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Meeting Report: Silicon Valley Speechwriters hear about the Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs

Carmine Gallo was the featured speaker at today’s meeting of the Silicon Valley Speechwriters Roundtable. Gallo is the author of The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs: How to Be Insanely Great in Front of Any Audience

Gallo is a communications coach for the world’s most admired brands. A former anchor and correspondent for CNN and CBS, he works directly with the world’s top business leaders to help them craft compelling messages, tell inspiring stories and share their innovative ideas with a global audience. Gallo has addressed executives at Intel, Cisco, Google, Medtronic, Disney, The Four Seasons, SAP, Pfizer, Linked In, Chevron, SanDisk, Univision, Edmunds.com, and many others.

Simplicity

Gallo encouraged us to watch the many Steve Jobs videos available on YouTube. The overriding theme of every presentation is the simplicity of the message. This is conveyed in one-word slides, supported by demos, props and the very theatrical nature of the way Jobs presents.

The Rule of Three

Gallo shared that in his own work as a communications coach he often challenges the executives he works with to use no more than 40 words on PowerPoint slides in total (not per slide). This forces people to tell stories, which makes the presentation more memorable. He is a believer in the “rule of three” and noted that no matter how complex and comprehensive the Apple products he launched, Jobs would usually tell the audience three things about the device. Indeed, this carried over into his famous 2005 Stanford University Commencement Address where he starts by saying that “Today, I want to tell you three stories from my life, that’s it, no big deal, just three stories.”

Gallo then followed his own advice and shared information from each of the three sections of his book.

Act 1: Create the Story

Back in the dark ages of 2010 when he wrote the book, Gallo recognized the importance of creating Twitter-like headlines in a speech. Of limiting the message to a single 140-character sentence. If a speaker is unable to convey their message in one sentence, speechwriters need to work with them until they can. This is what Daniel Pink did when he wrote speeches based on one sentence for Vice-President Al Gore.

Apple products often have a one-sentence, memorable headline that Jobs used in his speeches and would be repeated in Press releases and advertisements:

The MacBook Air: The world’s thinnest notebook:

Gallo asks his clients if they want to move beyond the level of simply delivering information to really inspiring audiences. Those who want to get better, to deliver the best presentation they can, give a window through which he can work aggressively with that person. The worst are those who claim to already be good presenters. Gallo finds it’s very difficult to get through to them. In this case he’ll go into the financial reasons why great presentation move the needle.

The founder of SanDisk, Dr. Eli Harari once told Gallo:

“Carmine, I know that every $1 change in our stock price is equivalent to $90m and that’s why I bring you in to help tell the best story I can to the investment community.”

Act 2: Deliver the Experience

Speechwriters should avoid making their clients into clones of Steve Jobs. People need to find their own voice. But there are techniques that Apple uses, that TED Talks use, that we should adopt for our clients’ presentations.

One key to delivering an insanely great speeches is to reveal what Gallo calls a “Holy Shit” moment. This is an emotionally charged point in the speech which is a different or surprising way of delivering the content. It takes time, creativity and effort to craft the delivery in a way that touches people emotionally. Very often this can be by telling a story. Audiences need to hear a great story. Most Silicon Valley executives don’t tell stories, they deliver information. Speechwriters should ask clients what is the one thing they want the audience to remember and then discover a way that this be packaged to create an emotionally charged event that is stamped on the brain.

The famous speech Bill Gates gave at TED on malaria is remembered for the “Holy Shit” moment when he released mosquitoes in the auditorium saying “There’s no reason only poor people should have the experience…”

Act 1: Refine and Rehearse

Gallo reinforced the well-known fact that Steve Jobs worked harder on every keynote he gave than most executives ever do. The ones who “wing it” by looking over note cards in the back of the town car on the way to the venue can never appear as “natural” onstage as Jobs did. He would spend hours preparing and rehearsing. He brought the same intensity to his public presentations as he did to the design and manufacture of the iconic technology of our age.

Gallo warned, however, that speechwriters should guard against executives obsessing over the stock photo chosen for their opening slide to the detriment of real rehearsal.

Gallo closed by recommending that, for ideas on how to design presentations planned for audiences of Millennials, speechwriters look at the archives on Slideshare of past winners of the “Best Presentation” contest he helps judge, such as this winner from 2010.

If you are interested in attending future virtual meetings of the Silicon Valley Speechwriters Roundtable, open to anyone, regardless of location, please sign up on our Meetup page and you’ll be notified.

