Ms. Dawn Black (New Westminster—Coquitlam, NDP):

Mr. Speaker, this might be my last opportunity to stand and speak as a member of Parliament since the House will adjourn tomorrow. I want to announce that I will be resigning my seat on April 13.

You and I were first elected, Mr. Speaker, in the 1988 election, although I must say I am rather envious of your win-loss record. I have had a couple of losses along the way and you have maintained your seat since 1988.

It has been an enormous pleasure and honour to serve the people of New Westminster, Burnaby, Coquitlam and Port Moody.

When I was first elected, Ed Broadbent was the leader of my party, and he remains a very close friend and confidante.

I was a member when my party elected the first woman to lead a national party in our country and was and still am so proud to have served with Audrey McLaughlin. She is a women of tremendous courage and determination. She has also continued to provide me with encouragement and support over the years.

I have been very honoured to be part of an NDP caucus, led by the member for Toronto—Danforth. His boundless energy, ability to think outside the box and to take the road less travelled has been an inspiration not only to me but also many Canadians.

I am proud of my record. I introduced a private member’s bill, which was adopted by the House, to declare December 6 a National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women.

I was part of a committee that I suggested do a groundbreaking study on all of the issues around breast cancer, which led to real changes in the treatment of women with that disease and their families.

I brought forward a private member’s bill on anti-stalking legislation, which the government of the day passed into law. That is now part of the Criminal Code of Canada.

I have a couple of other private members’ bills on the books right now on body armour and non-returnable warrants. I invite the government side to take them over and present them as its own legislation.

Hon. James Moore: Ask for unanimous consent.

Ms. Dawn Black: I may ask for unanimous consent.

The highlight for me of the 39th Parliament was an opportunity to travel to Afghanistan with the defence committee to meet with the men and women who were serving in the Canadian Forces there. I was very impressed by their determination, skill, high level of training and their commitment to Canada and the job they were being asked to do.

The defence committee wrote a report on the war in Afghanistan. I, it will not be a surprise to most members, presented a dissenting opinion on that report. I believe that dissenting report is as valid today as it was two years ago when I wrote it.

I mention these achievements because too often Canadians think there is no effective role for an opposition member of Parliament. Some think members in opposition cannot achieve anything. It is very important for Canadians to know that all of us in this place can and do achieve real results for ordinary Canadians.

Canadians only see question period reflected in the news cycle, so they can be forgiven for thinking that Parliament is a nasty kind of sandlot filled with testosterone-driven egos. The truth is that all of us on both sides of the House have more in common than what divides us. We disagree on some fundamental policy issues, and that is an important part of our democratic system.

I hold my values as a social democrat very strongly, just as others in this place hold different views. I only wish that we could debate these differences with a bit more civility.

I urge all my colleagues to tone down the insults and abuse. What has been hurled back and forth across the floor has often lacked wit and wisdom. This place has become less civil over the past few years and I believe that this is evident in the increasing cynicism all of us hear from voters when we go door to door. It is, ultimately, dangerous for our democratic system.

There is one other issue I must draw attention to, and that is the glacial rate of progress toward gender equality in this place. The first woman MP, Agnes Macphail, was elected in 1921. This was a breakthrough for my grandmother’s generation, my mother was not even born then.

Now in 2009, women represent just over 22% of the House of Commons. We have hovered around 20% for the last 15 years. At this rate of progress, and I have used the most up-to-date scientific calculations to determine this, it will take until December 4, 2100 to reach parity. That is darn near 100 years from now, and it is simply not good enough.

I urge all political parties in the House to get with it and nominate more women. After all, we are more than 50% of the population of our country. It is well past time. Our Parliament must more accurately reflect the Canadian population in every way.

I want to conclude with a few words of thanks. I am trying not to get emotional. I want to thank the Clerk, Audrey O’Brien, for all the assistance she has given me. It is a huge privilege for me to serve in a Parliament with the first woman to ever hold this prestigious and very important position.

I want to thank my staff in the constituency office, and all members know about this, because they are the front line people. They are the ones who face the sometimes angry constituents, the people who have issues around some of the government policies. They work so hard and I want thank them for all the work they have done for me over the years.

I want to thank to my staff on Parliament Hill, without whom I know I would not have been nearly as successful as I have been over the last few years.

I also want to thank some of the support people on the Hill: the drivers, the food services people, the postal workers, the messengers, the clerks, the interpreters, the security guards and the pages. All of these wonderful people make it possible for all of us to do our jobs. I know I could not have been nearly as effective without their help.

I want to thank my husband, Peter, who has sometimes taken abuse because of the road I have travelled and my choice to run for political office. I know at one point, while canvassing for me on the doorstep, one angry man said to him “What kind of man are you? How do you allow your wife to do such a thing?” I know that has been tough, and it has been hard to have me away. I appreciate his support all these years.

I want to thank my sons, Matthew, David and Stuart, their terrific partners and my seven very brilliant grandchildren.

There are some things I will not miss. I will not miss the weekly flights from B.C. I will not miss the jet lag. However, there is much I will miss here. I will miss my colleagues on both sides of the House. I will miss the work, especially at committee where great things are sometimes accomplished.

I wish all of my hon. colleagues in this place great wisdom and great compassion as they face the crisis that is affecting Canadians today. Finally, I want to thank the voters of New Westminster—Coquitlam for putting their faith and confidence in me.

Mac machines by default make a chirping sound each time you hit a volume key. You can turn that off by going to System Preferences, then Sound, then uncheck “Play feedbackwhen volume is changed.” Really, the last thing you need is a speaker-destroying chirp that glues your audience to the ceiling. Lousy client relations.

It sounds pretty distracting and unprofessional in a client meeting, too. Or in the middle of a podcast recording (I’ve heard plenty of those). I’ve just made the settings change – I encourage you to go do the same if you’re the kind of person who takes their MacBook out in public.

And so they do – when they work.

When they don’t… well, look at Sen. John McCain in last night’s presidential debate.

Discussing health insurance, McCain joked about gold-plated plans that cover hair transplants, suggesting he might need one himself. The joke bombed with the crowd (I expect to see the moment up soon on YouTube with chirping cricket sounds mixed in).

But what was really interesting was the reaction of those Ohio independent voters that CNN had rounded up, who were dial-testing the debate. (Dial-testing allows focus group participants to respond instantly to what they’re hearing, turning the knob up for things they like and down for things they don’t.) McCain’s score plunged, and it took a while to recover.

Why? Maybe partly the delivery – he stepped on any laughter the line might have received. But probably because for most people, health insurance isn’t about hair transplants; it’s about things like cancer screening, broken bones and whether you can afford to get your child the care she or he needs.

His joke trivialized something that is deadly serious to the audience he needed to reach. It widened the gap between speaker and audience – exactly the opposite of what it should have done.

So the lesson for speakers and speechwriters: not all jokes are created equal. And even the funniest hair transplant line McCain could have delivered would likely have been wrong for that moment. A successful joke has to be funny, relevant and appropriate – and you should cut any one-liner that doesn’t meet that test.

(I have a few more tips on jokes and speeches, especially the opening joke, over here. Sen. McCain, for the sake of bipartisanship and my aversion to cringing, you’re welcome to crib.)

