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

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

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

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

High Speed Network planned

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

Engel notes it is facing an uphill struggle:

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

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

Good Morning, America, How Are You?

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

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

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

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

Engel concludes:

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

At a recent conference for senior speechwriters, Boe Workman the Director of CEO Communications at the AARP shared a one page ‘wish list’ for speechwriters to use when developing a presentation for their client. Boe said he keeps this list pinned to his notice board and refers to it whenever he starts a new project. Click here to download the one-page version for your own notice baord. Boe can be reached at bworkman@aarp.org. This list is posted here with Boe’s express permission. Photo Credit: ladydanio via Compfight cc

A Speechwriters’ Wish List: (Questions Every Speechwriter Should Ask)

Situational Variables

1. Why was the speaker asked to speak to this group at this time?
2. What does the speaker/organization hope to achieve by this speech?
3. What does the organization being addressed hope to achieve by this speech?
4. What is the relationship between the speaker and the organization being addressed?
5. What is the relationship between our organization and the organization being addressed?
6. What is the organization’s interest in the topic?
7. What is the occasion for the speech?
8. What is the physical layout of the room and podium?
9. If the occasion is a dinner or banquet, will the speaker speak from a head table, a separate lectern, or neither?
10. If the occasion is a conference or a panel, where is the speaker positioned? Who else is on the panel? What other topics, issues, organizations, or viewpoints will be represented?
11. If the occasion is an internal speech, will other members of the organization be on the program?
12. Are all visual (or audio) materials in proper working order?

Audience Variables

1. Who is the primary audience? Is it the people in the room? The news media? The television or satellite audience? People who will read about the speech in the newspaper or another publication? Social Media? A third party?
2. What is the size and composition of the audience?
3. What is the audience’s attitude toward the topic?
4. Is the audience well-informed about the topic?
5. What is the audience’s attitude toward the organization and speaker?
6. What do the speaker and our organization have in common with the audience?
7. Do you know enough about the audience to adapt your approach to the topic to fit their attitudes and frame of reference?
8. Do you know enough about the audience to adapt the language of the speech to their educational and knowledge level?
9. Do you know enough about the audience to guide your choice of supporting materials?
10. Will audience members be live tweeting from the event?

Message Variables

1. Is the purpose of the message clearly defined and understood by the speaker and the audience?
2. Does the message have a clear introduction, body, and conclusion?
3. Is the message designed for the audience?
4. Does the message promote identification between the audience and the topic?
5. Does the message promote identification between the audience and the speaker?
6. Do the ideas and evidence in the message withstand the scrutiny of reasonable individuals?
7. Does the message employ an appropriate style and use of language?
8. Does the message follow an organizational pattern suitable to the audience, occasion, topic, and speaker?
9. Is the message reinforced with appropriate visual material and/or handouts (if applicable)?
10. Is the message organized to meet the time and programmatic constraints of the event?
11. Does the message incorporate the appropriate blend of logical, emotional, and ethical appeals?

Speaker Variables

1. What do I know about the speaker’s delivery style including: phrasing, tempo, words or phrases the speaker likes to use or avoid?
2. Is the speaker comfortable with appropriate technical jargon?
3. Does the speaker favor some rhetorical devices over others (i.e., metaphors, oxymorons, rhetorical questions)?
4. Does the speaker prefer some types of evidence over others (i.e., statistics, analogies, expert opinion, examples)?
5. Does the speaker’s style lend itself to humor? If so, what type — jokes, humorous story or anecdote, one-liners, etc.?
6. Is the speaker comfortable using gestures and visual aids?
7. Does the speaker have favorite authors, stories, or subjects he or she likes to use for quotations or for relating ideas?
8. Is the message one the speaker feels strongly about personally?
9. Is the speaker an acknowledged expert on the topic, and what is the depth of that knowledge?
10. Will the speaker be responsible for a question and answer session after the speech?

Do you have any additional ‘wish list’ items you check before you start work on a speech? Share them in the comments section below.

For anyone who has worked in the speechwriting, executive communications or PR business and supported an executive who has presented at a major event, much about the new movie Steve Jobs will seem very familiar.

No matter how truthful a portrait it is of the man (played by Michael Fassbender) who founded Apple — debate rages among those who worked with him — it is an accurate account of life behind the scenes on the day of a product launch presentation. Actually, we are given a backstage pass to three events: the launches of the Mac in 1984, the NeXT cube in 1998 and the iMac in 1998.

Poetic license

At each event it is marketing VP Joanna Hoffman (played by Kate Winslet) who attempts to keep the tech guru focused on the product launch. His attention is continually distracted by a series of visitors to the green room, from angry and frustrated co-workers (chief among them Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak and CEO John Scully) to angry and frustrated family members (chief among them his daughter Lisa and her mother Chrisann).