150 Resources to help you write better, faster, and more persuasively

Here’s an incredibly comprehensive listing of 150 resources for writers compiled by Claire Morgan and published on the Open Education Database website. It includes everything writers need, from proper citation and grammar guides to organizational tools, legal help, news digests, media resources, and much more.

Advice to Silicon Valley Speechwriters: Don’t screw up

Columnist Andrew Hill, writing in today’s Financial Times, warns executives in Silicon Valley that they could become the next public enemies, facing a PR backlash similar to that suffered by bankers.

He sees warning signs in the recent attacks on Apple, Google and Amazon for their tax strategies; for questions about the growing economic and income inequality in northern California; and activist worries about ill-protected privacy, dirt-cheap labour and the energy efficiency of data centers.

He quotes a recent article by Silicon Valley native George Parker, who grew up in the area in the late 1970’s when a home in Palo Alto cost $125,000, in contrast to the scene today when:

There are fifty or so billionaires and tens of thousands of millionaires in Silicon Valley; last year’s Facebook public stock offering alone created half a dozen more of the former and more than a thousand of the latter. There are also record numbers of poor people, and the past two years have seen a twenty-per-cent rise in homelessness, largely because of the soaring cost of housing. After decades in which the country has become less and less equal, Silicon Valley is one of the most unequal places in America.

Nevertheless, Hill notes, the public trust in, and love of, technology is much higher than that of banks. If executives can resist the temptation to take the users for granted, share some of the wealth, and “stay clean” in terms of communications they will be able to placate public opinion.

The advice to those who write the speeches of tech execs is to

…adopt a new slogan, borrowed from Yahoo chief executive Marissa Mayer’s declaration to fans of Tumblr, the blogging platform her company has just bought: “We promise not to screw it up.”

101 Top Tweets from the 2013 Ragan Speechwriters Conference

The annual Ragan Speechwriters Conference was held March 20 – 22, 2013 at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington DC.

I was not able to attend this year, but, like anyone who has access to Twitter, I enjoyed following the conference virtually via the hashtag #raganspeech.

If you’d like to read more speechwriter tweets, check out these 138 tweets from the 2012 Ragan Speechwriters Conference.

All of these tweets are a great source of information to anyone who wants to know about the things speechwriters are interested in. We owe a special debt of gratitude to anyone who tweeted, and especially to the three most active people:

Here’s a fun picture that shows at a glance the topics and presenters that attracted the most comments.

Click to enlarge – Image by Wordle.

The list, like Twitter, is in reverse chronological order, with the most recent tweets at the top.