Now you can get a little of that Cliff Atkinson goodness in a free one-hour webinar over at Microsoft’s site, starting at 9 a.m. tomorrow. You’ll need to register here:

Invite your friends and join me tomorrow for this week’s webinar, a special no-cost public event sponsored by Microsoft Office Online. The webinar takes place at 9am Pacific Time on June 12, 2008 and is titled “How to Create a 15-Minute Presentation (with Graphics!) in One Hour.”  Inspired by member webinars at BBP Online, here’s the session description:

If you are in a time crunch and have to get a presentation done, you need an approach that will get you results quickly. Join us for this advanced-level webcast with bestselling author Cliff Atkinson, and learn the tips and tricks you need to complete a Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007 presentation in record time. As the clock ticks down from 60 to zero minutes, see how you can use Cliff’s book Beyond Bullet Points (Microsoft Press, 2007) to structure your story, identify your key points, and create the slides you need to get amazing results.

And the next time I read some columnist pontificating about how the outcome of an election is a foregone conclusion…or hear a talking head pronouncing someone’s victory to be “inevitable”…or talk to a campaign operative who tells me their candidate is absolutely assured of winning, and I’d better be on the victorious side…

…I’m going to pull this up on my screen, and laugh, and laugh, and laugh.

Nobody in politics has a crystal ball. And the people who prognosticate with the highest confidence, at the highest volume, are the biggest bluffers in the business.

Hurray for unpredictability. It’s a key ingredient of hope.

Last week, Barack Obama challenged that idea – with a scope and, yes, audacity that was nothing short of breathtaking – in a speech that seemed entirely out of place in a North American election. Chances are you’ve heard or read excerpts, but as a speechwriter, I can’t urge you strongly enough to read and watch the whole thing.

This was not a speech made for sound bites, although it has one or two choice ones. (“I can no more disown him than…”) Instead of rejecting nuance, this speech embraces it – as any honest, positive contribution to the conversation about a complex and highly charged topic must.

There is a passage of particular interest to communicators, where he delivers a challenge that may prove even more difficult to meet than that of America’s racial divide: a call for a civil, mature discussion of the issue.

We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race only as spectacle – as we did in the OJ trial – or in the wake of tragedy, as we did in the aftermath of Katrina – or as fodder for the nightly news. We can play Reverend Wright’s sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words. We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she’s playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies.

We can do that.

But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we’ll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change.

That is one option. Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, “Not this time.” This time we want to talk about the crumbling schools that are stealing the future of black children and white children and Asian children and Hispanic children and Native American children. This time we want to reject the cynicism that tells us that these kids can’t learn; that those kids who don’t look like us are somebody else’s problem. The children of America are not those kids, they are our kids, and we will not let them fall behind in a 21st century economy. Not this time.

And he continues, suggesting that the dialogue can be about issues that actually make a difference to people – and that this is what Americans really want.

Heady stuff. Heady enough that I wondered if commentators in the media – who are usually quick to condemn the politics of sound bites and cheap attacks, while consigning any politician who fails to deliver them to thorough obscurity – would rise to it.

The early metrics aren’t promising. Those fine folks at TechPresident used online service TagCrowd to create tag clouds of Obama’s speech and of the “editorial responses of the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times and Wall Street Journal“.

Here’s Obama:

And here are America’s flagship newspapers:

Micah Sifry concludes the TechPresident post this way:

At a first glance, it seems as if our editorial guides can’t help but view the speech as a political ploy, first and foremost. Considering how rarely politicians choose to grapple in depth with hard and divisive issues like race, it’s hard to see how that is the best frame through which to view it. But that is the frame our media system uses to evaluate political speeches, no?

Personally, I think Obama’s speech is a great test of the following question: Are we still living in the age of sound-bite politics, where the sharp attack line, even taken out of context, can become the “truth” of an event or a person thanks to the amplifying and distorting effects of broadcast media? Or are we entering the age of sound-blast politics, where a 37-minute speech can actually be watched, read, and digested by millions of people (a million views already on YouTube!) using the abundant spaces of the internet–and the themes and meanings they encounter and absorb will be not about the “politics” of a speech, but its actual content?

In other words, are we entering an age when politicians can be judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character?

Maybe, and I really want to think so – but that age is going to take a while to arrive. I don’t expect a single speech, no matter how great, to change decades of ingrained behaviour. It will take a determination by politicians to consistently respond with courage, substance and integrity to challenges such as the one Obama faced with Rev. Wright’s comments – and a willingness by leaders in the media to stop complaining about politicians who lack substance on Monday and punishing those who don’t on Tuesday.

But when the week starts with Fox News asking if Bill Richardson is playing the race card by growing a beard, the situation doesn’t look all that hopeful.

Drop by and have a gander – I’ve added a bunch of tips there, including tip#7, “Talk about the squirrel”:

I used to work as a tour guide in Ottawa. Busloads of seniors would come in from south of the border, and I’d show them the sights… including Rideau Hall, the residence of Canada’s Governor General.

The first few times I did it, I’d be waxing rhapsodic at the front of the bus about the Governor General’s role in Canadian politics, and how the stone fence surrounding Rideau Hall was a public works project during the Great Depression… and not a person would be listening.

Instead, to a person, the tourists’ noses and cameras would be pressed against the windows on the opposite side of the bus. They were oohing and aahing over something completely different.

Black squirrels.

Apparently, the squirrels where my tourists came from are all gray. A black squirrel? That was something to write home about… and a lot more interesting than my disquisition on 1930′s-era employment policy.

The first few times this happened, I tried to chivvy my audience back to the other side of the bus. A few folks were kind enough to tear themselves away so as not to hurt the feelings of the nice young man with the microphone, but even they kept sneaking looks at the rodents.

Eventually it occurred to me that I should actually talk about the damn squirrels. At first I just joked about them, trying to redirect my audience’s attention, but ultimately I had to actually address the squirrel itself – to tell them about how this was a particular strain of the eastern gray squirrel they were used to, and how they tend to be found mainly in cities, where there are fewer predators.

Chances are your audience has a squirrel on its mind, too. If you want to keep their attention, you need to address it (even if it’s just a passing reference so they won’t keep wondering if you’ll ever talk about it).

Speechwriting: Writing to be heard on Squidoo

• Beginning sentences with “and”- one of my favorite connectors that encourages readers to keep reading (actually “listening” because that’s the way we talk with friends).

Listening. That’s why conversational writing, be it in blog posts, speeches or direct mail, has such power. It’s the way you offer to be heard as – if not a friend – then at least as someone closer than an anonymous behind-the-scenes copywriter or marketer. And when people choose to accept that offer, they’re opening the door to a closer relationship.

And then, with one poorly-delivered joke, Kerry handed his opponents a great big club to hammer Democrats with.

In case you missed the story, here’s what happened: Kerry had been about to make a joke at the President’s expense, saying that if you didn’t study hard and succeed in school, you might end up presiding over a quagmire in Iraq. Instead, though, he delivered the punchline as “you get stuck in Iraq.” Republican spin doctors jumped on this as Kerry saying the troops in Iraq are stupid and uneducated.

(N.B. – I gather many conservative bloggers don’t buy this account. Here’s my methodology: to judge whether Kerry was intending to ridicule U.S. troops, I’m using a sophisticated flowchart with questions on it like “Is Kerry trying to commit political suicide? (Y/N)”, “Which would constitute political suicide: ridiculing U.S. soldiers or ridiculing an unpopular President?” and “Is Kerry aware of this? (Y/N)”.)

