The Third meeting of the Pro-Track training sponsored by the National Speakers Association, Northern California, took place on March 18. This month’s focus was choosing and developing a target market for your professional speaking career. Someone remarked that choosing a niche or target market was like looking into a kaleidoscope: one small twist in perspective and the whole picture changes. I felt, like some others in the room, that I had hit a wall with Pro-Track this month. There’s so many books on the reading lists, so many options to consider. Actions, as always, speak louder than words ( Blogging about things is maybe a middle way). Simply choosing an area of focus and doing something is better by far than sitting around thinking about it.

We heard from two speakers who had been doing something well for over twenty years.

Jenny De St Georges

Delivers trainings and presentations on dental practice management. The first weekend she spoke she made $20,000 and she has not looked back. Some of her tips and tricks:

Ric Giardina

I was amazed to discover that Ric and I had both worked at MicroPro back in the mid-1980’s. I was buried in Technical Support getting my start in the computer biz, he was in the executive suite as Corporate Counsel. Seems like a lifetime ago. WordStar, Control KD.

Ric now speaks on a variety of topics to corporate America: Authenticity, Balance, Community, Discipline. He moves between speaking, facilitating and training. You need an ability to do all three to succeed. He communicates the wisdom people need to succeed in a world buried in data and information. Some speakers just give you data, and leave you wondering “So What”. People pay good money to hear real wisdom. Arrive at least a day early at a conference. Hang out at the reception and use what you hear in your speech.

Ric’s Ten Thoughts on Corporate Clients:

Ric had a great reading list:

You Are the Message by Roger Ailes
Transitions: Making Sense of Life’s Changes by William Bridges
Corporate Celebration: Play, Purpose, and Profit at Work by Terrence E. Deal, M. K. Key
Leadership is an Art by Max Depree
Your Authentic Self: Be Yourself at Work by Ric Giardina
Emotional Intelligence : Why It Can Matter More Than IQ by Daniel Goleman
The Abilene Paradox and Other Meditations on Management by Jerry B. Harvey
The Corporate Mystic : A Guidebook for Visionaries with Their Feet on the Ground by Gay Hendricks, Kate Ludeman
The Change Handbook: Group Methods for Shaping the Future by Tom Devane, Peggy Holman
Jesus CEO : Using Ancient Wisdom for Visionary Leadership by Laurie Beth Jones
Work As a Spiritual Practice : A Practical Buddhist Approach to Inner Growth and Satisfaction on the Job by Lewis Richmond
The Fifth Discipline by Peter M. Senge
A WHACK ON THE SIDE OF THE HEAD: How You Can Be More Creative by Roger von Oech
Managing to Have Fun : How Fun at Work Can Motivate Your Employees, Inspire Your Coworkers, and Boost Your Bottom Line by Matt Weinstein
The Heart Aroused : Poetry and the Preservation of the Soul in Corporate America by David Whyte

Wendy Kruger

Was with a Speakers Bureau. She ran the numbers for us. Bureaus take 25% of the booking fee. Increase your existing fees to cover this, since fee integrity dictates you have the same fee structure if you go direct with a client or through a bureau. Their speaker’s fees start at around $2,500 per speech on a regular basis before they sign with the bureau. They get a submission from someone wanting to sign with them every day of the year – over 300 annually. Lots of competition.

A whirlwind of an IDC Directions Conference in San Jose today. The focus was on globalization and technology. An “Agenda for a Shrinking Globe: Seizing Opportunities in a Connected World”. A heady mix of the level of detail to expected from professional analysts and sweeping generalizations that time alone will prove the value of. Here’s some of what I heard.

IT Market Outlook in Four Emerging Markets: Brazil, Russia, India and China

The famous “BRIC” countries hold the promise of the highest growth rates by many measures (IT spend, population under 30, percent broadband penetration etc etc). Some fun facts:

• India had 2.5M college graduates a year, of which 184,000 are engineering graduates (although there’s considerable debate about how you count engineering graduates — like other minorities their numbers seem often misrepresented). China has 2.4M graduates and 16M enrolled in college.
• In a few short years India is expected to become the world’s 3rd largest economy, behind China and the USA.
• India’s population is 1.08B – growing at 15M annually (adding just under two New York Cities a year).
• 73% of Russia’s population is urban.
• 30% of India’s population has a mobile phone.

John Gantz: IT & Communications: Disruptions Ahead

Gantz was the first presenter of the day to mention Friedman’s book The World is Flat. I heard seven people quote it in total (five presenters and two in the buffet line for lunch). He revealed the ‘parallel universe’ of the MySpace generation where a band like Hawthorne Heights can get 350,000 “friends” and succeed as a rock band with no MSM exposure.

Following Friedman’s discussion of Brickwork he highlighted A. J. Jacobs’ Outsourced Life – a real-world experiment at outsourcing executive assistant tasks to a Dooneysburesque lady in Bangalore name Honey K. Balani (really!) at the bargain price of $1,000 month for a standard 40 hour week. Of course, she and Mr. Jacobs never meet face-to-face — but how many executives really need to see their assistant’s smiling face each day? And Honey is so, obliging.

