A new book, The Great Speeches of Modern India, catalogs religious, economic and political speeches of the 19th and 20th Century. The author, Rudrangshu Mukherjee, presents a view of modern Indian history through the speeches of her leaders.

I have not been able to locate a convenient source for the book, but this review contains some fascinating commentary. He contrasts speeches by world leaders such as Churchill, Gandhi and Nehru, who wrote their own content, with today’s reliance on speech writers ‘ghosting’ the speech which began with JFK and Ted Sorensen. Modern politicians, he claims “don’t feel confident enough to handle the language in the succinct way a speech-writer can.”

Mukherjee observes the distinction between great speakers and great speeches:

Great speakers do not always make great speeches. The yardstick for judging the latter is whether the words retain their power with the passing of time. Nehru was not a great orator in the traditional sense of the term, his voice was not loud and words did not come in a torrent as they do with great orators, he did not pause for effect but he made many memorable speeches and coined phrases that have become part of the nation’s vocabulary.

Finally, he refers to the stunning address given by Vivekananda at the Chicago World’s Parliament of Religions in 1893. The 7,000 delegates went into rapture and responded with a standing ovation that lasted for more than three minutes:

Sisters and Brothers of America,

It fills my heart with joy unspeakable to rise in response to the warm and cordial welcome which you have given us. l thank you in the name of the most ancient order of monks in the world; I thank you in the name of the mother of religions; and I thank you in the name of the millions and millions of Hindu people of all classes and sects.

My thanks, also, to some of the speakers on this platform who, referring to the delegates from the Orient, have told you that these men from far-off nations may well claim the honor of bearing to different lands the idea of toleration. I am proud to belong to a religion which has taught the world both tolerance and universal acceptance. We believe not only in universal toleration, but we accept all religions as true.

Since India is one of the great sources of speeches given in the English language, this book, when it more widely available, will be a valuable addition to any speakers’ library.

Up to now I’ve kept my postings on Professionally Speaking walled-off from my day job as a speech writer and member of the Corporate Communications team at Hewlett-Packard. But, since this this blog is now listed on HP’s website, and there’s a ton of cool stuff happening in the communications area at Hewlett-Packard, I figure I can tear down the wall from time to time and share some HP material.

One aspect of my job involves presenting the HP Today Corporate Overview at the Executive Briefing Center in Cupertino. Visitors to the center are often there for a full day of briefings on specific HP products and solutions. My job is to give them a preliminary 45-minute overview of the company. Given that HP is now the largest computer company on the planet with 156,000 employees and $100B in revenue, this is no small challenge.

I like to break away from the PowerPoint slides and show videos which illustrate some of HP’s major growth trends. One trend which HP sees of increasing importance is for the static, isolated use of technology to be replaced by Always Connected, Mobile Experiences (perhaps paralleling the move away from onanism to relational enjoyment most of us experience as we mature sexually?)

The computer market is evolving toward what CTO Phil McKinney calls ‘liquid’ media – where content moves from the desktop to the laptop to the hand-held device. This frees people from having to be in a certain place at a certain time to enjoy things (and we all remember what a bummer that was when we lived at home with our parents.)

Take computer gaming.

The stereotype computer gamer is a pudgy teenager sitting on a couch playing videogames with the only exercise they get being stronger thumbs. Soon to be history, if HP’s vision of mobility shakes out.

The R&D being done at HP Labs has resulted in radical innovations which allow creative, immersive experiences to take place in city streets, galleries, museums and public spaces. These ‘Mediascapes’ allow teenagers the freedom to escape from the confines of the couch when they play video games and exercise their whole bodies, not just their thumbs. A Mediascape blends digital images, video, audio and interactions with the physical landscape.Take a look at the 90-second video Roku’s Reward to see one implementation:

This is not yet a product from HP. But if you want to experiment with the technology and build your own Mediascape, go to www.mscapers.com to download the free software and have at it!

Gary is an employee and board member of Ascribe CopyWriting Services. He specializes in intellectual information products and writes on personal growth and development.

