Speechwriters in high technology companies often face the challenge of communicating complexities in a simple manner which audiences can understand. The universe is a complex machine which no-one really understands. Books have been written on the ways we interpret the evidence of our senses. None of them are easy to understand. Are they?

Then along comes a short video which can take you further down the path of understanding how we perceive reality in five minutes than a dozen philosophy books would in a month.

I found it easy to envisage the techniques employed by this video being used by a technology company wishing to communicate complexity in profoundly simple, even provocative, ways.

Take five minutes to check it out and let me know if you think I’m smoking something or if you agree.

Ready? Steady? Go!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jump off the cliff

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

Write a great title

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

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

Invest in designing the book cover

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

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

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

Writing the book is the easy part

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

Speaking tips

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

Look for humor in real life

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

Look for sponsors

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

Look to improve

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ways of Seeing

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Executive Communications Lesson

Artists like Rothko communicate non-verbally.

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

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

Use words to paint pictures.

Be aware of the soft edges of your presentation.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Beatles ‘Eleanor Rigby’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There was bone-chilling cold.

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

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

Bob Dylan ‘Changing of the Guards’

Debbie Weil: An executive communicator’s guide to corporate blogging

Following my quick experiment in ‘Live Blogging’ during Debbie’s afternoon seminar this post is a summary of the rest of her material.

If there’s one thing more up in the air than the future of corporate blogging, it’s the role of the communicator in supporting corporate blogs. Debbie Weil has forged a sophisticated vision for how organizational leaders can and should participate in the blogosphere—and how their speechwriters can (and can’t) help.

The session promised to share information on:

Along the way, you’ll see examples of leadership blogs, and learn from the best (and the worst) in the business. You’ll leave this session not only knowing how to create a leadership blog but how to create a whole blog strategy for your organization.

Debbie pays the mortgage by consulting with organizations on blogging. She works with CEOs as an executive blogging coach and writes a blog of her own, Blog Write for CEOs.com

A quick survey of the 250 attendees at the Conference showed that 88% of the companies represented are not publishing blogs and 69% not considering publishing blogs. Indifference? Opportunity!

Debbie first explained some of the basics to the dozen or so attendees. Not surprisingly, many of them were in the dark about much of this. Back in 1990 many people did not have email addresses. What a difference a decade made. Look for a similar sea change in blogging, says I.

Making Sense of Social Media

These defeat the silos found in federal government and other big corporations, allowing speechwriters to float like a butterfly over vast reservoirs of speech fodder (he wrote, in a late night mix of confused metaphor).

They allow employees access the creativity outside corporate America. They allow us to be part of the Naked Conversations (which is not to be confused with the Naked Lunch).

Social Media is good for Sharing; Collaboration; Creativity; Participation; Engagement; Authenticity and Transparency.

Example: Writing a book used to be solitary, a blog can encourage comments on text. Wikis also. The blog takes all the comments and centralizes them.

A business blog is:

Debbie led the group in a debate on pros and cons of blogging. By the end of the afternoon at least one former skeptic was convinced. Look for a blog by an employee of a Defense Contractor (of course, if you read it, he may have to shoot you!) She took us through a show and tell on setting up feeds in Bloglines. We discussed the best use of RSS feeds and such to help monitor the blogosphere. I refrained from mentioning my Handy Dandy Guide to setting up an RSS Newsreader, so I’ll do that here.

The question arose as to why more speechwriters don’t blog. One thing might be the load. David Murray, Editor of the Speechwriters Newsletter claimed to be the ‘world’s first retired blogger’ – he was actually paid to blog by Ragan Communications and gave it up due to the time factor. However, speechwriters who don’t get their own by-lines might get great joy out of blogging.

Debbie advised your topic has to be your passion. Her workbook on content development for blogging has worksheets on:

Debbie showed us how easy it is to start a blog in Typepad and post to it, change the URL to map to a web site you may have and more. She used her China Blogging Tour blog set up in anticipation of a book tour she’s undertaking over there, as an example, inserting pictures and video from YouTube and Bebo links.

And that, after an intense three days in Washington DC, was that.

Hal Gordon: Bite the bullet—Turn your speaker’s liabilities into assets

Hal Gordon has been a professional speechwriter for nearly 25 years. His clients have included cabinet-rank federal officials, corporate CEOs and General Colin Powell. He’s also one of the few pro speechwriters who blogs – way to go, Hal!

Good speakers, like good speechwriters, are made, not born. Some of the greatest speakers who ever lived have had to overcome a stammer, an accent, a natural shyness, a physical handicap or some other disadvantage before they could conquer a crowd. If your speaker has a problem, the best approach is not to duck it or paper it over, but to meet it head-on.