This is extreme poetic license. No executive could tolerate such emotionally charged conversations moments before stepping in front of an audience. Indeed, for the real story on the focus Jobs brought to his presentations, and the intensity of the preparation, read Carmine Gallo’s excellent analysis of The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs.

Familiar Details

Familiar details about life behind the scenes at a major event include:

• The chaos of cables, monitors and cluttered hallways the audience never sees from the front of the house.
• The auditorium before the doors open, with a random scattering of people watching the final rehearsal.
• Swarms of black-clad, production people on headphones trying to keep everything on schedule.
• The fruit baskets and cans of soda in the green room.
• Techies frantically trying to get the demo to work.
• The script outline spread on the floor, undergoing last minute edits.

The movie captures these universal aspects of the world of executive communications.

iBelieve

What is unique to Jobs and Apple was the evangelical fervor of the launches with enthusiastic audiences behaving more like those at a rock concert than the introduction of a new computer (one of which, in a memorable line, is accused of “looking like Judy Jetsons’ Easy-Bake oven”).

It also conveys quirky aspects of Jobs personality, such as using yoga poses to relax before going on stage; insisting the graphics person show him 39 images of a shark before selecting the specific one that he wants on the slide; and needing, over the fire marshals express prohibition, the exit signs in the auditorium blacked-out for a demo.

The movie is of the time and place that birthed Apple and revitalized Silicon Valley. We see flashbacks of Jobs and Woz arguing about the future in their Cupertino garage. The influences on Jobs — from the Bob Dylan soundtrack to knowing references to dropping acid and glorious images of the Golden Gate Bridge — are intertwined with the theme of reconciliation with his estranged daughter.

Much has been written about how confrontational Jobs was, and this film certainly highlights the difficult aspects of his personality. While not too many executive communications professionals have the challenge, or privilege, of working with as mercurial character as Steve Jobs, I believe all will enjoy this inside look backstage before the presentation starts.

On Thursday September 17, 2015 the Silicon Valley Speechwriters welcomed Hal Gordon as our guest on a conference call.

Hal was a speechwriter for the Reagan White House and later wrote for Gen. Colin Powell. Since 2005, Hal has provided executive speech writing for top executives of Shell Oil, Royal Dutch Shell, CenterPoint Energy, GE Aero Energy, UPS, Sim-Tex LP, cPanel and the Greater Houston Partnership. He’s also lectured on speechwriting for NASA, Texas A&M University, the National Association of Government Communicators, more than half a dozen national speechwriter conferences and the U.K. Speechwriter’s Guild.

Hal was a speechwriter in the Reagan White House, where he wrote for Counselor to the President Edwin Meese, OMB director James C. Miller, and other top domestic advisors to the President.

Hal has a web site—www.ringingwords.com—and blogs for www.punditwire.com. Follow him on Twitter @paidpen.

In a wide-ranging conversation Hal discusses working at the White House and his views on the current crop of Republican Presidential candidates (including Donald Trump who he satirizes in this version of a Trump speech to Evangelicals). He comments on the debt Winston Churchill owes to Irish-American statesman William Bourke Cockran and the importance of Churchill’s essay on Scaffolding of Rhetoric.
Hal reminds speechwriters to always be on the look out for material, which he illustrates by telling how he used the Shield of Parade which he admired on a visit to the British Museum in a later speech.

To hear edited highlights of the call, click on the podcast icon below.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 36:31 — 16.9MB)

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Ever wondered why some TED talk recordings on YouTube gather a respectable few hundred thousand views while other go viral and attract many millions? Is there a difference in content, facts and figures or information shared that is more compelling and pertinent to a wider audience? Does one speaker have more name recognition than another? Or perhaps look more attractive, sleeker, sexier, and authoritative?

Now, thanks to research conducted by the good folks at Science of People we have strong evidence why some talks are more popular than others.

After an extensive review of TED talks they found that there are five key patterns that speakers delivering popular talks exhibit. These findings are a great set of suggestions for any speaker who would like to be well-received by an audience:

1. It’s Not What You Say, It’s How You Say It

Many subject matter experts won’t like to hear this, but it’s more about what you do onstage than what you say. The report states:

We rate someone’s charisma, credibility and intelligence based on nonverbal signals. This is surprising–we want people to focus on our words, but this experiment is no different from previous research. Studies have found that 60 to 93% of our communication is nonverbal. Over and over again we find that how we say something is more important than what we say. The question then becomes, how do we say something well? Read on to find out which nonverbal signals were most important.

The proof of this? People liked the speakers just as much with sound as on mute!