Gantz puts all this in the context of the exploitation of new technologies unleashed in the last 1990’s now coming to fruition. The convergence of 1.3B Internet and 3.2B phone users will give rise to a new range of unforeseen opportunities for customer interaction. From 24B web-based transactions in 2005 he predicts a 50-fold increase to 800B by 2015 – excluding podcasts, streaming video and all the really good stuff!

Does, he asks, your company know how to use this new ‘internetwork’ to the fullest extent possible? I would suggest that if you are still having church-lady style debates about the etiquette of your company “blogging policy”, perhaps not.

We were treated to an explanation of the famous observation that the Chinese characters for “crisis” and “opportunity” are the same. Well, not quite. But wÄ“ijÄ« does have a similar look n’ feel to untutored eyes.

Frank Gens: Flattening the world of Enterprise IT

Fascinating observations on the different agendas of CEO’s and CIO’s. The former want to go fast with IT implementations. The latter advise caution. As enterprise IT vendors (hardware and software) champion the move from arthritic to dynamic IT (Sun’s N1; IBM’s On Demand Computing; HP’s Adaptive Enterprise) the reality is less than 10% of all customers have a project in place. There’s a serious chance for disruption.

The Small and Medium Sized (SMB) market is the likely origin of this disruption. Just as Chris Anderson of WIRED observed The Long Tail of new media replacing blockbuster hits of yesteryear with new niche’s for all, so this opportunity might occur with IT solutions distributed via the web to millions of SMB’s vs. the top, say, 2,000 accounts globally. And guess what? SMB’s account for 60% of GDP in the USA, 72% of GDP in China and fully 80% of GDP in Latin America. These under-served markets are ripe for driving demand down this “long tail” and making multiple small engagements pay totals previously enjoyed by fewer large value sales. Different supply chains and routes to market are, of course, required to find profits.

Bob Welch: Challenges and Opportunities of Globalization for Services Companies

The afternoon sessions brought as many globalization/flattening discussions as the morning.

Welch raised the point that it’s hard to do global scale and be consistent. Channel partners are key to success. Again, multiple routes to market must be coordinated.

Innovation must be measured by client outcomes, not by posting stats on how many patents a year your company logs.

Carl Olofson: Building the Star Trek Computer – Ask a Question, Get One Correct Answer

Marrying the traditionally separate fields of transaction processing and content requires unstructured data be schematized and semanticized. The pay-off is a Captain Kirk level of ease of use, when you ask “Computer…” and you get one answer.

David Tapper: Building an Optimal Service Delivery Model to Ensure Customer Satisfaction in a “Flat” World

The Web 2.0/3.0 applications such as salesforce.com, Google, eBay and others allow virtual teams to become productive in hours instead of days or months. The route from Onshore to Offshore leads just as surely to Virtual. The building blocks you use to plug solutions into and out of the enterprise are key. People want to consume functions, not hardware. As with the long tail, companies who win will mine gold dust, not gold bricks.

Robert Reich: China, India and the Future of Everything

The grand finale!

Reich, former Clinton Secretary of Labor, held the audience in the palm of his hand as he delivered a stunning keynote. Well rehearsed, poised, with commanding presence, sans PowerPoint, sans notes:

He reviewed three storm clouds on the horizon for the American economy:

1. Oil prices climbing due to demand from India and China exceeding supply.
2. America living beyond its means with a $400B deficit and the dollar sinking into the setting sun as foreign investors look for better returns elsewhere.
3. Consumers finally running out of steam as their negative savings rate and precarious home equity loans get called in.

Against this, he proposed some long-term opportunities:

1. Globalization:
” Rarely in public discourse has a word gone so directly from obscurity to meaningless without any intervening period of coherence as the term ‘globalization’ – most people don’t know what they mean when they talk about it!”

Criticizing the ‘cartoon version’ which sees country A selling to country B and visa versa he highlighted how “Everything is coming from everywhere”, and standards of living are not a result of national companies owning the whole process, but of adding value to the global distribution of goods.

Jobs are outsourced to India at the same time that foreign companies invest in operations in the USA. What parts of your “American auto” are made in the US of A?

2. Technological change:
Long gone are the days where economies of scale allowed oligopolistic companies to dominate in terms of size alone. Today companies reap profits and maintain barriers to entry by out-innovating and capturing this in their brand and their people. “Brand is discounted present value of future innovation.”

China is actually losing manufacturing jobs as it grows. Old, inefficient, state-run companies are being replaced with innovative manufacturing organizations in Eastern China. To maintain the flow of people from rural areas to the cities, and minimize social unrest, the Chinese have no choice but to keep their currency low and encourage manufacturing to grow.

3. Demographics:
As the Baby Boomer’s lurch penniless toward retirement they face a minimal crisis in Social Security but a huge crisis in Medicare. The smaller talent pool that the West faces will force companies to do a better job of recruiting and retaining staff. Employees will gravitate to companies that offer work which is exciting, based on new technology and linked to something bigger than themselves. Companies must treat people as a whole person and deliver a reasonable work-life balance.

Reich’s own decision to step down from politics was driven by the desire to spend time with his teenage children – he later turned down lucrative consulting jobs to see his son win races.