@MarklewA Doing the same corporate crap in more channels is still corporate crap – @Crescenzo
@SamHosenkamp Take the ‘corporate’ out of ‘corporate communications’ and replace it with ‘creative.’ – @Crescenzo
@sveng We’ve gotta stop doing corporate communications. It doesn’t work. Nobody reads it – @Crescenzo
@jayrobb Corporate communications is dying. No one paying attention to suits & boilerplate – @Crescenzo
@jayrobb Doing corporate speak on social media will get you killed – @Crescenzo
@MarklewA Be creative, compelling, concise and conversational – advice for corporate communicators from @Crescenzo. So many C’s.
@SamHosenkamp Our job as communicators is to make the important interesting – @Crescenzo
@jayrobb Leaders should communicate what & why down into the org with the how coming up from employees – @Crescenzo
@jayrobb Corporate is out & conversational is in for leadership communications – @Crescenzo
@jayrobb 4 keys to leadership blogs: start personal, swing back to business, stories about others & ask for comments – @Crescenzo
@sveng We have to be the ones who say, lighten up man. The corporate style doesn’t work anymore – @Crescenzo
@JodiReef Great writing is talking edited – @Crescenzo
@MarklewA So far at #raganspeech we’ve had talk of zombie apocalypses, freelancers being hunted and killed, and audiences being punched in the throat.
@jayrobb 1st question audience will ask – why should we listen to you? Answer with a story of self – Rune Kier
@jayrobb All great speeches need to tell 3 stories: story of me, us and now – Rune Kier cites Marshall Ganz
@jayrobb Tell a story that underscores why your audience needs to think or act differently with urgency now – Rune Kier
@jayrobb The hero of your speech is the audience and never you. You’re the helper for their goals – Rune Kier
@jayrobb 3 social media tools to make the podium longer for your speeches: Twitter, Pinterest & Storify – @TrineNebel
@jayrobb Use Twitter to crowd source ideas for your speech: also build buy in and buzz – @TrineNebel
@jayrobb If your executive insists on being the hero of her speech (and not the audience) she’ll become the villain – Rune Kier
@jayrobb 4 most powerful words an executive communicator can say “I have an idea” – Jill Giacomoni
@JodiReef Ask: Am I the only one in the room who is not going to understand this? – Jill Giacomoni
@TrineNebel Link to ALL material used in our #raganspeech-session about Storytelling, Speeches and Social Media – @TrineNebel
@moorghen What I learned at #raganspeech: speeches are like songs, with structure and meaning, to be delivered with focus & aplomb.
@MarkRaganCEO If you want to show power when answering a question, follow with “yes” or “no” then follow with an explanation – @TMucci
@MarklewA All speechwriters secretly want to be Rob Lowe in the West Wing – Jeff Shesol
@jayrobb The power of the bully pulpit: educator in chief & articulating values – Jeff Shesol
@jayrobb What’s the speech about? What’s the one point & take away? Persuade don’t overwhelm – Jeff Shesol
@jayrobb President Clinton used 3/4 of speechwriters’ words and 3/4 of his own in a typical speech – jokes Jeff Shesol
@MarklewA Shesol observes that Blair’s words carried more weight than Clinton’s because he had a legislative majority behind him.
@jayrobb The right words said in the right way at the right time can make a difference – Jeff Shesol
@MatthewJBondy Ceremonial speeches hold up the mirror to audience’s innermost feelings – Lucinda Holdforth
@jayrobb Catharsis is the ultimate ambition of a ceremonial speech – Lucinda Holdforth
@SamHosenkamp Speeches still have mystic power, they are about the things that bind us as a community – Lucinda Holdforth
@jayrobb Too many audiences feel battered by a monologue rather than engaged & enhanced by a dialogue – Lucinda Holdforth
@SamHosenkamp Embrace the elephant:The more you incorporate doubts,ques of audience into speech, the more powerful it will be – Holdforth
@JodiReef Generating Buy-In, great book for structuring storyline into a speech – @taylorclark
@jayrobb Hope and overcoming should be the leader’s message in a commemorative speech – Lucinda Holdforth
@aaron2hoover Great speeches are an axe for the frozen sea between us – Lucinda Holdforth riffs on Kaftka
@jayrobb In a ceremonial speech, the audience wants to know where we go from here & put our emotional energy – Lucinda Holdforth
@SamHosenkamp Fabulous tips for speechwriters and speakers from Lucinda Holdforth
@SamHosenkamp Listen to music. If you look at lyrics as language you’re going to learn a lot – Michael Long
@jayrobb Telling stories help reveal a speaker’s humanity to the audience – Rob Friedman
@cbjorlin Speaker at #raganspeech Used what think is my new fav phrase “they’ll look at you like a dog shown a card trick, they just won’t get it.”
@jayrobb One common theme to inspirational stories: got knocked down and got back up – Rob Friedman
@jayrobb The best source for stories are letters to your organization from customers, patients, staff – Rob Friedman
@jayrobb To get a good story out of your speaker ask what they’re most proud of or disappointed by – Rob Friedman
@sveng Hangin tough at the #raganspeech conference. Heard @taylorclark compare speechwriting to a zombie apocalypse.
@MarklewA Content must drive comedy – write the speech, then funny it up. Don’t try to write a “funny speech” – David Glickman