It’s a little like the punctuation exercises we went through in school, where moving a single comma could dramatically alter the meaning of a sentence. (Remember the story about the panda who walks into a restaurant, chows down on a meal, pulls out a handgun, fires off several rounds and then calmly walks out the door? When asked why, the panda pulls out a nature guide that describes panda behaviour as “eats, shoots and leaves“.) Here, though, the confusion isn’t over punctuation – it’s over flubbing a line.

Every speaker does this, and some have bad days more often than others. If you’re lucky, all that happens is a line that ought to get a belly laugh instead gets a smattering of oh-I-see-what-she-was-trying-to-say chuckles. Less happily, sometimes the speaker leaves out a word like “not”, reverses the meaning of what he’d intended and triggers a riot.

It doesn’t even have to be the speaker’s fault. In a contentious field like politics, your opponents are always looking for gaffes, and happy to find them even if they aren’t really there. A less-than-charitable interpretation of your joke can reverberate through the media echo chamber, and before you know it you’re off-message for the rest of the day… or week.

It’s happened to me (and, more important, to my client). I once handed a political leader a joke that made the mildest possible comment on gender relations, only to see it rebound in the media (and then on the doorstep) as an anti-male slur. And if we’d had a half-hour one-on-one with every reporter in the country, we could probably have explained why it wasn’t really anti-male… but the election would have been long ago decided.

You don’t have the time to waste explaining a one-liner, muffed or misinterpreted. So when you’re writing jokes, imagine what would happen if your speaker only managed to deliver part of the punchline. And give your jokes the kind of hard look that your speaker’s worst enemy would give them. Because trust me – they will.

Maybe you’ve written a few speeches for yourself or others that went over well. Maybe you’re just attracted by the glitz and glamour of the profession. (Maybe you just fell over laughing.) Whatever the reason, you want to start speechwriting professionally.But where to begin? Unlike aspiring doctors, bike mechanics and chefs, speechwriters don’t have a prescribed course of study and internship. There aren’t a lot of jobs out there labeled “speechwriter”, and no one career path to follow.

The bright side is, that means there are a lot of ways into the business. Here are five tips for anyone who wants to make the leap into professional speechwriting.

Check out the latest issue here – and if you want to subscribe, just click here.

And now you can meet him too, thanks to his all-day speechwriting seminar on July 29th:

“We Need A Speech” is an all day workshops that covers the bases of writing for this demanding oral medium of communication.

Participants will come away with a solid understanding of the rules of engagement including:

* How to find your speaker’s voice
* How to get to the message
* What you must do if you can’t get access to the speaker
* How much research you should do
* The biggest pitfalls in writing speeches for the public sector
* Determining what you can control, and what you can’t
* Why humor is the most challenging and dangerous choice for speech writers
* The politics of Power Point
* How to market yourself as a speechwriter

Other topics include:

* The rules of engagement.
* Speaker needs vs. audience needs. Trouble ahead?
* Effective openings.
* Leaving them asking for more.

The Date: Saturday, July 29, 2006
Time: 9am to 5pm
Place: YWCA Downtown Vancouver
535 Hornby Street
The Cost: $160CAN

EARLY BIRD PRICE of $130 if you pay prior to July 15th.

And even if you can’t make the seminar, you can sign up for Colin’s free speechwriting newsletter here.

Last Sunday, Bush press secretary Tony Snow speculated about what polls might have shown during World War II: “If somebody had taken a poll in the Battle of the Bulge, I dare say people would have said, ‘Wow, my goodness, what are we doing here?.’”

The Bush administration is anxious to draw on American pride in the country’s victory some 60 years ago to bolster support for a war that, well, isn’t going all that well: “See,” they want to be able to say, “things looked bleak then and people were ready to quit, but it all worked out. Stick with us this time, and they’ll work out again.”

But anxiety isn’t the most productive emotion for a communicator, and lies at the heart of many disastrous PR decisions.

Like this one. As it turns out, somebody did take a poll during the Battle of the Bulge. And the results tell the opposite story from the one Snow was trying to sell:

In fact, there was a poll taken by Gallup from Dec. 31, 1944, to Jan. 4, 1945 — three years into that war and right in the middle of the bloody Battle of the Bulge, where U.S. casualties were estimated between 70,000 and 80,000. It found that 73 percent of Americans would refuse to make peace with Adolf Hitler if he offered it and that 86 percent of Americans thought there was no chance that we would lose the war in Europe.

There’s an old saw among lawyers preparing for a cross-examination: never ask a question if you don’t already know the answer. For public speakers, there’s a similar rule: never argue from a hypothetical situation unless you actually know it’s purely hypothetical. Otherwise, reality — as it has so often, and so tragically, in this war — will come back to haunt you.

IN THIS ISSUE…

1. Opening words
2. Feature article: Seven reasons not to give a speech
3. Reports from Ragan
4. Reading list
5. This issue’s tip
6. Subscribing, unsubscribing and passing along the news

1. Opening words

Between a flurry of conferences, leaving full-time employment and launching a new company, plus an avalanche of work, it’s been a busy 2006 at SpeechList central, and it doesn’t look like we’ll be slowing down any time soon.

This issue’s feature article is an adaptation of the talk I gave at the Ragan Speechwriter’s Conference earlier this year in Washington, DC: seven reasons to give a speech, and seven reasons not to. We looked at the first half in the very first issue of SpeechList; this issue, it’s time for the rebuttal. We’ll look at some of the red flags that can alert you to a disaster in the offing, and – I hope! – allow you to steer clear, or at least limit the damage.

Meanwhile, a piece of news: SpeechList is moving! Instead of being housed at my personal domain, your next issue will come via Social Signal – the new company I’ve launched with my wife, Alexandra Samuel. You can find out more about Social Signal at http://socialsignal.com. And the list’s new web home is http://socialsignal.com/speechlist. You shouldn’t notice much difference, except for a few changes in the links for managing your subscription.

As always, we appreciate your comments. Send them to speechlist@robcottingham.ca (and while we’ll have a new comment address in the next issue, that address will continue to work).

2. Feature article: Seven reasons not to give a speech

There are speeches where the audience goes wild with enthusiasm, your speaker knocks ‘em dead, the media eats it up and everyone comes out ahead.

And then there are the other kind: the speaking invitations you regret accepting for years afterward, and the events your speaker shouldn’t have touched with a nine-foot boom mike.

So how do you tell the difference?

I’d love to tell you there’s some foolproof algorithm to tell you whether your client’s future holds a standing ovation or a pratfall. But there isn’t. Here’s what you can do.

Figure out – subjectively – two things.

One, cost versus benefit.

Consider the cost of accepting the invitation: your time, the speaker’s time, research time, travel costs, attention distracted from other things.

Balance that against the benefit: everything from prestige to goodwill to the ability to convey a message you need to deliver – all measured against the organization’s strategic communications goals.

Number two, risk versus opportunity.

What could go wrong, from embarrassment to hostility? And what do you get if everything goes right, from great media coverage to a big new sale?

Compare those two pictures. If you’re travelling a huge distance to deliver a speech that will take weeks to write on a topic your client barely cares about … to a crowd of thirty belligerent cranks at an event that the media wouldn’t cover if they all spontaneously combusted… this might not be the event for you.

Here are seven reasons why you may not want your client to head to the podium.