Today was “The Day of the Divas” at the meeting of the Northern California National Speakers Association. Three high-energy women, with three different approaches to speaking, shared trade secrets with an appreciative audience.

Susan Keane Baker, CSP: Own the Topic, Own the Room – A Step-by- Step Guide to Developing Outstanding Content

Susan is a professional speaker with 20+ years experience in the healthcare field. She has developed a wide range of topics for her target market and mastered techniques to generate content to fill each speech. She speaks on:

– Managing Patient Expectations
– Getting to 99: Achieving a Culture of Service Excellence
– Yes! You Can Soothe, Smooth and Improve Difficult People
– One Great Leadership Skill: Knowing How to Inspire Discretionary Effort
– Instant Rapport: How To Inspire Trust and Confidence When You Have Too Little Time and Too Many Patients
– Taking Service Quality To the Next Level: 60 Ideas in 60 Minutes
– The World is Full of Cactus, but We Don’t Have to Sit on It

Susan asked us — Are you content with your content? Do you want to make your keynote even fresher and more interesting? Or do you need to create a new talk for clients who want you back?

Her step-by-step guide to developing outstanding content was an awesome list of thirty (count ’em) tips.

She started out by recommending two books:

How To Get Ideas by Jack Foster
Don’t Let The Funny Stuff Get Away, by Jeanne Robertson

She detailed a number of practical ways to use the internet to generate content including Google News Alerts, SpeakerNet News, Newslink.org, National Business Journals, and signing up for PR Leads. If you don’t yet know all of these techniques, check ’em out.

Her creative ideas include asking visitors to your web site for suggestions; asking friends and relatives to clip and mail you articles; reading fiction (and if you want fiction related to your topic this can help); reading unrelated media; listening to NPR (better, IMHO, would be the BBC which archives a full week’s worth of programs); studying historical facts ,or, if you prefer historical fiction check out:

What Historical Novel Do I Read Next?, by Daniel Burt; attending other speakers’ presentations; checking out client web sites; keeping current with movies, TV and advertisements; reading professional and trade journals; enlisting professional librarians to do research for you and, finally, reading the Baldridge Awards for best practices.

She offered a well-thought out guide to creating a speech from scratch. (To which I’d add that the worksheet on p.85 of this book can bring your project to completion). Susan believes in self-assessment forms for program participants (which is useful as a fall-back if you need to expand your speech by a minute or an hour). She often sends a letter to attendees before she speaks to assess their needs, and, coincidentally, create anticipation for her program.

Her best suggestions were to use Marcia Yudkin’s Business Name and Tagline Generator to create a great title for your speech; to use metaphors to help the audience understand and remember your speech; to investigate the origin of idioms that you can use; to build up a library of case studies and, last but not least, tell meaningful stories.

About the only way I know of to gather content that Susan did not cover is to subscribe to blogs in your area of interest and use an RSS aggregator like Bloglines to build your own ‘morning newspaper’ from diverse sources, something for which I’ve just written a handy-dandy guide.

Nicole Schapiro: How to Use Your Personal Stories to Solve Your Clients’ Problems – and Grow Your Business!

Nicole took up where Susan left off – using stories to connect to your audience.

She showed us how to turn a personal story into a valuable business tool we can use in a keynote or training. How to prepare our stories to fit the climate, culture and mission of the audience without losing the spirit of our message.

Very few have personal stories to rival Nicole’s, whose life reads like the plot of a Jerzy Kosinski novel.

Hidden from the Nazi’s in a Convent for 9 years, found by her mother after the war when the crazed school-teacher no-one spoke to remembered the red-haired girl the nuns had sheltered. At age 15 she fled alone from Communist Hungary to the United States. Captured by the Russians she faked death in front of the firing squad – her first successful negotiation having been to persuade the youngest soldier to aim high. Speaking no English, she lived as a “homeless” person in New York City for one year. Through her persistent negotiating she received a scholarship to the University of Chicago, earning a BS in Psychology, and later a MA in Industrial Psychology from NYU. Before the age of 30 she became the first woman senior vice-president of Sales and Marketing at Citicorp in New York. (This a factual account of her life – not a fictional story!)

Her speech topics include:

– Negotiating for Your Life
– The Dance of Negotiation
– Negotiating Strategies for a Changing, Competitive Business World
– Negotiating for Your Life in Business and at Home
– Smart Negotiating Strategies in a Competitive Business World
– Negotiation Strategies to Create the Breakthrough Competitive Advantage
– Negotiation and Business Strategies for Women – Gaining a Competitive Edge
– Striking A Deal – Keys to Successful Negotiation
– Influencing Your Future – the Promise, the Passion and the Pride
– Managing the Challenge of Change and Uncertainty in the (your organization’s) Industry
– Moving into the 21st Century
– Bridging the Future – The Challenge of Change
– Managing Change Magnificently
– Riding the Waves of Economic Change
– Shift Happens – Successful Transition Management for the New Economy

Needless to say, part of her challenge was to convince the rest of us that we had stories anyone would find of interest.