Gary has a background in military intelligence, context research and ethnological consensus statistics. After moving to Northern California from New York in April 2000, Gary later met National Speakers Association past-president Patricia Fripp and was immediately smitten with her ability to transform any topic into a masterful presentation. Fripp took Gary under her wing and taught him to fly! As a result, he joined the Northern California NSA Pro-Track program.

I talked to Gary about the direction he plans to take his business in, his experiences with Pro-Track as well as the impact meeting Fripp has had on his career.

To listen, click on the podcast icon below.

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An interesting article by Stefan Stern in today’s Financial Times highlights the reluctance of senior executives to be coached. In contrast to their role models on the golf course (why do all golfers look so darned corporate?) who maintain their elite status only with the help of experienced golf coaches, those guys (and gals) in the C-Suite often get to the top in business and then feel no need of further advice.

Stern notes, however, that executive coaching is slowly entering the mainstream.

Reporting on his brief experience with a coach, he notes that a key skill is listening and playing back answers to the client. Surely this is a common enough skill and one readily available without paying coaching fees. Not so.
“The ability to listen sensitively is depressingly rare,” notes Stern.

Quoting Myles Downey, director of the London-based school of coaching, Stern lists the concrete steps necessary to have coaching take effect:

“My job is to cause the other person to think,” says Mr Downey. He certainly achieved that with this coachee. The experience felt like a mental “spring clean”, in which vague and semiconscious concerns were brought into sharp relief. But, crucially, the coach is also there to get the subject to commit to specific actions. This is not therapy: coaching is about raising people’s performance.

There’s an obvious case to make that coaching is of most value to those who’ve risen so far into the upper echelons of an organization that no-one else in the company feels able to fulfill this service. Most of us who have halfway decent manager get feedback and goal setting from them. But who will set goals for a CEO? Who will give honest feedback to a top manager? If there are employees willing to do this they should be honored for their courage and commitment to the company and service to the person at the top who they support. Most employees are too chicken to step forward when an honest critique is needed. Or is your experience otherwise?

The British Daily Telegraph newspaper reports that, surprise, surprise, German executives are not known for delivering inspirational speeches.

It seems Teutonic boss’s rely on statistics and charts at the expense of compelling rhetoric:

German managers are generally good at their jobs in a technical sense, but preparation for public appearances seldom goes beyond a series of PowerPoint charts. These are often prepared by somebody else, and there are far too many. When the number is truly overwhelming, the presentation is nothing but a slide show and not a speech at all.

There is simply not a presentation culture in Germany, and the saying goes that “German manager’s work better than they talk”. Der Spiegel complains of an excessive concentration on facts and figures at the expense of charisma and conviction. It seems that the mentality and ideology of dealing with hard facts in a depersonalised manner is at odds with a healthy emphasis on giving impressive presentations in public. Voice and the use of both talk and body language tend to be neglected.

I can’t help but think of the John Cleese Fawlty Towers sketch where he goose-steps around the dining room instructing his staff “Don’t mention zee war!”. For while it may be tasteless to refer to the Second World War in relation to contemporary German managers, it’s undeniable that many British and American executives (and politicians) openly admire Winston Churchill and ape his rhetorical style and freely quote him.

This puts modern German executives at a severe disadvantage. After all, the Holocaust aside, their wartime leader was a renowned public speaker. He used his public speeches to persuade his audiences and, one could argue, never forgot to include a call to action (it just happened to be one the world would have been better without). But I doubt German managers can freely quote or mimic the rhetorical style of ‘Corporal Hitler’. So who do they use as a model for their speeches? Apparently no-one. Stripped of all emotion (since their role models are negative ones) they face down their audience with facts and figures.

The Telegraph article concludes with a plea for effective presentation coaching for German executives:

They should rely less on manuscripts and charts and more on presenting well. A successful presentation will grab the attention of the audience and ensure that they believe in what they are told and in the person telling it.

There are many executives in the English-speaking world who would do well to heed that advice.

On Tuesday July 10th I hosted a ‘Birds of a Feather’ meeting on Blogging at the National Speakers Association annual Convention in San Diego.