1. The event’s too low-profile

A leader’s time is valuable. Staff time is valuable. If you’re using it for an event that won’t get you the payoff you need, that’s a mistake. And the profile of the event reflects on your speaker, too; if you’re doing parking lot openings, that sends a signal to others who might invite you.

2. The event’s too high-profile

Sometimes you need to keep your head down, whether it’s because of legal difficulties, PR problems or an impending major announcement. If your organization is following a low-ball strategy, then a leader’s speech to a high-profile event may not be a great idea.

3. The wrong audience

Maybe these folks are hostile, maybe they’re aching to hear something you just can’t tell them, but there are some audiences you just don’t want to talk to.

That said, there are times when you can actually get a lot of credit for bearding the lion in its den. You’ll get grudging respect from your opponents, and props from the media for having the nerve to show up.

4. The wrong agenda

They have your speaker scheduled too late in the day to get coverage. Or right before a huge, contentious resolution debate that has them distracted. Or on a panel with someone you simply don’t want to be associated with. These can all be deal-breakers if the convenor isn’t willing to budge.

5. The wrong timing

I can’t tell you how many invitations I’ve seen for hour-long speeches, or 45-minute speeches with 15-minute Q-and-A sessions. Short of some very special circumstances – say, if you’re writing for Steve Jobs at the MacWorld keynote – don’t do that to your speaker. They’ll have a bored, restless audience and a long, meandering speech. If you can’t negotiate the time down, that’s a deal-breaker.

6. The wrong messenger

You don’t always have to send the CEO, senator, president or board coordinator. Sometimes an event is better suited to a staff analyst, a board member or a vice-president in charge of a specialized area.

7. A better opportunity

This is my favourite. Being able to tell a boss or client, “I don’t want you taking this gig, because there’s this much better one at the same time” — that’s golden.

Those are all solid reasons not to accept an invitation. But when it comes time for you to make your choice, let me make my pitch for erring on the side of yes. Speeches are a chance to connect with an audience, build a relationship, maybe move them to action – and there’s nothing like the opportunity to lead.

Your turn: Do you have a personal early warning system that tells you an invitation to speak could be inviting disaster? A story about how you or your speaker turned a catastrophe around? Let our readers know at speechlist@robcottingham.ca!

3. Reports from Ragan

The Ragan Speechwriter’s Conference earlier this year in Washington, DC was a terrific opportunity: a great way to pick up new ideas, connect with like-minded people and share experiences. My blog has notes from three of the sessions:

The fiery muse of Tack Cornelius

Tack Cornelius, a 22-year veteran of the speechwriting game in the political and corporate arenas, gave us three advice-packed hours. He conveyed an abiding passion for great writing and compelling images; his wide-ranging presentation returned constantly to the power of a single vivid, evocative metaphor and the importance of feeding your creative muse.

Read the full report

David Kusnet, authenticity, and the end of Big Speechwriting

Former Clinton speechwriter David Kusnet kicked the main conference off with a keynote that suggested we’re all about to lose our jobs. Okay, not exactly – but if he’s right, we’ll all be doing the job of speechwriting much differently in the future.

Read the full report

Jeffrey Denny wants to save you from bad commencement speeches

I remember the speech at my university graduation only dimly. Something about barely being able to stay awake through it… and wishing the damn thing would end. That was nearly 20 years ago, and according to Fannie Mae speechwriter Jeffrey Denny – who took us on a ride through the worst and best of commencement speaking in 2005 – they haven’t improved a bit since.

Read the full report

4. Reading list

Kamran Nazeer’s Send in the Idiots is his memoir of the school for autistic children he attended – but it’s much more. Nazeer tracks down his former classmates, and finds many of them have achieved remarkable success.

One of the most interesting profiles is that of Craig, who was the speechwriter for a 2004 Democratic presidential hopeful. Nazeer offers a fascinating account of a typical (for Craig) speechwriting job interview, both from Craig’s point of view, filtered through the perceptions and processes that autism imposes, and the perspective of the potential employer, misunderstanding (and even fearing) Craig’s responses. It’s a look at how a talent for helping others connect with their audiences can coexist with a condition that creates a deep divide with the outside world.

If you haven’t seen it already, the New Yorker profile of President Bush’s former speechwriter, Michael Gerson, is a revelation. The intimacy between some presidents and their speechwriters is legendary (think John F. Kennedy and Ted Sorensen), but Gerson’s spiritual relationship with Bush is extraordinary. No matter how you feel about the Bush administration, this is a rare and valuable look at how personality, belief and politics intertwine in the Oval Office.

5. This issue’s tip. This issue’s tip.

You’ve just made a telling point, and you really want it to sink in. How do you do it?

Here’s a technique that Van Jones, the founder of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, used in a speech I heard him give recently.

You repeat the phrase. You repeat the phrase. Word for word.

Repetition works best with short, simple sentences: “Failure is a better teacher than success. (pause) Failure is a better teacher than success.” This is a technique best used sparingly and judiciously – but it can be very powerful.
Advertisers and PR professionals know that repetition is one of the keys to any message’s success. For you, it’s a signal to your audience that this is a phrase worth remembering – as well as a tool to help them do just that.

6. Subscribing, unsubscribing and passing along the news

Know somebody who’d be interested in SpeechList? Please forward this message to as many people as you’d like.

Now the same thing has happened to Dick Cheney.

So, for both Dick and Bob, and the folks who book them, here are the salient points from that presentation [PDF]: seven reasons to give a speech, and seven reasons not to.

Testifying at a state senate committee’s hearings into a proposed ban on same-sex marriage, Raskin was asked by a Republican senator whether such a ban would be required by God’s law. His response:

“Senator, when you took your oath of office, you placed your hand on the Bible and swore to uphold the Constitution. You didn’t place your hand on the Constitution and swear to uphold the Bible.”

Rhetorical scholars will recognize the age-old figure of speech known as antimetabole, the most famous example being John F. Kennedy’s “ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.”

Quotations like these last because they capture an abstract idea elegantly and concisely, so that it can be instantly grasped by a listener – whether it’s the virtue of civic responsibility or the principle of the separation of church and state.

Apart from the grace of Raskin’s construction, his words take on even greater power because of the striking concrete image they evoke. And in the two weeks since he spoke on March 1, Raskin has vaulted to national attention on the strength of those two sentences and the renewed vitality they gave to an idea precious to many Americans. (Raskin’s campaign team knows what it’s doing, too; the quotation is now front and centre on his web page.)
The lessons for speechwriters? Nothing you didn’t know already: less is more, striking images trump abstractions… and time-tested rhetorical techniques still come in handy. But it’s good to have a reminder – especially one as eloquent as this one.

It’s good money, but it isn’t crazy good, as Joel from Hyde Park Associates points out:

Anyone who has ever worked as a speechwriter knows that you are on call, at the whim of the person you are writing for. The 18 weekly hours will not be at the convenience of the speechwriter, nor is it likely the work will be completed in just 18 hours. Finally, if the secretary’s communications staff currently outsources her speeches to a PR firm, the NHS may be paying £5,000 to £7,500 per speech, so it wouldn’t take long for a fulltime speechwriter to offer a handsome return on investment.

I really don’t think this salary is out of line, though I may not understand UK government pay scales. And to paraphrase an old maxim on how the government does business, I don’t think anyone should have to give a speech that was written by the lowest bidder.

I remember my first political speechwriting job: I was hired for 40 hours a week and worked 60; my five days a week looked a lot more like seven.