Nicole suggested we list stories from different times in our life (school, college, graduation, marriage, travel), determine what messages are in each story and list the clients we have who might find that topic of interest. No matter how dry the audience, how straight-laced the professionals, a personal story will:

– build trust with the audience
– establish similarities
– make you come across as human
– distinguish you from other speakers
– expand your horizons as a presenter

She suggests telling your story with authenticity and passion, then stay silent. Ask the audience how your story relates to challenges they face. Then bridge your story to their challenges. Use stories not just to entertain, but to make a difference in the lives of your audience.

Nicole made a difference today in the life of everyone in the room.

Mikki Williams, CSP: Speak Loudly and Carry a Big Schtick! â„¢

They kept Mikki until last. There was a reason. Mikki has so much energy…she makes coffee nervous.

She speaks as an inspirational humorist who shared tips on presenting and promotion and how to differentiate ourselves from the competition.

Her tagline:

“Be outrageous, it’s the only place that isn’t crowded!”

Mikki never uses PowerPoint – she is the visual aid. In her words:

I have big hair! That doesn’t make me a bad person or a poor choice to keynote a meeting. Although, I am amazed that meeting planners will judge credibility on this criteria. I wear bright colors, flamboyant clothes, big jewelry and I am a “recovering New Yorker”. My A-V requirements are minimal, I am my own visual, my “multi-media” presentation involves such high tech’ props as Play-doh, purple rubber bands and plastic hand clappers. My handouts are not four color, silk screened graphic designed masterpieces. I will however, do my pre-presentation preparation, mix and mingle with your attendees and deliver a message that will touch their hearts, enliven their senses and impact their personal and professional lives.

She shared four suggestions on developing a Shtick:

NOUN: Slang 1. A characteristic attribute, talent, or trait that is helpful in securing recognition or attention 2. An entertainment routine or gimmick. Yiddish shtik, piece, routine, (The American Heritage Dictionary)

[1] Be a WYSIWYG (What you see is what you get) – don’t pre-judge your audience and try and be something you are not. Be authentic, the same on the platform as you are off.

[2] Take risks

– Physical risks: sing , dance or juggle on the podium
– Intellectual risks: include a poem or a new word in your next speech
– Emotional risks: be vulnerable, share a part of yourself, go outside your comfort zone
– Spiritual risks: take the risks you can’t see, open your heart to another, rise above the noise

[3] Use an anchor – find a way to develop a repeatable signature. Make this something uniquely, identifiably your own.

– Mikki asked the audience for a New York “Yo” when they agreed with her
– Scott “Q” Marcus got an “Arrrr” of sympathy that he’d travelled six hours to attend the meeting
– Tony Robbins thumps his chest to reverberate the levolor mic he wears
– Rosita Perez wears flowers in her hair
– Fripp has a hat on at all times

Be comfortable. Be known for your eccentricity, be it accent, attitude or approach.

[4] Use all of the five senses in your presentation:

Sight – List the keywords in your speech and then tour the hardware store, toy store or candy store to bring items to the podium that reinforce your key points. If you say something “does not amount to a hill of beans”, produce a can of baked beans and slam them onto the lectern.

Taste – Distribute candy bars or other treats during the speech or as people leave.

Touch – Hand out a laminated wallet sized card with your key points for the audience to carry home with them. Or give away an elastic band and a marble to illustrate that when you are losing your marbles you need to stay flexible.

Sound – Use signature music for your intro or outro. Bells, whistles, horns and the clap of your hand can all produce sounds to supplement the sound of your own voice.

Smell – a tough one. But companies like this can spritz the audience with aromas to match the mood of your speech. Check with meeting planners first!

The Day of the Divas

The word Diva is Gujarati for Day. The Day of the Day. In Italian Diva means Goddess, from the Latin divus meaning divine one. Time Magazine once defined Diva as “a rampaging female ego redeemed only in part by a lovely voice.”

In order to qualify as a Diva there must be one, or both, of two dominant traits present: a broad and expansive voice and/or a thoroughly captivating and commanding stage presence.

By this measure Saturday was a Day of Days. A Diva Day. A Divine Day.

Fundamental to every professional speaker is the topic they speak on, about which they are informed, articulate, passionate. It’s one of their eight competencies. Good speakers are on fire with a passion for their topic. As The Buddha said:

The ear is on fire; sounds are on fire; . . . the nose is on fire; odors are on fire; . . . the tongue is on fire; tastes are on fire; . . . the body is on fire; things tangible are on fire; . . . the mind is on fire; ideas are on fire; . . . mind-consciousness is on fire; impressions received by the mind are on fire; and whatever sensation, pleasant, unpleasant, or indifferent, originates in dependence on impressions received by the mind, that also is on fire.

And with what are these on fire?

With the fire of passion, say I, with the fire of hatred, with the fire of infatuation; with birth, old age, death, sorrow, lamentation, misery, grief, and despair are they on fire.

Saturday found 30 of us wanna-be pro speakers kindling the first flames this passion at the second NSA/NC sponsored Pro-Track training. Before the day was over we had been give the opportunity to choose our topic; outline it; make it interesting; market it and deliver it with style and panache. We were directed in this by two awesome ladies whose passions burned, as they say, as bright as a thousand sun’s.