@jayrobb In speechwriting, content drives the comedy / humor and not the other way around – David Glickman
@jayrobb Write the speech 1st and then add the humor – David Glickman
@jayrobb The more specific the humor, the more terrific the humor. And customized humor doesn’t have to be as funny – David Glickman
@MarklewA 2nd session at #raganspeech where someone has referenced 50 Shades of Grey. What does this say about the profession, I wonder…
@MarklewA Won’t be tweeting any of David Glickman’s jokes, they’re far too good and I plan to steal them shamelessly.
@rebeccajshaffer Not every laugh has to be huge, small laughs in context add up nicely in a speech – David Glickman
@jayrobb Think of your speech as an EKG. Laugh lines are the upward blips – David Glickman
@rebeccajshaffer Use planned mispronunciations (and other mistakes). Normal, normal, surprise. People will laugh! – David Glickman
@MarklewA If nobody laughs at your joke, keep ploughing on and pretend it wasn’t meant to be funny – David Glickman
@SamHosenkamp Find out what’s going on in news and see if there’s a way to make it humorous – David Glickman
@SamHosenkamp Thinking of using humor in your speech? When in doubt, leave it out – David Glickman
@MarklewA Interesting how much overlap there is between the different elements of writing – funny or serious, it’s all about research.
@MarklewA Know your audience, know your venue, know your subject.
@jayrobb Humor can put an explanation mark on key points in your speech – Lucinda Holdforth
@MarklewA If you value your sanity, being able to eat and having a home, don’t be a freelancer. Wise words.
@jayrobb Don’t deliver a speech that’s like a love letter addressed to whom it may concern – Fletcher Dean
@SamHosenkamp Every audience has the same question ‘what is this person going to say that’s going to make my life better? – Fletcher Dean
@jayrobb All audiences want the same thing: how to be healthier, wealthier or happier.
@sveng Important to know your audience and understand their problems – Fletcher Dean
@SamHosenkamp Begin your speech at the end. Otherwise it’s like packing without knowing your destination. – Fletcher Dean
@jayrobb Eliciting action from your audience is the Holy Grail of speechwriting – Fletcher Dean
@SamHosenkamp Amplification through simplification: Keep your message short and clear – Fletcher Dean
@sveng Think like a reporter when you’re crafting your key messages – Fletcher Dean
@SamHosenkamp How to craft your key message: Write it as a headline you’d want to see in the paper – Fletcher Dean
@rebeccajshaffer A quick look at what Monroe’s Motivated Sequence – Recommended by Fletcher Dean
@rebeccajshaffer Anecdote trumps facts every day. Emotion matters!
@SamHosenkamp Logic, character and emotion – 3 key elements of a compelling speech.
@SamHosenkamp The best stories shouldn’t be written, they should be told – Fletcher Dean
@SamHosenkamp You have to be a speechthinker before you become a speechwriter – Fletcher Dean
@jayrobb Fletcher Dean ends his talk with a call to action – think deliberately before you begin writing your next speech.
@jayrobb Find stories by finding out who are your speaker’s heroes – Fletcher Dean
@MarklewA Mike Long threatens to “hunt down and kill” any freelance who bids low for a job. I don’t doubt that he means it.
@jayrobb In first 5 min. establish your credibility & show that you care & you’re paying attention to the audience – Fletcher Dean
@jayrobb Yes. Fletcher Dean’s talk was worth the price of admission to 2013 #raganspeech and his book should be a must read for speechwriters
@MarklewA If lecterns were good for speaking from behind, we’d wear them to work – @TMucci
@SamHosenkamp Elements of crowd pleasing when speaking. Eye contact, reaching out, interaction, agreement and smiling – @TMucci
@MarklewA The speechwriters’ convention does not have a million people in it because a million people can’t write speeches. Go us!
@SamHosenkamp You’re special creatures, speechwriters! “You were born a visual creature. Ability to craft speeches is special talent.” – @TMucci
@MarklewA Wow. Seems the Greeks didn’t just invent how to write speeches, they also twigged how to stand while delivering them.
@jayrobb Advice for turning a speaker into an orator: shift your weight, show your palms & smile – @TMucci
@EjazWrites How to know you’ve got a key message…Can you get your speech down to one tweet? – Fletcher Dean
@jayrobb Find 5 friendly faces in the audience to be your anchors. 2 on each side and 1 in centre of room – @TMucci
@jayrobb If you’re not having a good time speaking, your audience won’t have a good time listening – @TMucci
@jayrobb All the tone in your conversation is from the tilt of your head – @TMucci
@JodiReef Leaders need to give direction. Never leave an audience rudderless – Fletcher Dean
@SamHosenkamp 93 percent of speaking is nonverbal – @TMucci
@SamHosenkamp Slides should be viewable but not readable. Limit your text in presentations – @TMucci
@MatthewJBondy It’s all got to boil down to a single message.
@MatthewJBondy Student learners absorb speeches very differently than professional learners. How vs Why.
@SamHosenkamp Telling speaker to “just be better” is like telling patient “I just need you to be healthier” w/o sharing steps to take – @TMucci
@JodiReef Details engender authority and belief – Michael Long
@MarklewA About half the people in this session appear to be speechwriters for universities. Much more common in N America than UK.