If you bite the bullet, you have a good chance of turning your speaker’s liabilities into assets.

This session promised that we’d learn how to:

Overcoming obstacles

As speechwriters, we know that if we’ve got a good speaker as a client, we’re halfway home before we’ve written our first word.

But what if we have a poor speaker? What if we have a speaker who has a lisp, a stammer or a distracting handicap of some kind? What if our speaker is shy, or not used to public speaking? Or what if we have a good speaker who is disadvantaged by circumstances? We have all had to write speeches for clients to deliver to audiences that are hostile to the speaker, or skeptical of his message, or both..

Hal teased us by quoting the case of a politician who was seen as a village idiot, and had to give a speech to a skeptical audience. No, it wasn’t the current resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, but the Roman Emperor Claudius who addressed a hostile audience. “Senators, I understand you don’t want another Emperor, but you have been given one…As for speaking, it’s true that I have an impediment, but isn’t what a man says more important than how long it takes to say it.â€? Claudius takes each of his liabilities and turns them into an asset:

Another example of a speaker who triumphed magnificently over adversity is Churchill. he suffered both from a lisp and stammer and never fully overcame them. His devastating attack in the Houses of Parliament on Ramsey MacDonald in 1936 relied on a stammered pause before delivering the punchline:

I remember, when I was a child, being taken to the celebrated Barnum’s circus, which contained an exhibition of freaks and monstrosities, but the exhibit . . . which I most desired to see was the one described as ‘The Boneless Wonder’. I never thought I would have to wait 50 years to see the boneless wonder now sitting on the Treasury bench.

Other speakers use an accent to charm, as did JFK.

Using Humor

If you’ve got a good speaker and a hostile crowd, the speaker can often find something funny about the incongruity of the situation, and break the ice with a friendly laugh.

Self-deprecating humor is often the best approach to take in these situations. It is also the safest, since no one can object if the speaker makes fun of himself for having a stammer or an accent – or for being unusually tall, short or heavy. Or even for being bald.

Lincoln used self-depreciating humor – accused of being two faced he said “If I was, would I choose to wear this one?�

Defusing hostility

Example: Bush’s speech to the hostile crowd at the NAACP – a group he had avoided meeting until that point. He defused the situation as follows:

Thank you very much. Bruce, thanks for your introduction. Bruce is a polite guy — I thought what he was going to say, it’s about time you showed up. (Laughter and applause.) And I’m glad I did. (Applause.)

But what about those occasions where humor of any kind is, for some reason, inappropriate? That’s when you really have to bit the bullet and face the problem head-on.

In one respect, there is no difference in writing for a hostile, rather than a friendly audience.

Aristotle taught that there were three main devices for moving audiences – ethos, logos and pathos. They remain the same. We simply adapt them to the occasion.

Ethos – building a bond with audience
Logos – Appealing to reason and logic
Pathos – Appealing to emotion

The basics don’t change but need to be adopted when facing a tough crowd. Usually this means paying particular attention to Ethos.

Dig into your speaker’s background to discover a link to the audience. John Hofmeister, CEO of Shell Oil, spoke to the NAACP in Houston. The crowd wondered if he was committed to diversity. Rosa Parks had died shortly before the speech, this jogged his memory. He recalled living in Atlanta in 1955. As a 5-year-old he wanted to sit at the back of the bus when in those days Whites were not allowed to. His grandmother supported him and they were thrown off the bus. When he recounted this story to the NAACP and said “I hope that in Heaven God will introduce my grandmother to Rosa Parks” he brought the crowd to their feet.

The Byzantine emperor Justinian’s’ wife Theodora made a brief, telling speech under somewhat difficult circumstances: armed mobs were descending on the Palace and many of the nobles, plus her own husband, wanted to flee.

Theodora begins with the acknowledgement that urging acts of daring was not considered womanly but nonetheless she took a tough line and urged defiance. Her husband might flee if he wished, but she would stay, for she liked the ancient maxim which said that royalty made a good shroud.

My Lords, the present occasion is too serious to allow me to follow the convention that a woman should not speak in a man’s counsel. Those whose interests are threatened by extreme danger should think only of the wisest course of action, not of conventions. In my opinion, flight is not the right course even if it should bring us to safety. It is impossible for a person having been born into this world not to die. But for one who has reined it is intolerable to be a fugitive. If you wish to save yourself, my lord, there is no difficulty, we are rich, we have ships, yonder lies the harbor. Yet reflect for a moment whether you have escaped to a place of security, you would not gladly exchange such safety for death. As for me, I agree with the old adage that the royal purple makes the noblest shroud.