Francine Ward: Topic Development

Francine Ward, has a topic that grabs you and won’t let go. An ex-hooker, junkie and high-school drop-out who walked through her fear and came out on the other side. Now a Georgetown educated lawyer, successful entrepreneur, twice published author, philanthropist, and loving wife. She speaks left-brained topics: trademark and contract law, where she’s a resource to the best speakers in the NSA. She speaks on right-brained topics: motivational speeches based on her unique biography.

We were given the benefit of her experience. She mapped a clear set of guidelines on how to develop a topic. It’s a journey that starts with an evaluation of what cements you as a credible, marketable expert who people would pay to listen to. She took us through in-depth considerations about ways to research our topic (my fave: ask the audience what they want to hear you speak on!). She ended with a slew of practical tips n’ tricks on marketing our expertise. We heard what works for her. We learned how she turns her knowledge into products. Check out her web site. Have your credit card ready.

Angela DeFinis: Presentation Skills

I wonder how many in the room felt a pang of regret for not having taken Pro-Track last year? Those who did were lucky enough have had Angela as a classmate. She’s been coaching Silicon Valley executives in delivery skills for over twenty years. She stands out in the somewhat crowded field of speech coaching for one very simple reason – she delivers results. We saw this in the brief time she was able to work with the Pro-Trackers who gave their showcase presentations. She worked miracles.

Her litany of things an effective public speaker needs to be mindful of include eye contact, posture, facial expression, purposeful movement, inflection, enunciation and rate of speech. The goal: to become unconsciously competent in the key areas of visual image, vocal and verbal skills.

Most speakers overlook the fact that only 7% of a message is conveyed by the words they use; 55% of the message is conveyed by their face and body signals and 38% by their vocal characteristics. The good news for those of us who are paid the big bucks to write those words and create the content for corporate speeches is that most executives are clueless about this. They focus on content almost exclusively. The bad news is that most executives are clueless about this. The audience listens as the audience does: looking more, hearing less.

There’s little point in blogging about Angela’s class. It has to be experienced. If you think you need a speech coach, hire her. If you don’t think you need a speech coach, get a clue.

Her parting gift was an awesome booklist to sink our teeth into:

7 Steps to Fearless Speaking by Lilyan Wilder
Give Your Speech, Change the World: How to Move Your Audience to Action by Nick Morgan
Grammar Smart by Princeton Review
How to Prepare, Stage, & Deliver Winning Presentations by Thomas Leech
Improving Your Storytelling by Doug Lipman
Kiss, Bow, or Shake Hands: How to Do Business in Sixty Countries by Terri Morrison, Wayne A. Conaway, George A. Borden
Nonverbal Communication in Human Interaction by Mark L. Knapp, Judith A. Hall
Nonverbal Communication by Albert Mehrabian
Power Talk: Using Language to Build Authority and Influence by Sarah Myers McGinty
Powerful Communication Skills: How to Communicate With Confidence by Colleen McKenna
Presentations That Persuade and Motivate by Harvard Business School Press
Say It Right: A Guide To Effective Oral Business Presentations by Garth A. Hanson
Silent Messages by Albert Mehrabian
Speaking Skills for Business Careers by Dennis Becker, Paula Borkum Becker
The New Talkpower: The Mind Body Way to Speak Without Fear by Natalie Rogers
The Story Factor: Inspiration, Influence, and Persuasion Through the Art of Storytelling by Annette Simmons
Toastmaster’s International Guide to Successful Speaking: Overcoming Your Fears, Winning over Your Audience, Building Your Business & Career by Jeff Slutsky, Michael Aun, Toastmasters International
Working the Room: How to Move People to Action through Audience-Centered Speaking by Nick Morgan
Women Seen and Heard: Lessons Learned from Successful Speakers by Lois, Ph.D. Phillips, Anita Perez Ferguson

On leaving the meeting I walked out into the February evening. The wind crossed the brown land, unheard. I spoke neither loud nor long. But at my back in a cold blast I hear the rattle of the bones, and chuckle spread from ear to ear.

Garr reveals that even world-class public speakers, like Steve Jobs, sometimes make mistakes.

We are our own worst critic. All Toastmasters quickly learn the audience’s evaluation of you is not nearly as bad as you expected. People are not just being polite when they say this. It really is difficult to judge how well we come across on stage. Striving for perfection makes most speakers too uptight.

Imperfections are what make us real. Artists and musicians use deliberate mistakes to heighten the audience reaction and enjoyment. Jazz musicians know this.

The flubbed line, stumbling over a word — today it’s positively Presidential.

So don’t worry – surprise you audience with your own willingness to be a little goofy. Laugh at yourself on stage and the world, as they say, will laugh with you.

Last week at the Ragan Speechwriters Conference David Kusnet asked how politicians can best communicate in the post-rhetorical era. One example of a public figure making waves recently is Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berluscino.