That said, I’d actually be interested in seeing what the speech written by the lowest bidder would look like. Anyone want to take a crack at it in comments?

Hold it right there, buckaroo. Before you go any further, read this post by Joel at Hyde Park Associates. He makes a compelling case for leaving most of those arrows in your quiver:

I looked at over 200 presentations in an attempt to identify the “good, the bad and the ugly” in the use of arrows to illustrate both simple and complex concepts. I regret that I found only one slide that made interesting and effective use of arrows.

The post comes complete with screenshots. (Shudder.)

Often that reflects a lack of confidence in the material they’re delivering – and Stewart certainly didn’t look that delighted with the jokes he had to work with. Much of his opening monologue made him sound more like the emcee at a regional sales convention than the host of the funniest, hottest current affairs show in a generation.

Of course, it doesn’t help if your audience hasn’t been warmed up, or if you’re the thing that stands between them and the thing they really want to hear (in this case, the names of the winners). Stewart had an uphill battle from the start, and his brand of humour – more biting and ironic than Billy Crystal’s more ingratiating approach – is out of step with the atmosphere of mutual self-congratulation that permeates the Oscars.

But once the opening monologue was over, and the actual events got under way, Stewart’s improvisational wit (and the skill of the backstage writers) had a chance to shine, and made the most of it. (My favourite line dealt with the absurdly large Oscar statue on the stage; Stewart asked if the audience tore it down, would democracy break out in Hollywood?) You got the impression watching the show that the monologue was a formality: that Stewart wanted to get it out of the way as much as the audience did.

Think about that the next time you’re approaching a speech that just doesn’t grab you. What would it take for you to feel more in the moment? What are your opportunities to engage with the audience over shared experiences? And what can you cut from the beginning of the speech so you can get to the part you really want to talk about?

When I was working for Audrey McLaughlin, we often joked about her insistence on using the phrase “from coast to coast to coast” in her speeches. But she had good reason. The North rarely figures in Canadian political discussion (unless it’s as a political lever for prying out tax dollars for big-ticket items like icebreakers or nuclear submarines), and southern Canadians need constant reminders that the country doesn’t come to an abrupt halt north of the 60th parallel.

I’ve read a few suggestions from the blogosphere that this is just silly, and that MPs should be focusing on more important things. But words count (as a speechwriter, I shouldn’t have needed Audrey to convince me of that). And a motto that only underlines the political exclusion of a vast portion of our nation serves us poorly.

That was nearly 20 years ago, and according to Fannie Mae speechwriter Jeffrey Denny – who took us on a ride through the worst and best of commencement speaking in 2005 – they haven’t improved a bit since.

Neither have the audiences. The students would rather be partying with their friends and saying tear-filled goodbyes than listening to your speaker. And this “whatever” generation is skeptical and cynical; they’ve already seen and heard it all. Add in the rotten acoustics typical of most graduation venues, and you have all the makings of a bomb.

Denny doled out mock awards to some of the past year’s most egregious examples.

• The most memorable address for the wrong reasons award, for instance, went to the Pepsi executive whose speech compared the five continents to the five fingers on your hand. Guess which finger represented North America? Pepsi issued a formal apology.
• The most unabashed use of a cliche: A former CIA director started off “Life is filled with challenges and opportunities” and concluded “May the challenges ahead always be opportunities.”

It wasn’t all bad, though. Denny mentioned Carly Fiorina, who had been the CEO of Hewlett-Packard when the commencement invitation landed on her desk and was out of a job by the time the day of the speech rolled around. Her comment (winning the “silk purse from a sow’s ear” award): “If there are any recruiters here, I’ll be free around 11.” (See more here.)

The best opening hook award went to MTV founder Dwight Tierney: “So. A couple of things. Wednesday is visitors’ day at Abu Dhabi prison. The Chinese prefer red wine. And Rudy Giuliani doesn’t know who Green Day is. Bear with me, because I have a point.”

And the best speech of all, Denny suggested, was Steve Jobs’ now-legendary address at Stanford. He tied three memorable stories into a compelling case for following your heart. (You can find the full text of Steve Jobs’ speech at Stanford’s site.)

That address typified the very best in the year’s commencement speeches. They were modest, personal and self-deprecating. They recognized that graduates already had a lot of knowledge and insight, and instead of trying to set out a philosophical worldview, they told stories and offered the lessons the speaker had learned. From his survey, Denny distilled several pieces of advice. Here are a few:

• “First, do no harm.” You will get more publicity from a bad speech than a good speech.
• Write something your own kids would enjoy.
• Keep it short, funny and insightful. And don’t work your jokes too hard.

Want to check out more commencement speeches? Brace yourself… then head to C-Span for a few dozen of them.

Okay, not exactly. But if he’s right, we’ll be doing the job of speechwriting a lot differently in the future.

Saying we live in a “post-rhetorical era,” Kusnet suggested the days of ornate oratory are over, at least in America. He traced its decline from Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address (a concise, powerful speech that trumped Edward Everett’s two-hour-plus elegy, the expected norm in those days), through radio and FDR’s fireside chats, to television and Ronald Reagan’s highly conversational style.

With the ascendancy of the Internet, he said, “big rhetoric” is all but dead. And he set out four major changes that will shape whatever takes its place:

1. The rise of new media, with its emphasis on the instantaneous, the individual and the informal;
2. The collapse of common culture, where we all drew reference points from the same body of literature;
3. The decline of dialogue and debate, replaced by people talking past each other; and
4. The increasing demand for authenticity.

(Incidentally, each of these points, both good and bad, are very much part of the blogging world. Maybe I’ll expand on that later, and elsewhere.)

On the third point, Kusnet said public discourse has ceased to be about trying to persuade those who disagree with you; we simply raise our voices and express contempt for those we disagree with: “Instead of Lincoln and Douglas, we have Hannity and Colmes.”

And about authenticity, he argued that – with people now quite aware that there are speechwriters toiling away behind the scenes – speakers who express themselves in their own authentic voice, speaking from their own experience, will connect much more readily with audiences. And their listeners will not only forgive awkward constructions, they may even appreciate them.

With those changes underway, Kusnet proposed four ways that speechwriters will have to change.

First, we’ll have to write in the speaker’s natural voice, not someone else’s. (That may require us to act as journalists, digging away in the speaker’s background until we can find the material we need.)

Second, our speeches have to grab people’s attention early, getting quickly to the substance and bypassing the usual niceties. (I, for one, would be happy to never have to type the words “It’s great to be here in [insert name of town here]” again in my life.)

Third, we need to use “muscular English,” trading ornament for simplicity and formality for directness.

And fourth, our speakers have to say something the listener isn’t expecting to hear. Quoting a jazz critic, Kusnet called it “the sound of surprise.” A speech that consists of nothing but the purely predictable won’t cut it any more, and even purely ceremonial speeches must cast their content in surprising ways. Defy stereotypes, confound preconceptions, and you’ll have a very attentive audience indeed.

There aren’t many leaders on the public stage who are speaking that way – yet. Kunset cited Howard Dean as one, and said we haven’t seen anyone since. “But I expect that by 2008 we will.”

Tack Cornelius, a 22-year veteran of the speechwriting game in the political and corporate arenas, just wrapped three advice-packed hours. He conveyed an abiding passion for great writing and compelling images; his wide-ranging presentation returned constantly to the power of a single vivid, evocative metaphor and the importance of feeding your creative muse.