She seized on her liabilities as a woman who stays to fight. The men in the audience could not flee when they heard this. When she had them by their manhood, their hearts and minds followed.

I was struck by the ways in which female leaders such as Margaret Thatcher (the leaderine as the British Press called her) echo this. Thatcher’s cabinet were depicted as clustering around her like drones round a Queen Bee. She exploited the perceived ‘weakness’ of her sex by out macho-ing the macho. Are there not strong echoes of Theodora in her famous 1980 speech to the Conservative Party Congress:

To those waiting with bated breath for that favorite media catchphrase, the “U” turn, I have only one thing to say. “You turn if you want to. The lady’s not for turning.” I say that not only to you but to our friends overseas and also to those who are not our friends.

One wonders if America is ready to be taken to task by a Theodora, a Margaret or, dare I say, a Hilary?

The Motivational speech

Hal next asked us to consider the case of a new 27-year-oldgeneral giving a pep-talk to his men. They’ve not been paid in months. There’s no supplies or back pay. He’s inexperienced and they resent his appointments. Rumor is that he only got his job because his wife slept with the Minister of War. Napoleon (for it was he) was about to win his first battle with words not the sword.

On March 27, 1796 he roused his army with these words:

Soldiers, you are naked, ill fed! The Government owes you much; it can give you nothing. Your patience, the courage you display in the midst of these rocks, are admirable; but they procure you no glory, no fame is reflected upon you. I seek to lead you into the most fertile plains in the world. Rich provinces, great cities will be in your power. There you will find honor, glory, and riches. Soldiers of Italy, would you be lacking in courage or constancy?

In this short speech he devotes first half to ethos. He’s unflinchingly honest about the situation. The same issues are faced by an executive having to discuss downsizing. He motivates them by the promise of looting. (This might only work on Wall Street and during the glory days of Enron). Note how he does not tell, he asks Are you men enough to take it? It’s probably a better rhetorical device for the VP of Sales than the CEO. His confidence in his destiny allowed him to take the risks. He gave his men hope. His rival Wellington said Napoleon’s mere presence on a battlefield was worth 40,000 men.

The Aw Shucks Speech

When all else fails the best option might be to say how bad you are at speaking. I’m not a speaker and I don’t pretend to be, I’m just going to give you the facts. This is the one bond you have with every audience. Everyone can identify with this. None other than Shakespeare used this device in the play Othello, who, when accused of beguiling the daughter of nobleman with witchcraft (would ‘twer that easy lads!) says he’s not an orator, he’s a foreigner, an outsider. The speech he makes in his defense is disingenuously effective:

Most potent, grave, and reverend signiors,
My very noble and approved good masters,
That I have ta’en away this old man’s daughter,
It is most true; true, I have married her:
The very head and front of my offending
Hath this extent, no more. Rude am I in my speech,
And little bless’d with the soft phrase of peace:
For since these arms of mine had seven years’ pith,
Till now some nine moons wasted, they have used
Their dearest action in the tented field,
And little of this great world can I speak,
More than pertains to feats of broil and battle,
And therefore little shall I grace my cause
In speaking for myself. Yet, by your gracious patience,
I will a round unvarnish’d tale deliver
Of my whole course of love; what drugs, what charms,
What conjuration and what mighty magic,
For such proceeding I am charged withal,
I won his daughter.

All speechwriters should enjoy poetry. Do you?

Othello’s brave deeds on the tented field not pretty words acquitted him. Actions always speak louder than words, which is hard for speechwriters to admit.

Many thanks to Hal for a most entertaining and educational hour.

Tom Mucciolo: Get physical: How to move beyond words and help your speaker master the more important keys to speechmaking

Speechwriters naturally care more about words than about style. And rightly so: Words are our jobs. Finely honed speeches can deliver verbal eloquence, but this is only half the battle. The MTV Generation audience focus more on the body language of the speaker than on the words he or she says. Across diverse cultures audiences get 55% of information from visual clues given by the presenter; 38% from how it is presented; a mere 7% from the content.

Tom Mucciolo, CEO of MediaNet, a New York-based firm that teaches top corporate and political leaders how to combine words, visuals and delivery to create powerful presentations, is a recognized industry expert in visual communications, business presentations and leadership skills. He is the co-author of various books including Purpose, Movement, Color: A Strategy for Effective Presentations and a series on Using Microsoft Powerpoint.

He delivered a fascinating session on the power of body language, eye contact, and theatrical gestures for enhancing the effectiveness of speakers.