Alexander Stille’s profile in Friday’s Financial Times (subscription required) highlights the many bizarre aspects of the Italian Premier’s bid for re-election. He has “alternately compared himself, in the space of abut a week, to Napoleon, Churchill and Jesus Christ while also vowing to give up sex until after the April poll.” The Italian premier courts publicity, any publicity. His outrageous behavior endears him to voters, especially those who get most of their information from television.

Mr. Berlusconi is perhaps the first truly post-modern politician to turn many of the old rules of his trade upside down. Traditional politicians – closely connected to a party, an ideology and a set of programs – did not need to be personally charismatic. In a post-ideological age, what Mr. Berlusconi is selling is Mr. Berusconi, not a party or program. By dominating the media…he controls the political discourse and silences his critics..

We’ll know in April if the Italian voters are swayed by style over substance. If so, there’s a lesson here for corporate speakers and those who manage their external communications. Don’t just focus on the message. Fancy rhetoric, facts and supporting evidence have their place. But don’t lose sight of the impact that the unexpected, outrageous and plain bizarre has with today’s audiences.

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…

As with any conference, you don’t just go for the formal presentations — it’s the conversations with fellow delegates that make the trip worthwhile. Where else on the planet would I be in a room with 250 people who all, more or less, do the same job? I met some great folks.

Vinca runs an independent consulting operation in the DC area. She really did work in the West Wing – writing President Clinton’s foreign policy speeches. Traveling on Air Force One, heads down over her laptop, she wrote his November 1995 speeches given in Derry and Belfast, Northern Ireland. There’s still work for Democrats who write speeches in DC, just not in the West Wing at the moment.

Kathryn works for a Silicon Valley High Tech company where she’s the only writer supporting 13 executives. She also finds time to use her own speaking skills, developed as a member of the National Speakers Association, by offering presentation skills classes to the staff. She asks her students to consider the two key questions all audience members ask when a speaker starts a presentation:

1. Should I stick around? Not just literally, but if you don’t grab their attention in the first six minutes of a speech they will check out. Thoughts about the laundry, shopping or the cutie in accounting with the winsome smile will occupy their attention, not whatever it is you are saying.

2. So What? Meaning, what’s in it for me? If you don’t answer this question every time before moving onto a new topic (or a new PowerPoint slide) you will have lost some or all of the audience. A good few of the presenters at this conference omitted the ‘So What?’ in their presentations.

Colin has a web site that helps freelance speechwriters find work. He offers a free eZine and bonus marketing workbook. Maybe he’ll start a blog one day soon?

Damien is a lobbyist for the American Insurance Association. He writes for the ex-Governor of Wyoming who now runs the place. His main challenge is frosting the road apple of his subject matter. No matter which way you spin it, commercial insurance is plain old BORING.

I had conversations with a whole number of other people whose names I don’t remember. But the variety was impressive:

And last but not least:

All in all, the conference attracted writers with a love of the spoken word rather than speakers with an interest in the written word. Bookish intellectuals rather than the extrovert glad-hander’s at speaking conferences. People were willing to share the tools of their trade and had a contagious enthusiasm for their craft.

I’ll share more of my overall impressions of the conference in my next posting.

The third and final day of the Conference. As always at these events, my brain has reached overload by this point. Here’s my ‘class notes’ from the sessions I attended Friday. I’ll write up my subjective impressions and report on hallway conversations and networking on the flight home.

Breakfast Panel What’s going on in the speechwriting world?

Panelists:

David Murray, editor, Speechwriters Newsletter
Rich Greb, facilitator, Chicago Speechwriters Forum
Jan Cook, founder, Washington Speechwriters Roundtable
Dana Rubin, founder, New York Speechwriters Group

Warning! We’ve been outed! Thanks to Rob Lowe and the West Wing, people know about speechwriters – we’re more visible now than ever. But speeches are not going away and blogs will never replace speeches (according to David Murray). That said, here’s my blog on the main points I captured from the free flowing early morning panel discussion and audience Q&A:

Steve described the process whereby he leveraged transformations at UPS (such as district managers renewing their focus on customer service, or the move to the company being an enabler of the global supply chain) into effective messaging. His guiding objective is to

Position UPS executives as thought leaders and powerful brand ambassadors through public speeches, events, by-lined articles, Op-Eds, White Papers and other repackaging channels.

In other words: find the downstream potential in each and every speech – maximize every second of the executives time at a venue beyond what they say on the podium – turn ‘delivering a speech’ into an event rich with possibilities that gives the speech content extra bounce. Schedule meetings with press, key customers, analysts. Place senior managers closer to key stakeholders.

The strategy of Steve’s Exec Comm Department includes:

They sweat the details by:

A huge win for Steve was when Thomas Friedman was researching The World is Flat and happened to Google the phrase synchronized commerce. Friedman found dozens of references to past UPS speeches that had been repackaged by Steve’s team, as this example illustrates. Friedman dedicates a section of his book to UPS, identifying them as his #8 world-flattener in a section titled What Those Guys in the Funny Brown Shorts Are Really Doing. As Steve dryly observed, you can’t buy that kind of PR. And it all began with the simple process of making the transcripts of executive speeches available online and searchable outside the firewall. Does your company do this?