7 Executive Communications Lessons for World-Class Speechwriters

SevenHundred Seven years ago this month, I added this Professionally Speaking blog to my Executive Communications website. Now, on New Year’s Day 2013, which happens to be my father’s 92nd Birthday — Happy Birthday Dad! — I’ve reached the milestone of 700 blog postings. This seems like a suitable moment to reflect some of the key lessons I’ve learned from my experience in providing executive communications support to my clients in Silicon Valley and around the world. You know you’ve hired a world-class speechwriter and communications consultant when they embrace these seven qualities.

1: CEOs need a confident confidant

Sitting in meetings at major Silicon Valley companies such as Sun Microsystems, Hewlett-Packard and Cisco, I’m often the only person in the room without a few thousand people reporting to them or a multi-billion dollar target to meet. This can be an incredibly useful role that a CEO will come to value. As the speechwriter, I’m the one person in the room the CEO can turn to without an agenda of my own to advance. A CEO once told me “Ian, it’s lonely at the top. I’ve seen every scam that managers can pull to cover their rear ends. I need someone like you who can tell it like it is.”

Key Lesson: Speechwriters with the confidence to speak up become the confidant and trusted adviser of a senior executive.

2: Be an impartial observer

I was once brought in to edit an Annual Report for a European client with four separate divisions. My role was to resolve the different viewpoints of each group. The VP of Communications needed an outside consultant with the independence required to be able to write a cohesive document. Executive communications professionals are in a unique position to be an impartial observer in large organizations with multiple departments and competing interests.

Key Lesson: Take the initiative and tell the truth, no matter what certain executives want to hear. But don’t take sides within a company. We need to keep lines of communication open to all parties.

3: Take complexity out

Companies are filled with subject matter experts (SMEs) in engineering, finance, marketing, and sales. A speechwriter is a jack-of-all-trades, master of none. But that’s our hidden value to a company. It’s my job to know a little bit about everything the company does, and who to talk to when I need details. But lack of detail is rarely an issue. Time and again, I’ve asked SMEs for the background information needed for five to 10 minutes of a speech only to be given enough data for a two-day seminar. My job is to absorb enormous volumes of data and take the complexity out–to find a way to communicate the message without putting the audience to sleep.

Key Lesson: Learn to simplify. Only include what is necessary to convey what is essential. As Einstein said “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.”

4: Tell compelling stories

As others have noted, people may not remember what you did or said, but they will always remember how you made them feel. Audiences forget facts, but they remember stories. Once you get past the jargon, the corporate world is an endless source of fascinating stories. I’ve found the best source of great stories for speeches come from informal chats when you are sitting down over coffee or, as I did one memorable afternoon, sharing a beer and pizza with the CEO in Boston’s North End. We talked about our time there as students. He shared a story about the lessons he’d learned outside the Harvard classroom that I used in a future speech.

Key Lesson: Always listen for stories executives tell about their childhood, family life, hobbies, early career and more. Dig for specifics. As speech coach Patricia Fripp says: “Specificity builds credibility.”

5: Embrace multimedia

The one-hour keynote is an endangered species. Conference organizers know audiences have short attention spans. Given travel budget restrictions, many organizations are turning to virtual meetings. Executives now need to feel comfortable on camera as well as on the podium.

My three years as a communications consultant at Cisco introduced me to the exciting possibilities of TelePresence meetings. I also enjoyed access to fully-equipped TV studios to produce All Hands meetings. But it was just as exciting working with the limitations of a simple Flip camera to capture video that I edited with Windows Movie Maker. These days it’s not enough to write clever speeches, you need to keep current with the latest in multimedia technology.

Key Lesson: Digital media expands the boundaries of executive communications. Suggest it as an alternative to travel; use it to time-shift; create content that includes outdoor shots, audience testimonials and impromptu out-takes; record staff interviews; livestream events; experiment with transmedia storytelling.

6: Open up the backchannel

The audience is no longer silent. They might look like they are sitting quietly, but a raging debate on what Cliff Atkinson called The Backchannel can occur within and beyond the confines of the presentation venue.

I’m amazed at the resistance some speakers have to this. My experience curating Twitter hashtags for specific events shows that there’s a rapidly emerging opportunity to magnify the impact of a speech and increase the reach beyond the walls of the auditorium.

Key Lesson: Learn about and embrace the backchannel. Make sure your executive has a Twitter account and use it for shameless self-promotion and to stimulate a lively debate before, during and after each presentation they make.