Coming up with those metaphors isn’t just serendipity: Cornelius keeps an idea file of subject-by-subject news clippings, each relating a fact or story that might come in handy for bringing an abstract concept down to earth for his next audience. It might be the way UPS ships lobsters (as a way of explaining how supply chains work), or a myriad possible rhetorical uses of the iPod (which could illustrate anything from the global assembly line to the demand economy to the shift away from coal-and-steel economics).

I warmed to him instantly when he stressed the overriding importance of content and message – especially when he said that a message isn’t just something like “We’re customer-focused” or “We make great products.” (Or “We’re better than that other party.”) Sharpening messages is a skill he picked up as the editorial page editor for the Lexington Herald, where his job required him to write eight to 10 pithy, persuasive essays a week; being able to describe the message of each editorial in a single sentence was crucial.

Ultimately, he said, a speechwriter forces knowledgable, talented people to decide exactly how they want to talk about things – and in the process, clarifies and sharpens their understanding of the subject at hand.

I was also struck by Cornelius’ methods for feeding his muse (a “muse of fire”, as he quotes from Henry V). He keeps two books with him at all times – Hamlet and Edgar Lee Masters’ Spoon River Anthology – and reads as much for the sound and rhythm of the words and sentences as their meaning.

He has a head full of speechwriting stories, and far more to teach than anyone could learn in an afternoon. I’ll look forward to hearing more from him someday soon.

The nation will be diminished with the end of Feschuk’s blog. [Update: And now I find out from bro Mike that the end has indeed come. The index page is tantalizingly alive and well, but the entries have all been deleted; instead, the site offers you Paul Martin's heartfelt thanks for replacing him with that guy who looks like the young Mordred in John Boorman's Excalibur. Not in so many words, but you just need to read between the lines...]
The idea of a blog written by the Liberal leader’s speechwriter rubbed some people the wrong way. But the early sniping Scott drew for the offbeat tone of his posts never fazed him, and his more humourless critics quickly withered away. He maintained a strong sense of humour throughout the campaign – gallows humour towards the end, but never bitter – that left you understanding exactly why Martin hired him, and exactly why he probably won’t remain unemployed for long.

What’s more, he has a genuine affection for his boss that comes through very clearly. Having written more than one “Well, crap” speech in my life, I strongly related to this passage from his closing post. He’s relating the scene in Martin’s hotel room after the PM finished reading through the draft concession speech:

He had finished the speech. He put it down. He was silent for a moment. And then… then, he was really, really funny. He made a couple of witty-type remarks, we laughed, we talked about some small changes to the speech, and then we laughed a little more.

I can only judge people based on how I’d react were I in their shoes, facing their reality. Last night, in the PM’s place, I probably would have skewed more to a Johnny Deppesque “rearrangement” of the hotel furniture. But the Prime Minister was gracious and funny. He was cool with it all. He was the way that I would have strived, and probably failed, to be.

Go read the rest of the blog before the powers that be take it down.

The next issue is coming out very soon, with a feature article — suggested by a reader — on how to use a well-chosen quotation to lend surprising power to your next speech. Sign up for your free subscription today!

If you believe you have what it takes, here’s how it works: Question Period viewers are asked to send in a minute-long written campaign speech on a topic of their choice to questionperiod@ctv.ca or to the following address: 100 Queen St., Suite 1400, Ottawa, Ontario, K1P 1J9.

….Every week, Question Period will pick a winner and send a camera to shoot that person’s campaign speech, which will then be aired on the show.

At the end of the election campaign, viewers will vote for the best of all the campaign speeches that have aired.

Setting aside the apparent 93% discount on your 15-minute fame allocation, there’s a real challenge here: making a compelling case for an idea in 60 seconds. At a reasonably deliberate speaking pace, you’ll have 120 to 160 words to play with. That doesn’t leave much room for lengthy quotations or rambling anecdotes.

Now, nothing in the rules says you have to keep your speech private (and as far as I’m concerned, that kind of defeats the purpose). So if you want to share it with the world — or at least that thin sliver that frequents these pages — just leave it as a comment at the end of this post.

(I just ask that you leave nothing libellous, no personal attacks, and nothing that promotes hatred or discrimination against people on the basis of gender, race, sexual orientation or identity, religion, province or country of origin, or choice of operating system. Unlike Political Idol, we welcome submissions from candidates, party staffers and Bell Globemedia employees.)

Incidentally, check out the speechwriting tips on the CTV page from reporter Craig Oliver. It’s pretty much all good advice, although this one gave me momentary palpitations until I reread it:

Structure the speech like an essay

Readers and listeners like structure — have an introduction, make your point, back it up with evidence, and repeat your central theme with a strong conclusion.

That’s structure your speech like an essay… not write your speech like an essay. The kind of lengthy, complex sentences that work well on the printed page can be oratorical death on the podium.

Okay — get those keyboards clicking, team!

Issue 4 – November 14, 2005
by Rob Cottingham
http://www.robcottingham.ca/
rob@robcottingham.ca
(c) Rob Cottingham 2005

IN THIS ISSUE…

1. Opening words
2. Feature article: Speech structure 101
3. Catch Rob at the Ragan Speechwriting Conference, February 8-10
4. Your turn
5. Subscribing, unsubscribing and passing along the news

1. Opening words

SpeechList is back after our late-summer early-fall break. And whether you’re mulling over launching your campaign for the upcoming Canadian federal election, eyeing a U.S. Congressional seat in the 2006 cycle, or wondering how to write that speech your Grade 10 history teacher just assigned you, we’re here to help.

This issue, we’ll get down to the very basics: structure. We aren’t the first; the ancient Greeks dissected speeches into parts with names like proem and peroration. If your ears pricked up during that last sentence, good on you. (And let’s sit down sometime for coffee, and bore the daylights out of everyone within earshot.) But if your eyes glazed over, never fear; the secrets of speechwriting structure are as simple as, well, telling a story.

Finally, a big welcome to the subscribers who’ve signed up since the last issue. The list has nearly doubled since August, and shows no signs of letting up. The more the merrier: feel free to pass this issue on to anyone you think would be interested. And as always, drop me a line with any questions, comments or suggestions you might have.

2. Speech structure 101

Want to know the one word that can solve most of your speechwriting problems before they ever arise?

Structure.

A good, solid structure can help you hold your audience’s attention, amplify your core message and give you (or your speaker) a new sense of confidence. A weak structure – well, that can have your audience scratching their heads, checking their watches or heading for the doors.

What makes structure so important?

Put yourself in your audience’s position (never a bad idea when you’re approaching a speech). They’re surrounded by distractions — clinking teaspoons, other audience members whispering, the limits of their own attention spans.

And if those attentions happen to wander, there’s no way an audience member can rewind your speech or flip back through the text until they pick up the thread of your argument again. If they lose their way, they stay lost.

Chances are when that happens, they won’t be paying attention to the rest of your speech, either. And whatever they remember about those 20 minutes, it won’t be your message.

A clear, simple structure can give your audience a roadmap — something that can keep them from losing track in the first place, or help them find their way back if they do. It can let them focus on your message, instead of wondering what it i.s

It can do you a big favour, too. Structure lets you know when you’re going off the rails — when you’re reinforcing your central argument, and when you’re straying from the topic, wasting time and weakening your speech.

