I’ve written here before, the ‘technology of interaction’ in meetings points to a whole raft of unstated assumptions, social norms, cultural influences and power relations underpinning conversations.

Want to see these social forces in action? They’re not difficult to spot. It’s as simple as watching when an idea voiced by a woman in a meeting is ignored, while the same from a man is applauded. Or listening to how much more loudly people laugh at the boss’s jokes than yours.

Talk Talk

Following Mills, sociologists such as Garfinkle and Goffman developed the sociology of conversation analysis. In formal meetings, as well as informal interactions, responses which agree with the position advocated tend to be offered sooner than statements that disagree with those positions. One consequence of this is that agreement and acceptance are easier alternatives and a natural outcome of many meetings.

Fair Warning

So, next time you’re in a meeting where they call for ‘honest feedback’ just remember the warning of the French philosopher:

But I digress.

To hear some of what Jim shared at the meeting, click on the podcast icon below.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 5:48 — 1.4MB)

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Members of the Silicon Valley Speechwriters Roundtable joined speechwriter, screenwriter and author Mike Long on a conference call earlier this week. This is the second of two edited highlights of the call. In part one Mike talked about becoming a freelance speechwriter.

In this second edited highlight, Mike talks about how his experience as a screenwriter helps him write better speeches and the core elements essential to any story. To hear what he said, click on the podcast icon below.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 6:53 — 1.7MB)

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Members of the Silicon Valley Speechwriters Roundtable joined speechwriter, screenwriter and author Mike Long on a conference call earlier this week. This is the first of two edited highlights of the call.

Mike is the former director of the White House Writers Group, and an accomplished speechwriter, author, essayist, and award-winning screenwriter and playwright. He has written remarks for members of Congress, U.S. Cabinet secretaries, governors, diplomats, CEOs, and four presidential candidates.

As director of writing for the Master of Professional Studies program in Public Relations and Corporate Communications at Georgetown University, he created the writing curriculum and teaches graduate courses in PR writing, speechwriting, and business and persuasive writing.

A popular and provocative speaker, he has been is a frequent presenter the Ragan Speechwriters Conference and appeared on CNBC in the U.S. and is a frequent commentator on CBC News: Morning with Heather Hiscox in Canada.

In this first of two edited highlights from the call, Mike talks about how he got into freelance writing and offers sage advice for anyone who is considering launching their own freelance career. To hear what he said, click on the podcast icon below.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 7:29 — 1.8MB)

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“The job is not doing the speech. It is getting the speech” – Shep Hyken

The National President of the NSA, Shep Hyken, CSP, CPAE spoke to members of the NSA Northern California Chapter on Saturday. Shep is a customer service expert, professional speaker and author who works with companies who want to build loyal relationships with their customers and employees.

His talk to the 80+ Chapter members and guests was a compendium of best practices he’s gathered over the 32 years he’s been a professional speaker. He shared the tips and techniques that he has used to build his own successful speaking business. His ideas ranged from the value of writing articles that will establish you as an expert in your field to how blogging, books, a website and social media are all part of a coordinated program to build momentum in the market.

Among the points I noted:

Shep’s talk covered many more topics including the secrets of low-cost book publishing in hard cover; scripting your calls to prospective clients when using the phone to build your business; generating passive income from products, and more.

To hear Shep in action, click on the podcast icon below. These two brief extracts of the his talk cover the ways he cultivates the ideal client and as his incredible 5-day social media publishing schedule that is a key part of his active marketing.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 7:44 — 1.8MB)

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TuneIn is a popular app available for iOS and Android devices. It allows anyone to listen to radio stations from around the world. With over 50 million monthly active users, TuneIn lets people listen to the world’s sports, news, talk, and music from wherever they are. TuneIn has over 100,000 radio stations and more than four million on-demand podcasts streaming from every continent.

I’ve built a preliminary TuneIn playlist that includes current episodes of the Iain Anderson Show from BBC Radio Scotland, Late Junction from BBC Radio 3, and A Way with Words from NPR. In the future I expect to browse for music programs to add from Australia, Thailand and Ireland. Any suggestions?

Podcasting on TuneIn

While my Professionally Speaking podcast is available on iTunes in the U.S., I don’t believe this is case outside of America. So I was pleased to discover that TuneIn allows anyone with a podcast feed to upload their material so that it is carried on this platform with a global reach. I’ve now added Professionally Speaking to TuneIn.

If you have a podcast that you’d like featured on TuneIn simply fill in this form.

It’s been over seven years since I recorded my first podcast and six years since I posted my Podcasting 101 tutorial. I’ve been encouraged by the growing popularity of podcasts and my own playlist allows me to listen to the BBC, NPR and experts such as Wendy Hanson and Phil McKinney.

However, it wasn’t until I read the cover story in the Financial Times Weekend Life & Arts section this week that I realized the extent to which podcasting has come of age. Sarah Gordon and Shannon Bond report on The Serial , a new weekly podcast that has attracts over 2.2 million listeners. The series has been downloaded over 20 million times.

The Serial debuted in October 2014 and is a spinoff of the NPR radio program This American Life. The episodes are about the 1999 murder of a Baltimore high school student for which the woman’s ex-boyfriend is serving a life sentence.

The podcast resonates with the millennial generation and has generated ancillary blogs, YouTube videos and meetup groups of listeners.

The FT quotes Edison Research statistics stating that 39 million Americans, 15% of the over-12 population, listened to a podcast last month. Brands are increasingly interested in podcasts and popular ones like The Serial (sponsored by MailChimp) are profitable.

Whenever I tell people about podcasting, I’m asked “How do you make money?”. My answer is that you and I can’t. The average podcaster can burnish their professional reputation and promote interest in topics and people that interest them. However, just as with amateur vs. professional sports, just because you might enjoy hitting a ball around at the weekend for fun, it does not mean you’re at the same level as a professional producer from This American Life who hits one out of the park.