7: Learn to ask the right questions

As a communications professional, it’s not your role to out-gun the SMEs, VPs and assorted executives in the C-Suite when it comes to content. Our role is to ask what headline the CEO wants the speech to produce, to find out the audience’s hot buttons, and to uncover the unique point of view the speaker brings to the issue.

If there’s one lesson I’ve taken away from the work I’ve done for clients, it’s to always be ready to ask “Why is that?” when they suggest points they want to make in a speech. When they give an answer, have the courage to ask the same question again. It’s often only after they answer for the third time that the core of the speech is revealed.

Key Lesson: Don’t hurry to get to a final draft. Be professional and respect deadlines, but keep asking questions until you reach an answer that will make the audience sit up and take notice.

What executive communications lessons have YOU learned? Share them by leaving a comment below.

Book Review: The Art of Immersion, by Frank Rose

A decade ago, the tools of communications belonged to a chosen few. Editorial control over newspapers, television and radio was in the hands of those professionals tasked with selecting content deemed worthy of the front page, the headline, the news bulletin. National newspapers and mass media channels were scarce resources. The stories they carried were linear and sequential. The 10 o’clock news was broadcast for an hour each evening at the same time. Important news was on the front page, above the fold.

That was then, this is now.

Immersive storytelling

Today’s world is nonlinear, filled with always-on devices giving anywhere, any time access to media generated by those of us with a WordPress blog and a point of view. Storytelling has come full circle from the logical inevitability of the printed page to the random, emotionally binding, infinitely looping immersive stories of this fragmented age where anyone can create and re-purpose content, as did the bards of pre-literate eras.

The implications of the transition from top-down to user-generated content is explored in detail by Frank Rose in his book The Art of Immersion.

Rose identifies the roots of non-linear storytelling in the popular serials Charles Dickens published in the 1830’s. But it was the creation of the hyper-links of the World Wide Web that blew the lid off linear narrative:

Links change our relationship to information. They empower individuals and destroy hierarchies.

Cinema directors such as Quentin Tarantino, Jean-Luc Goddard and David Lynch create immersive, non-linear forms of film.

The unexpected juxtapositions, the startling elisions, the scenes out of sequence–asleep or awake, this is how we think, in a fast-dissipating vapor.

The implication is that we live in a multiverse, where events occur simultaneously. As the Western-born Spiritual Adept Adi Da Samraj has written about photography:

The human individual in the midst of Reality is like a camera in a room—perceiving everything from a fixed “point of view”. But what does the room Really look like? The room can be viewed from every possible “point of view” in space-time—not merely from any particular “point of view”, or even a finite collection of “points of view”. Therefore, no “point of view” can reveal the room, or Reality Itself, because every “point of view” is limited and essentially self-referring.

Frank Rose explores the art of immersive storytelling and the emerging transmedia methods that the best practitioners are developing in video games, advertising, movies, social media, television and more.

Frank Rose Interview

In August 2012 I met Frank at a Churchill Club event in Silicon Valley and took the opportunity to ask him about the implications of immersive storytelling for professional speakers and corporate communications professionals. To hear what he told me, click on the podcast icon below.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 3:39 — 866.8KB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS

The CEO’s Challenge: overcoming barriers to authentic communication

Authenticity is one the hallmarks of a successful presentation. Audiences can sense when a presenter is not delivering a message that is congruent with their beliefs. This is an emotional as much as an intellectual challenge, and one that many CEO’s are destined to fail. The reason, according to Anthony Goodman, writing in Monday’s Financial Times, is that many chief executives are prisoners of their environment. Quoting Professor Roger Martin who writes in Fixing The Game:

“Institutional investors, equity analysts, investment bankers, hedge funds and the financial press have emerged as central figures in the CEO’s community … a community rife with transactional relationships, exploitation and distrust.”

Martin believes that executives pander to these constituencies, leading them to make decisions that often do not deliver long-term value to the organizations they lead and deliver communications that lack authenticity.

When you hear a CEO present at a conference, you see one person. What you don’t see is the phalanx of communications staff, from the heads of Public Relations to the speechwriter, PowerPoint design team and event staff who had a hand in creating and revising the content that they deliver.

It’s a rare chief executive who has the time and attention on the speech to ensure that, as well as being an accurate communication about the institutional programs and objectives, it is also something that sounds totally authentic when they deliver it.

Audience’s remember those CEO’s who do take the time to embody their speeches as authentic communications of who they are. The rest, they forget.