Steve produces an annual $1million event which brings world-class political leaders such as Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, President H.W. Bush, President Carter and Polish leader Vaclav Havlal together with academics and CEO’s from major customers. This is co-branded with the prestigious Harvard Business School Publishing. Very little on the Agenda overtly  ‘sells’ UPS. The goal is to stimulate dialog and debate around issues such as globalization. Funding future events is secured by the measurable $25 million incremental revenue which resulted from past events.

By positioning his team at the intersection of creativity and strategy Steve has earned a seat at the table when senior management  frames the future of the company.

Steve is to the average speechwriter what an army general is to an infantry grunt. He plans the campaign and grabs victories from the jaws of defeat. The rest of us dig foxholes and practice duck and cover when the corporate big guns fire. (Hey! I needed a coupla good military analogies being so close to the home of the Commander in Chief, n’ all)

Hal Gordon What speechwriters can learn from a great American orator – Robert Green Ingersoll

Hal is a freelance speechwriter who currently writes for Shell Oil in Houston and blogs for Ragan Communications. He’s written for both the Walt Disney World and top advisors to President Ronald Reagan (from Mickey Mouse to Ed Meese). His blog explains all about Ingersoll. Ingersoll’s best speeches show him a masterful orator and a fiercely intelligent and independent thinker. He openly wore the badge of his atheism – which in 19th Century America got him into about as much trouble as it would in some corners of the Heartland today. This speech on Chinese exclusion masterfully skewers the limited horizons and profound lack of cultural understanding in the USA. As then, perhaps now:

There’s a lot more where this came from here. Read it and weep.

Dawne Simmons From speechwriter to speaker: What you can learn by taking the podium

Dawne walks the walk and talks the talk. One of the rare breed of speechwriters who also know how to speak in public. She’s a dynamic independent consultant who participates in National Speakers Association trainings.

Her claim, which I fully agree with, is that by mastering the art of public speaking you learn to do what you are asking those you write for to do. You step away from the computer monitor and leap the divide that’s represented by the truism: Those who can, do, those who can’t, write about it… 

Indeed, I have often wondered how many authors of sex manuals are actually great lovers? How many cookbook editors can create a meal that would actually delight the palette? Do the editors of travel guides really enjoy exploring foreign parts? Speechwriters might be able to describe the motions, but not until they’ve assumed the position and engaged in the act with an appreciative audience can they really understand what it takes to get it up. Speaking to an audience is an act of seduction. If you’ve not experienced the sweat on your palms and the palpitations of the heart as you present your naked voice to an audience for the first time then in some real sense you are still a callow virgin.  Writing text, even if you annotate with pointers for techniques and timing, is not the same as participating in an uncensored relationship with consenting adults.

So, where was I. Oh yes, Dawne’s class. She challenged the audience face up their fear. Toastmasters is a great place to start. There’s a club meeting near you this week, guaranteed. Being both a writer and a speaker advanced Dawne’s career. Public speaking changed from a stumbling block to a stepping stone for success. Bottom line:

Practice both speaking and speech writing, they go together like a left and right shoe!

Bill Crain Speechwriting (fun)damentals: How to wow audiences and win business

Bill is an independent consultant who writes for ExxonMobile and was recently hired as a speechwriter for the government of Thailand. By the  afternoon the crowd had thinned out and I was just about to do the same . But I’m glad I stayed for this post-conference seminar. It was filled with more practical tips and tricks than  rest of the conference put together. Bill provided a great handout with step by step checklists:

He included a bonus selection of samples from commercial speeches he had written and extracts from well-known speeches by Martin Luther King, Churchill and Shakespeare.

Bill’s work pushes the envelope when he looks at major factors reshaping speechwriting today, including those of globalization and the shift in the geo-political axis toward Asia which he and I agree is changing the form of acceptable business communication. He also acknowledges discoveries in quantum physics and human potential psychology as relevant factors. His most unique views are around suggesting meditation as a practice to unlock creativity and the power of the still quiet voice within. He has studied the Sanskrit chakra system used in Indian ayurvedic medicine and suggests the relevance of different chakras to speechwriting. Considering the ascent of the chakras from  bodily base to crown he interprets the color and quality of each for a speechwriter, suggesting we review each speech to ensure it includes at least a reference to each element.

Specifically:

The root of the body at the base of the spine is associated with the color red and signifies the family, health and issues of physical survival. For speechwriters: how does your topic pertain to the family and to human health and safety?.

The sacral area of the body and sexual organs associated with the color orange signifies sex, power and money. For speechwriters: how does your topic affect men and women differently? What are the political and economic aspects? (I would add – does the speech turn your audience on?)

The solar plexus and diaphragm associated with the color yellow signifies ethics, integrity and personal will. For speechwriters: what are the ethical dimensions of this topic?

The heart, chest, lungs associated with the color green signfies love, compassion and kindness. For speechwriters: to what extent is there an emotional dimension to your topic? To what extent is compassion called for? (I would add, unless your audience are automatons you must appeal to their hearts – since they can only comprehend with their head what their hearts have responded to on some level).

The throat, ears, nose, teeth associated with the color blue signifies personal expression and communication. For speechwriters: what are the communication challenges in your topic? What is essential for the speaker to communicate? (I would add a big DUH! You better communicate throughout the speech.)