So what is good structure?

There’s no great mystery to structure; it’s just the way you organize information in a speech.

Really compelling, memorable structure, though, relies on a certain kind of internal logic. And the kind of internal logic that human beings keep coming back to again and again — across time and across cultures — is story.

Aristotle set out the basics of story about 2,300 years ago, in a work he titled “Poetics”. He divided dramatic narrative into three acts: Act One, the beginning; Act Two, the middle; and Act Three, the end.

Those terms have survived to this day; if you listen to a Hollywood executive talk about what went wrong (or right) about a movie, you’ll often hear them talk about “the first act turning point” or “a second act slump”.

So in drama,

• Act One sets up the main character’s dilemma, and commits them to resolving it.
• Act Two develops the underlying conflict between the main character and whatever forces stand between her or him and the resolution.
• Act Three resolves the conflict and shows us how the character has changed along the way, often hinting at the character’s ultimate destiny.

One of the things that dramatists learn early on is that the closer they keep to the main character’s central dilemma, the more unified, seamless and compelling the resulting story.

You can do the same in a speech. The beginning establishes the theme of your speech and the central idea. The middle explores the idea, and walks the audience through a logical chain that proves it. And the end restates the idea and considers its implications — including a possible call to action.

Let’s look at how that works.

Beginning

No part of your speech does more work per second than the opening few minutes. You have to:

• Engage your audience and find common ground
• Set out your central theme, and point the speech toward your key idea
• Tell your audience what they can expect — and at least hint at the structure

Many speechwriters will tell you that once they have the beginning, they have the speech — because the seeds for the second and third acts are sown in the first.

Entire books have been written on how you engage an audience, especially the art of the opening joke. (SpeechList looked at opening jokes in our second issue.) We’ll be taking a look at other techniques you can use, including anecdotes, statistics and quotations. Suffice to say that great speeches almost always relate any opening ice-breakers to the theme of their speech.

Speakers are often very explicit in how they tell an audience what’s in store, putting all their cards on the table. “I want to talk to you today about the future of public transportation in our city. And I want to touch on the three improvements essential to making that a healthy future: wider reach, higher density, and better infrastructure.”

In about 20 seconds, this speaker has told the audience to expect a general discussion of public transit’s future, then an in-depth examination of three areas. And there’s now an implicit promise that, once the speaker has finished talking about better transportation infrastructure, it won’t be long until the speech ends.

Sometimes an opening is a little more playful, and the speaker uses tools like suspense and curiosity to keep the audience engaged. “Let’s take a ride, then, into the future of public transportation. And along the way, we’re going to stop at three stations that we have to pass if we’re to reach our destination…. Our first stop is Expansion Station. Let’s have a look around.”

Similar to the first opening we looked at, this one establishes a slightly more whimsical tone, and while it deals three cards on the table, it leaves them face-down for now.

You don’t always have to tell the audience to expect a set number of points. Although it’s an easy, effective way of establishing a structure, you sacrifice a sense of spontaneity. (I was at a speech once where the speaker promised to enumerate the five key elements of hope. By the time he got to tenet number eight, hope seemed like an awfully distant prospect.) Especially with shorter, less formal speeches, you can often get away with a more general statement: “So what’s it going to take to keep public transit alive and well for decades to come? Well, a few answers come to mind.”

Middle

The middle of your speech is where you develop your argument, and tell the core of your story.

Sound simple? The fact is, this is the most dangerous part of the speech. By definition, an audience knows when a speech has begun; and if you give them even a hint, they’ll know when it’s wrapping up. But the middle of a speech is the place where they can’t see either shore. And unless you give them an occasional glimpse of the map, their inner children will spend much of your speech asking “Are we there yet?”

That applies even to the most entertaining speakers. You can have your audience rolling in the aisles or moved to tears — and some little part of them will be wondering how long before they can stretch their legs.

So give them a reminder now and then, especially when you move from one section of your speech to another: “But even if we widen the reach of our transportation network to every neighbourhood in the area, all we’ll have done is stretch ourselves too thin… unless we address density. And that’s the second key improvement I want to address this morning.”

Note, too, that the speaker is drawing a logical connection between those two issues. There’s an underlying logic to this speech, and that’s far more powerful than a simple shopping list. A story beats a list any day.

The power comes, too, because sticking to the underlying logic of your argument prevents you from bringing in extraneous material that distracts from your central point. Remember that “second act slump” screenwriters sometimes talk about? That’s when they lose track of the story in a tangle of subplots and scenes that seem just too clever to cut. Speechwriters have the same problem, with the same solution: go back to just telling your story.

In a longer speech, take pity on your audience. At about the three-quarters mark, give them an indication of how far they are from the end: “That brings me to my last two points.”

Your final point should link explicitly to your theme. Unlike a news release, where you put the most important information as close to the beginning as possible, you should feel free to make the final point of a speech the most dramatic and significant one. Often, that can be your springboard to a stirring, effective conclusion.

End

Tell them what you’re going to say, say it, and tell them what you’ve said: that’s the conventional wisdom about speeches. So close, but so terribly far from what works.

If all you do in a conclusion is recap everything the audience has already heard, you may help them remember your argument when they leave. If you’re a good enough writer, you may even dull the pain of repetition. But you’ll lose out on much of the power that a good speech can give you.

By all means, sketch out the argument you’ve just made for them. Bring it all together. But then, take it to the next step, and tell your audience what it means. What are the implications of your argument? And what action does it demand of them?
This — the call to action — is what your speech has been building to. You may be calling for the defeat of a particular piece of legislation: “Let’s get out there and call every legislator we can reach, change every mind that’s open to listening, and send this bill back to the scrapheap.” You may be asking an audience for money: “These are all good ideas — but good ideas won’t happen, good ideas can’t happen, if good people don’t back them up when the need is greatest. Tonight, I’m pledging a thousand dollars. Who will join me?” Or you may simply be asking them to remember a great person or an important event.

Passion goes hand in hand with action, and the conclusion of a speech is a natural habitat for strong emotion. Don’t be afraid to express how you feel. Leave your audience feeling the emotion you want them to feel whenever they think of this issue.

At which point… end it. I’ve seen more speeches ruined by speakers who bring the crowd to the feet… and then ramble on for three or four minutes about some minor point they wanted to cover off. Dramatists call it anti-climax; I call it poison. Hit the emotional high point, thank your audience, and get out of Dodge.

And in that spirit –

3. Catch Rob at the Speechwriter’s Conference in Washington, DC

Exciting news: I’ll be presenting at the 2006 Speechwriter’s Conference in Washington, DC from February 8-10, 2006. It’s put on by Lawrence Ragan Communications, giants in the corporate communications field. And David Murray, the conference organizer, has assembled a terrific program with some truly impressive speakers.

I’ll have more details in the next issue. In the meantime, you can find out more at http://tinyurl.com/bsy7q .

If you want to kick-start your speechwriting career, this could be a great way to start. And if you register before December 9, you can save $100 on registration — visit http://tinyurl.com/bzx84

4. Your turn

If you’ve enjoyed what you’ve read here, if you’ve disagreed with something, or if you have something to add or an idea for an upcoming issue, please drop me an e-mail at feedback@robcottingham.ca. I’ll include a sample of the feedback I get in every edition.

5. Subscribing, unsubscribing and passing along the news

Know somebody who’d be interested in SpeechList? Please forward this message to as many people as you’d like. To subscribe, just click on this link.