Recommended: THNKR: PODIUM YouTube Channel

I’ve just come across a fabulous Channel on YouTube.

THNKR posts original videos in four sub-categories: on books, prodigies, thought leaders and public speaking. The public speaking channel (called PODIUM) is described as

Embracing oration & those with something to say. From historic political speeches, to contemporary commencement addresses, to wedding toasts, the series explores various genres of speechmaking and provides inspiring insightful analysis including “how-to” content. New episodes premiere ever other week, and run about seven minutes.

Here’s an example of the well-produced content – four tips on overcoming fear of public speaking.

I also enjoyed the analysis of Obama’s 2004 Convention speech which launched his career and features commentary by American University professor Robert Lehrman and other experts.

16 Tips from Top Speechwriters

The final day of the 2012 Ragan Speechwriters Conference ended with a Speechwriter’s Survival Guide Panel session:

Caryn Alagno (CA), SVP, Corporate Issues at Edleman
Mike Long (ML), Freelance Speechwriter
Colin Moorehouse (CM), Freelance Speechwriter
David Murray (DM), editor of Vital Speeches of the Day
Pete Weissman (PW), Freelance Communications Strategist and Speechwriter

Fletcher Dean, Director of Leadership Communications at The Dow Chemical Company was the moderator.

If you are an unemployed speechwriter, or a freelancer between assignments, join an Association of communicators like IABC or NSA, volunteer to meet everyone. Then join an Association, such as for biotechnologists, where there are no other speechwriters, pass your business card around to make contacts. (CM)
Be known for something, develop your expertize in a specialized niche. “People need to believe you are good at something before they’ll believe you are good at everything.” (CA)
Use technology to be productive: Evernote to file ideas; Dragon Naturally Speaking for transcriptions; Scrivener to organize facts; voice replay on PC or Mac to have computer read speech back for proofing; Carbonite and thumb drives for backups. (PW)
Stop writing for the “speakers voice”, write for content. (ML)
Don’t follow in footsteps of old school, cynical writers who would hammer out a speech for anyone with the bucks to hire them. Connect with what you are passionate about. Connect with your industry, connect with other speechwriters. (DM)
Be more than a speechwriter, become a content strategist by injecting facts and statistics into speeches. Repurpose content into Op-Ed’s, Employee newsletters and more. (CA)
Learn the ask the right questions: What headline do you want the speech to generate? What news can the company announce? Are there any landmines or sensitive issues to avoid? What is the audience’s biggest problem? What unique point of view does the speaker bring to the issue? (PW)
Freelancer’s must know what their monthly “nut” is – how much do you need to earn to pay the bills? (ML)
Don’t charge by the hour, or word, charge by the project. You’ll work fast and make more and the client will have the comfort of knowing the total cost up front. (ML)
Develop a sense of humor, all speechwriters who survive learn not to take things too seriously. (DM)
Once you have made contact with potential clients at the level of exchanging business cards, call for a follow-up lunch, listen to their issues, ask about their life. At the end of the meeting ask for permission to keep in touch and, finally, ask if they know anyone else you can talk to. Do this with each contact and it will lead to paying clients very quickly. (CM)
Term what you write as “CEO remarks”, not just a speech. Consider rebranding your role to make yourself more relevant to each client. (CA)
Respect your skills as a storyteller who, as Hitchcock noted, is “life with the dull parts left out”. Enjoy talking to the influential people who you meet and you have the freedom to ask them probing questions. (PW)
Juice your creativity with a simple, practical writing exercises. Example: Describe everything you can about a chalkboard, now list the ways these qualities are like love (both are easily erased, never quite clean, leaves some dust in the air). (ML)
Find other outlets for your creativity beyond speeches. If the CEO won’t take your counsel, volunteer on the board of a non-profit. Write magazine articles at the weekend. (DM)
Expect to charge between $5,000 – $12,000 for a high-stakes speech and if you write fast and limit the re-writes you can earn $600/hr. (ML)

People Make A Difference: Danny Brassell interview

I was interviewed earlier today on the “People Make a Difference” show hosted by Danny Brassell from California State University, Dominguez Hills that showcases the positive contributions of people in various communities . I met Danny in late 2011 at a National Speakers Northern California Chapter event and he invited me to be a guest on his show.

We discuss my work as a speechwriter in Silicon Valley and the aspects of the job that I enjoy most.

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"…the most prolific blogger in the speechwriting business." – David Murray, Vital Speeches of the Day.

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