2. The More Hand Gestures, the More Successful the Talk

There was a direct correlation between the number of views on a TED talk and the number of hand gestures. Our hands are a nonverbal way to show and build trust. Studies have found that when we see someone’s hands, we have an easier time trusting them. This begs the question whether speakers with an Italian heritage are inherently more trustworthy than, say, Irish step dancers.

3. Vocal Variety Increases Charisma

Every Toastmaster who completes their CTM certification learns the importance of vocal variety. The more vocal variety of a TED speaker, the more views their video had. Speakers who told stories, ad libbed and even yelled at the audience captivated the audience’s imagination and attention. Those who obviously memorized their lines and read from scripts lacked memorability. Currently, there seems to be one Republican presidential candidate who is trumping the rest in terms of ad libs, yelling and overall vocal variety.

4. Smiling Makes You Look Smarter

Contrary to the belief that smiling in a business setting signifies low status behavior, and serious topics require you deliver the speech with a grimace, the researchers found that the longer a TED speaker smiled, the higher their perceived intelligence ratings were. Those who smiled were rated as higher in intelligence than those who smiled less.

5. First Impressions Count

And when they say ‘first impressions’ they mean first!

The researchers found that the audience had already made a decision about the entire talk in the first seven (7) seconds. Typically this happens before any words are exchanged. While the opening lines of a talk are important, a speaker must think about how they take the stage, how they acknowledge the audience and how they deliver their first line. Stumbling onto the stage and mumbling thanks for inviting you won’t cut it.

The research measured favorability (as shown by the number of video views) on a number of other criteria. None were as important as the five listed above, but are interesting:

• People in casual clothing typically rated lower than people in business or business casual.
• Women who wore business clothing got higher ratings compared to men in business clothing.
• Speakers in darker colors got higher ratings than those in lighter colors.

This is a fascinating and important study, check it out!

David Murray is the editor of Vital Speeches of the Day. This posting recently appeared there and I was impressed by the practical advice it contains. It captures the essence of the speechwriting process. The title says it all. This appears with David’s express permission. I have added the links.

My pals were meeting me at the corner tavern in 15 minutes, when my wife came to me needing help writing remarks for a memorial service two days hence. Being the editor of Vital Speeches of the Day magazine and the executive director of the Professional Speechwriters Association, I was clearly obligated to help. Being just another self-involved husband, I said, “REALLY? Now?!”

The tavern is five minutes away. The speech needed to be about three minutes long. We had to write it in 10 minutes. There’s a story problem for you, kids.

Huffily, I pulled the laptop across the kitchen table, opened a new TextEdit doc—TextEdit feels like a notepad rather than a blank page to me—had Cristie sit across from me and said as if at the funeral itself, “And now we’d like Cristie Bosch to say a few words about Chloe.”

Cristie smiled, but I looked at her exactly as all the faces would be looking at her if she had indeed just been put, spontaneously, on the spot: earnestly and expectantly.

She started talking. I started typing. She opened with a naturally funny line about sharing a birthday with Chloe. A birthday, and cigarettes.

She told about the moment she first realized Chloe’s unique gift, she relayed a story that backed that up—a story specific enough to actually mention a book called The Runaway Bunny—also naturally funny. She talked about another happy chapter in her relationship with Chloe and backed that up with another story.

She had her act amazingly together, though I don’t think she knew it until that moment. I helped by shaping the phrasing just a bit, inserting a few rhetorical devices, drawing bright lines around themes and repeating some language at the end that she’d used in the beginning.

I also suggested some turns of phrase that Cristie immediately rejected on grounds that they were too purple for her taste or gilded the lily unnecessarily. I acceded to her instincts unquestioningly, of course.

Within 10 minutes, we had a three-minute talk that, after Cristie rehearsed it a few times, deeply touched the family and educated everyone else about the real character and best spirit of a woman who was gone forever.

In this process, there were a lot of factors in our favor, not least of all 21 years of intellectual and emotional chemistry, a common knowledge of the compelling subject in question and of the audience as well—and, always helpful, an urgent deadline.

Still, it occurred to me that at its essence, this is how the best speech collaboration is done: The speaker is pressured to say what he or she really thinks. The speechwriter writes it down verbatim, perhaps suggesting minor improvements in real time, perhaps waiting until afterward to do strategic adding and subtracting, filing and sanding.

It worked insanely well for my wife and me. It also worked for President Lyndon Johnson and his speechwriter Horace Busby, who collaborated this way to create one of Johnson’s greatest speeches.

And I arrived at the J&M Tavern just as my pals were pulling up.

Alerted to the work of the economist Mariana Mazzucato by an intriguing Lunch with the FT article I took a look at her blog.