The session promised to teach the ways to:

Mucciolo explained there are three aspects of every presentation: The Message – the things we have to say; The Visuals – evidence supporting this; the presenters Delivery Skills – supporting the lot.

People are nervous before presenting because the words “I� and “me� go through their head (something we later heard bothers Homeland Security Czar Tom Ridge) – they focus on themselves, not the audience.

Presenters need to know positioning and body language skills. These tips sound picky but it’s equivalent to a typo of body language not to be consistent. Executives freak over typos on slide — that’s only 7% of the information!

Mucciolo’s checklist for effective presentations included:

Positioning skills

LEFT is Right

Position the presenter to the left of the screen so reading patterns are honored.

Stand at an angle

The position of the body closer to or further from the audience raises or lowers intimacy. Become aware of the triangle formed with the presenter, audience and content. Move the body within this space to keep peoples attention. If the presenter is locked in one space the speech becomes ‘talk radio’, people tune out and Blackberry use increases. Move closer to the audience to grab their attention (and their hearts and minds will follow).

A speaker behind a lectern is worst. If lecterns did anything, we’d wear them to work! They are security blankets for speakers.

The exposure of the body is the highest form of skill for communicators. Emails and phone conversations can be misinterpreted since they are one-dimensional. People see bodies that move, understanding increases.

Actors know how to use the tilt of the head alone to alter the tone a conversation. Tilt head back: big picture; straight on: basic information; lean forward: more personal. This works on the TV screen and in close ups for speakers in big auditoriums. Practicing this skill will feel awkward, but become more natural over time.

Speakers need to take chances and move beyond their comfort zone.

All in the shoulders

45-degrees to audience is the rest position. Don’t stand squared on all the time, it’s just like yelling constantly, you lose impact. CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW? Stand squared on is your power position. Use it sparingly.

Upstaging errors

Don’t turn your back on the audience to read PowerPoint

Being able to read is not a compelling skill.

(And the less content visible to the audience on PowerPoint the more eloquence and power there is.)

Don’t cross your body with your right hand

This closes you off to your audience. Staying physically open increases your credibility and says to the audience Give me your best shot, go ahead!.

Don’t tease, let them see your expertise.

Crowd pleasing tips

Establish eye contact

Reach out with open palms

As welcoming as a handshake. Use it to invite audience feedback. Don’t just flip your palms. Hold the gesture.

Phrase and pause

Avoid fillers and excessive pacing which sows you are searching for the next thing to say.

Talk to individuals

Get agreement

SMILE

If you’re not having a good time presenting the audience won’t enjoy it. When you laugh your heart is open – it can’t be rehearsed, it’s an internal emotion, like tears. After a joke gets the audience laughing the presenter has a 30-second pass to say anything they want and it’ll go into long-term memory. It stretches the rubber band of the emotion.

But don’t start a talk with a joke to break the ice. Whose cold, anyway? Use humor later on in the talk and remember that observation humor is better that canned jokes.

Taking a stand

Hands at the side, always shown

This might feel awkward at first, but it looks best. The expert exposes the body. Use your hands to create speech that’s three-dimensional.

Elbows and knees unlocked

Feet shoulder-width apart

Weight unevenly distributed

This makes gestures look natural. More symmetrical actions are unnatural. Shifted weight conveys authority. Squaddies stand at attention, the top brass are all relaxed. The relaxed doctor gives the diagnosis to the upright, tense patient.

What FEELS unnatural LOOKS natural. Presentations are not about you, they’re about the audience.

Avoid the stance of the Gunfighter; Head waiter; 3rd Base coach; Conversationalist.

There are only three possible relationships. We are all either:
The Parent-Child
The Brother-sister
The Husband-Wife

The famous moment on TV when Clinton scolded the interviewer who’d asked him if he’d had sexual relationships with Monica Lewinsky showed him acting as a parent. He realized a President is legitimate to the extent he’s perceived as a Parent. So, Clinton’s very specific gesture when denying sex with Monica was the parental wagging of a finger. An open palm response at that moment would’ve been asking for forgiveness and probably scuppered his Presidency.

Speaking up: Tips on using your voice

Be aware of the difference when you write for men vs. women.

Females have big voice advantage – their lower center of gravity delivers a more melodious voice and can carry longer phrases. Men sound off key and do better with shorter phrases. Men should breathe between phrases but can project with better volume. Men can project to back of room while women sound shrill. Men should create interaction wherever possible. Women should pick a guy for an interactive question to make them sound good. Make your first interactive question one of opinion not of fact. If they get one wrong you’re out of favor.

Your voice can help you get out of awkward situations. Use one of these three ‘E’ words to keep the audience on your side if you face hostile questions:

Can you give me an Example, or Explain that or Elaborate on that.