I was intrigued by Bill’s groundbreaking work here. I’ve not heard of the chakra system being applied to business communications. And I assume that if Bill had more time he would have included the all important final two chakras:

The brow chakra or third eye center, associated with the color indigo signifies the act of seeing, both physically and intuitively. As such it opens our psychic faculties and our understanding of archetypal levels. When healthy it allows us to see clearly, in effect, letting us “see the big picture.” For speechwriters: to what extent does your speech deal with the big picture?

The crown chakra sitting on or above the physical top of the head. Associated the color violet. It relates to consciousness as pure awareness. It is our connection to the greater world beyond, to a timeless, spaceless place of all-knowing. When developed, this chakra brings us knowledge, wisdom, understanding, spiritual connection, and bliss. For speechwriters: to what extent does anything in your speech really mean a damn in the big scheme of things?

Thanks Bill, you’ve given me a whole raft of ideas: Feng Shui for Speechwriters; Speechwriting Zen (the companion to Presentation Zen); The Inner Game of Speechwriting, and more.

A busy day at the ranch for over 300 speechwriters who attended the first full day of the conference. Here’s a list of the main points I noted from the six sessions I attended. Since the day ran on parallel tracks, there were a whole other set of presentations I did not capture.

Also, I’ll be writing up my various hallway and meal conversations in a later blog after the conference ends. There are speechwriters here from the PTA, TVA and NSA not to mention the FBI, Health Ministry of Holland and a whole lotta consultants.

Meanwhile, this is some of what I heard today:

David Kusnet Speechwriting in a post-rhetorical era: Is the era of Big Speechwriting over?

The opening keynote delivered in the very the hotel where FDR composed the speech that contained the impassioned plea We have nothing to fear but fear itself. Kusnet was one President Clinton’s main speechwriters, now at the Economic Policy Institute.

Notable points:

Ron Kirkpatrick Dump the outline! Structure speeches for maximum impact

Ron is the Manager of Executive Communications at Toyota, USA. He took us through the template from his friend Mark Walton’s book Generating Buy-in: Mastering the Language of Leadership which shows how the intent of every speech should be to build a connection between what is important to the audience and the objective of the speaker via a strategic storyline that tells of a positive future for the audience. The best example of compelling strategic storylines are 30 second television ads and company taglines like GE’s We bring good things to life.

An interesting tie-in with Kusnet’s plea that we open the speech with something that makes the audience sit up and take notice is the suggestion we start with a solid ‘Scene Setter’ – such as a topical newspaper article, reference to current event or something to grab their attention. Developing the body of the speech follows the ‘law of three’ (Faith, Hope, and … / Lights, Camera, …) and gives a framework to deliver three targeted messages with supporting evidence from stories, data and business experiences.

The all-important, and oft-missed, conclusion must contain a call-to-action – something that, in my experience, many executives seem to need the most help articulating.

Walton’s book offers a good practical template that mirrors that used by Speakeasy Inc’s class on content development. Well worth checking out for the $13.75 amazon.com price.

Tack Cornelius Regrets of a Corporate Speechwriter

Tack continued with more of the practical tips he shared in yesterday’s pre-conference session.

Lunch The Best Advice I ever got!

Assorted senior speechwriters shared their favorite tips ‘n tricks, the best advice they were ever given in their careers (apologies for losing track of who said what):

Blanchard Hiatt Reconcilable Differences: How to be a speechwriter in a PowerPoint world

Blanchard is director of executive communications at Avaya, Inc. He shared a medley of PowerPoint tips n’ tricks – everything from suggestions on minimum font size to acknowledging of the wisdom of Edward Tufte.

The Ten Commandments of Wisdom for Presentation Graphics:

1. Speak to you audience before launching your visuals
2. Keep eye contact with your audience, not with your visual aids
3. Avoid reading your slides to your audience
4. Keep text to a minimum; let images and graphics illustrate and dramatize your points
5. Use a font style that is simple and large enough to read at a distance (san serif 20-24)
6. Keep the number of points to 3-5 per slide
7. Ensure consistency of syntax on each slide (if the first bullet point starts with a verb, so should all)
8. Take the time to introduce, and allow the audience time to absorb, complex information
9. Put your slide titles to work – they should help deliver the message (think headlines!)
10. Turn the projector off to focus attention and reclaim the spotlight

Ron Shewchuk What you need from your speaker and how to go about getting it

Ron is a Canadian speechwriter working with a number of different companies. He shared his own ten commandments for the speakers he writes for:

1. Don’t take the name of your company in vain
2. Always check the facts
3. Don’t whitewash the part or paint too rosy a picture of the present, or falsely brighten the future
4. Keep the speech short
5. Use plain language
6. Present a thesis, back it up, and end with a call to action
7. Don’t say anything you would not want to see in the newspaper the next day
8. Understand your speech has a life after you deliver it (leverage it!)
9. Make the speech consistent with company values
10. Never publicly refer to your speechwriter

He then shared his own list of a speechwriter’s responsibilities:

That’s all for tonight, folks!