She debunks the myth that innovation in Silicon Valley is a result of brilliant young minds (Jobs & Wozniak; Page & Brin) unfettered by regulations thriving in garages in a California where failure is rewarded and the streets are awash with VC funding.

While some of those myths have a basis in reality (garages were often the incubation environment from the get-go) the overlooked fact is that innovation in Silicon Valley is driven by public funding.

Entrepreneurs, as well as the venture capital funds that finance them, have often “surfed” massive waves of innovation that were essentially created by public money.

For example:

• The internet grew out of DARPA
• The GPS on your phone was funded by the U.S. government’s Navistar Satellite Program
• Siri, the iPhone’s voice-activated personal assistant, and touch screen displays were both funded by the U.S. government
• The Tesla electric car benefited from a $465 million government-sponsored guaranteed loan
• One of the main flavors of UNIX was developed by Bill Joy and others at the University of California at Berkeley
• Likewise, the algorithms that Google was based on were developed by Brin and Page while at Stanford on an NSF grant

Mazzucato concludes by saying

…you sometimes hear about the state as Leviathan, almost like a big monster getting in the way of innovation. The real task ahead of all of us is to make this debate less ideological. That requires us to understand the market as an outcome of public and private interactions. Rethinking a new relationship and deal between the state and the business, which will lead to the next big wave for future surfers to benefit from.

Understanding the history of innovation in Silicon Valley helps put the often heated debates about the role of ‘big government’ in perspective.

Toastmasters International, the global organization devoted to communication and leadership skills development, has grown its membership by 57 percent over the past 10 years. The organization reports that it has posted an increase in membership every year since 1994 and now has more than 332,000 members, 15,400 clubs and a presence in 135 countries.

“We’re excited that more people than ever before are benefiting from Toastmasters’ proven programs,” says Mohammed Murad, Toastmasters 2014-2015 International President. “As the organization continues to expand domestically and globally, even more people will have the opportunity to join Toastmasters and improve skills that are vital inside and outside of the workplace.”

Highlights of Toastmasters’ annual growth include:

• 5.9 percent membership growth
• 4.1 percent new club growth
• Expanded presence in Egypt, Gabon, Macedonia, Myanmar, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Serbia, Turks and Caicos Islands
• More than 28,000 Competent Communicator awards earned by members
• International regions posted the highest rate of growth (11.9 percent)

“Our consistent growth can be attributed to people’s desire to become better communicators and leaders,” says Toastmasters Chief Executive Officer Daniel Rex. “With initiatives underway that will further enhance members’ speaking and leadership development, we look forward to continued expansion in the coming years.”

About Toastmasters International

Toastmasters International is a worldwide nonprofit educational organization that empowers individuals to become more effective communicators and leaders. Headquartered in Rancho Santa Margarita, California, the organization’s membership exceeds 332,000 in more than 15,400 clubs in 135 countries. Since 1924, Toastmasters International has helped people from diverse backgrounds become more confident speakers, communicators and leaders. For information about local Toastmasters clubs, please visit www.toastmasters.org. Follow @Toastmasters on Twitter.

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

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

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

Everyone has a side hustle

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

Things move at lightening speed

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

Get used to a new dress code

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

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

As the Tour de France peleton rolls through the Alps towards the final stage on the Champs Elysee this Sunday, it’s worth remembering there are other ways in which a bicycle can be ridden. It’s not all high-speed descents of Alpine passes and 100-mile dashes through the French countryside.

Mark Harris is as far from the Lycra-clad racers as he is from the average carnivorous American. As I noted back in February, he has attached a blender to the rear wheel of his bike and is touring the country living off the land on a diet of raw green smoothies.

He has posted a wonderful poem to his blog on The Art Of Transcendental Bicycle Blender Touring which communicates, from the heart, how bicycle touring can liberate us from the concerns of everyday life:

What goes in the bicycle blender is wild and raw,
It is immediate and distinct, unblemished by names,
It goes in at the top, and whirs all the way down the mountain.
It reaches the valley, smooth and creamy,
Having acquired the essence of taste.

The bicycle blender tourist has nowhere to go,
Each moment is a drop in time,
Somehow the mountain descends and rises up again,
With each undulation of the landscape
More names are forgotten

When the bicycle blender heads up the mountain
Much effort is required.
When it coasts down the other side,
There is only ease.
Effort and ease are thrown in the bicycle blender too,
Before long they can’t even be told apart.

But the real magic begins
When the bicycle blender is put in reverse.
Pedaling backwards up the mountain slope,
Eyes wide open, not knowing where anything is,
Green Smoothie is spewed out, over everything,

By the top of the mountain every seeming separate thing,
Has been coated through and through with Green Smoothie,
So that substance itself is a delicious and refreshing drink.