An audience member will want to be on their best behavior to gain points with fellow audience members. Don’t allow audience members to lose their dignity or lose face in front of their peers. Never ask them questions they’ll be wrong on. If they give an incorrect answer, rephrase the question.

In summery, the three things an effective presenter should always do:

1. SHIFT your weight
2. SHOW the palms of your hands
3. SHOW their teeth, smile to express energy and joy.

And remember, go easy on The Man. Good coaches don’t try and change too much at once.

Michele Nix: Best-case speechwriting scenario: What I’ve learned working for the dream client

Sometimes speechwriters draft speeches they hope are never, ever given. Michelle Nix is one.

She’s an inside-the-Beltway speechwriter who ‘nagged’ her way into her first job working speeches for “Papaâ€? Bush. She was in on the beginning at Homeland Security supporting the newly appointed Tom Ridge.

Her hope is that a series of speeches Homeland Security have in a ‘red file’ are never used. These are the equivalent to obituaries newspapers keep on file for public figures to be instantly available if they die. They are the speeches that will be given when the next terrorist outrage happens. Chemical, biological or nuclear attack, in one location or many – Michelle has the speech outlines drafted. One can only imagine:

My fellow Americans. It is with a heavy heart that I must tell you that [CITY] today suffered a devastating [NUCLEAR/BIOLOGICAL/CHEMICAL] attack. Our thoughts go out to those survivors who are now struggling to cope with the devastation in their beloved [CITY]….

Thankfully, the speech remains on file and has not yet been used.

This would be good practice for Corporate speechwriters. The challenge is anticipating the worst and being prepared with the right messaging. After all, who would’ve thunk that HP would be in the media spotlight for a ‘Spy Scandal’?

Michelle shared a surprisingly frank view of the early days of Homeland Security and the struggles the communication team faced. The formation of the Department saw the communications team brainstorming goals on the back of a napkin. Uncertainty reigned. Nothing could guarantee perfect security for America. Early headlines quoted Ridge saying When, not if, another attack would occur. Hard messages had to be conveyed: It’s Code Orange, but keep shopping. There were carictures of Ridge as the ‘Czar’ of Homeland Security:

Her job paralleled this confusion. Political appointees with no speechwriting experience were jockeying for positions. Her credibility was on the line and she requested his support for decisions to keep the staff professional. Security clearance took forever. She taped him to get his patterns of speech. His extemporaneous eloquence was rich fodder for key phrases.

She raised the bar – delivering him the phrasing, background and stats in his formal speeches.

CNN asked if he got a new speechwriter.

Their collaboration is based on respect. He exhibited early evidence of being a dream client. Example: When traveling she took the Secret Service Agents seat on the jet and sat next to him while he reviewed text of speeches. “I realize that these 10 pages probably took your 16 hours to write. I realize a lot of work goes into my speeches and I appreciate that.�

He expected her to deliver the best, she expected him to deliver the speech. After the trust was built she expanded the boundaries. The post-9/11 messages had to deal with outrage in country. As Governor he was overcome with emotion when Flight 93 crashed.

They needed to define the enemy to Americans – it was not just Osama Bin Laden. He wanted to say “Eat our shortsâ€? in speeches, but could not. He wanted to be very clear who enemy was. They were described as murderers not freedom fighters. He asked for her input on strategy. They were aware terrorists were also watching CNN. Ridge included her in consultations he had with intelligence and the military — “What do you think, Michelle?”

Not surprisingly, Ridge’s favorite speaker is Churchill. He loves discussing the great orators of history with her.

They built a mutual comfort zone. She was able to ask for his input, get him to tell her stories. This was a challenge because Ridge does not like to talk about himself. It became a struggle to draw out personal stories. His father had a great influence on him: teaching him all that all work has dignity.

Neither Ridge nor Papa Bush was comfortable using the word “I� in speeches. Their mothers told them not to bring attention to themselves. She had to reassure him that it’s OK to use the word within the boundary of maternal influence. One doubts Sir Winston struggled with this problem.

Ridge has now grown into an international statesman who gives speeches in the UK, Canada and Asia. His messaging is broadening. The “Boy from Eire, PA” with 25 years of public service has come a long way. But he’s dealing with same issues. And he’s now more willing to put “Iâ€? in speeches.

Michelle’s book Woman at the Podium is a first-ever collection of speeches by some of the world’s most famous women, including Elizabeth I, Sojourner Truth, Eleanor Roosevelt, Golda Meir, Clare Boothe Luce, Barbara Jordan, Margaret Thatcher, Katharine Graham and many others.