We started the meeting with around ten people in the room. By the end we had an audience of over 35 people interested in blogging. About 70% already had a blog. The panel consisted of myself, Rebecca Morgan and Kim Snider.

The podcast below is the full hour-long audio of the meeting. Since this is a LONG podcast, you might prefer to choose the Download option (right click and ‘Save Link As’) rather than listen to it all now.

The first 30 minutes are the panel explaining their approach to blogging. The last half-hour is a discussion with the audience who raised questions on:

Plus much, much more.

Sites referenced in the discussion include:

To join the Yahoo Group for NSA Bloggers:

Click to join nsa_bloggers

Listen in on a fascinating discussion on blogging by some of the world’s pre-eminent professional speakers. Click on the podcast icon below.

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Every night when the speeches and awards end, the bar closes and the majority of NSA Members are tucked up in bed dreaming of miles of aisles, there’s only one place left to party, network, grab a drink or three and enjoy a stogie: the private suite where the Cigar PEG meets. The idea of a Cigar PEG (a PEG in NSA-speak is a “Professional Expert Group”) originated in 1998 by chairperson and chief party animal Ed Rigsbee. This year the Cigar PEG hosted a fantastic party aboard the USS Midway as well as their open-bar suite in Room 477 at the hotel.

Ed and his Cigar PEG colleagues offer people an opportunity to unwind after a busy day at the convention. The $75 membership fee and the monies raised by the various auctions go toward charity.

For a complete background on the Cigar PEG, including photo galleries of members enjoying life, visit their website. If you plan to attend the 2008 convention in New York City and want to avoid paying $7 for well drinks at the hotel bar, consider joining the Cigar PEG. Do the math.

Click on the podcast icon below to hear Ed share his views on the value of the Cigar PEG.

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Each year the National Speakers Association honors five of its members with the coveted CPAE Award (Council of Peers Award for Excellence). There are only 120 living members who have the CPAE designation.

The highlight of the formal dinner on the last night of the conference was the CPAE Awards. I tracked down one of these distinguished speakers after the banquet to find out how it feels to win an Award like this.

Susie Vanderlip is a Youth and Family Issues expert from Orange County, California. She created quite a stir when she came onstage to accept her Award in character as a gang member from her schools talk. She transformed before our eyes into the foxy lady she is in real life, resplendent in evening gown and jewelry. Quite a transformation.

Susie’s latest book 52 Ways to Protect Your Teen presents the realities with which teens across all socio-economic groups are confronted. She addresses drug and alcohol abuse, rape, violence, depression and self-mutilation issues. She wrote the book based on lengthy one-on-one conversations with 25,000 individual teens following her LEGACY OF HOPE® assemblies at their schools and youth conferences. Since 1991, she has presented to one million teens and adults in 47 states and Canada.

On Thursday evening her NSA peer’s recognized her achievements.

Click on the podcast icon below to hear Susie’s reaction to the CPAE Award, recorded a few short minutes after the event ended.

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My 14-year-old son, Neil, accompanied me to NSA and attended the Youth Leadership Conference. I owe a huge debt of gratitude to my colleague from Sun Microsystems, Mark Ivey, who first persuaded me join NSA and told me how much his kids had enjoyed the Youth Leadership event.

I sat down with the Chair of the event Sunjay Nath to hear the story of the Youth Leadership Conference.

Next year in New York the leader will be Rory Vaden. If you have a child aged between 10 and 16 you owe it to them to check out what Sunjay says by clicking on the podcast icon below. Neil is already booking his ticket to Times Square.

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After hearing from Ian Percy I decided to ask around to see what conference attendees thought of the ‘disruptions’ he had set out to achieve. Were they able to deal with issues they don’t agree with?

Jenny de St. Georges is a fellow member of the NSA Northern California chapter. She’s a long-term member of NSA and has attended many past conferences. She found the majority of first-time conference attendees have been disappointed by Ian Percy’s Agenda. Her extensive network of contacts with International attendees were frankly confused by the event.

She makes an impassioned plea for ‘Speakers speaking to speakers’ in future events.

To hear Jenny, click on the podcast icon below.

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