SPEECHLIST: WRITING TO BE HEARD

Issue 3 – August 4, 2005

by Rob Cottingham
http://www.robcottingham.ca/
mail: rob at robcottingham dot ca

(c) Rob Cottingham 2005

IN THIS ISSUE…
——————–

1. Opening words
2. Feature article: Resurrected rhetoric – Six uses for a dead speech
3. Speech of the month: London Mayor Ken Livingstone
4. Off the cuff
5. Your turn
6. Subscribing, unsubscribing and passing along the news

1. Opening words
——————————

This issue’s feature article was spurred by a suggestion from Chris Carder, CEO of ThinData, one of Canada’s e-marketing leaders. He suggested a look at how you can connect a speech to your online presence — something that deserves a more in-depth look in a future issue.

But the idea of extending the impact of a speech struck a nerve. For all the work we do preparing for them, speeches go by with unnerving speed. This issue, I try to suggest a few ways you can get the most from your next big speech — well beyond the actual delivery itself. And some of those ways involve the Internet… so thanks, Chris.

When you check out these ideas, don’t overlook the single best way of getting more mileage from a speech: delivering it again. Not the whole thing, word for word; but if you’ve written a speech that eloquently conveys your organization’s strategic message, key passages ought to find their way into address after address. (Provided, of course, that they’re to different audiences.)

* * *

By the way, the Vancouver Courier recently ran a good long article on speechwriting from a number of perspectives — speechwriters, to be sure (including me), but also politicians. There’s some good advice in there; check it out.

2. Resurrect your rhetoric: Six uses for a dead speech
——————————

The lectern has been disassembled, the coffee cups are cleared and the crowd has moved on to their afternoon agenda. The major speech you worked on for weeks is over, and you can’t help but think: is that it?

Well, good news: I may have the cure to post-podium depression.

Here are half a dozen ways a speech can keep on speaking for your organization long after the mike’s been switched off.

:: 1 :: Build relationships

Take the speaking text, reduce the size of the typeface to something reasonable like 12 points, and suddenly you have a document that you can send — printed or electronically — to selected prospects, clients and stakeholders.

Want to make it even more effective? Include a brief personal note from the speaker explaining why she thinks the recipient would be interested in seeing it, and inviting comment.

You’ve just helped maintain some of your organization’s key relationships — but you’re only getting warmed up.

:: 2 :: Lead thinking

Somewhere out there is a publication whose audience would be interested in what your speaker had to say. It could be a trade magazine, a portal web site or a major daily newspaper.

Find out if they accept outside submissions, and if so, whether they’d be interested. Once you get the green light, do a light rewrite to make the speech print-friendly, trim unnecessary niceties (“It’s a thrill to be back here in [TOWN]“) and speaking cues like “(pause)” or “(acknowledge hosts)”… and fire it off.

Now your speaker is a thought leader, and the day is still young. Next?

:: 3 :: Start conversations

If your organization has a blog, web site or newsletter, use the speech to spur a dialogue with the public. You can post the full text somewhere else and link to it; here, post the really provocative, insightful passages, and ask readers for their comments.

Whether you adopt a wide-open, take-all-comers policy or just select a few of the best responses and print them, state your policy clearly and be sure to thank people for their contributions. Your speaker can reply to some of the key points, and keep the conversation going.

Great: now you’ve engaged your audience, and maybe even picked up some useful ideas from them. Don’t stop now; you’re on a roll.

:: 4 :: Make news

If you wanted news coverage of the speech, you’ve already dispatched a media advisory out a few days beforehand, called through your list of assignment editors and reporters, and sent around a news release and a pointer to a “Check against delivery” copy of the text as soon as the speech began.

Um, right?

Okay, let’s say you didn’t. Maybe this speech wasn’t the stuff of breaking news. Or someone dropped the ball and the release is still sitting in their outbox. This speech can still do you some good with the media.

Write up a cover note highlighting the speech’s key message, and send the text to your media hotlist. Even if it just goes into their files, you’ve reminded them that you exist and have something worthwhile to say. That could well pay off down the road when a reporter is looking for someone to comment on a related story.

Now that you’ve massaged the media, are you going to quit? Not a chance.

:: 5 :: Make noise

See, you thought ahead, and arranged to have the speech recorded — maybe even videotaped. Now’s the time to get those files digitized and onto your web site.

But take pity on your audience, and give them the greatest hits. Offer the whole speech if you want, but give them the option of listening to just the best one- or two-minute clips. Be sure to offer the written text as well, both for the hearing-impaired and for people who prefer to read. If the speech included a PowerPoint or Keynote presentation, add that, too.

(Incidentally, if your organization happens to produce a podcast, or if you know a podcaster who might find these clips useful for theirs, that’s one more way to get the word out. And if you said “Wha’a?” when you read the word “podcast”, drop by Tod Maffin’s web site and look for the headline “What is a podcast?”)

So, you master of multimedia — got a little more energy left? Because that speech has one more trick left to show you.

:: 6 :: Talk among yourselves

Communicators often forget one of their most important audiences: the organization itself. Staff, members, activists, volunteers — keeping them informed and engaged is critical.

Depending on the speech and its content, you may not want to distribute the whole thing; even internal audiences have a finite attention span. But there’s a good chance they’ll want to know about the key messages. Internal newsletters, intranets and bulletin boards are all potential vehicles.

And if any of them will be speaking publicly on the issues the speech deals with, you’ll want to distill the text down to talking points. Now, where you started the day with only one messenger and one audience, you may have several… or several dozen.

:: One last thought ::

Consider the days, sometimes weeks you spend hashing out a speech. Now consider that most substantive speeches last about 20 minutes.

In raw time, that’s a pretty big loss. Any of these six steps can help you recoup that time — and start earning a dramatically better return on your investment.

A good speech draws on your key messages and strategic goals, making it an important communications asset. With only a little extra effort, you can put that asset to work for you again and again — magnifying its impact and reaching far beyond its first audience.

:: How about you? ::

Got a favorite technique for wringing a few more echoes from a speech? Drop me a line at feedback@robcottingham.ca and let me know.

3. Speech of the month
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:: Read Ken ::

Shortly after his city was attacked in a series of devastating bomb blasts on July 7, London Mayor Ken Livingstone delivered a short statement.

Short — but nothing short of stunning. Short on bombast and long on resolve, it captured the spirit of an outraged city and galvanized its people.

And it’s a reminder that words make a difference. They can provide hope and comfort, give a positive purpose to diffuse fury, and draw us together when we need unity the most.

If you haven’t already, give it a read. There’s a copy here.

4. Off the cuff
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The latest issue of eCatalyst kindly recommends SpeechList as an important part of this balanced communications breakfast, and I’m happy to return the compliment.

eCatalyst’s publisher, IMPACS, helps non-profits build their communications capacity. And eCatalyst, a free e-mail newsletter, brings you fabulously useful information about PR and communications every month. Pitched to non-profits, eCatalyst is great for anyone who wants to learn more about getting the word out. Subscribe for free here.

* * *

As always, you can find the latest speechwriting posts from Rob’s blog here.

5. Your turn
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Last month, we looked at the fine art of the opening joke. Several readers responded with their own examples.

From Vancouver tech PR guy (and ace blogger) Darren Barefoot:

“I recently gave a talk as the ‘lunchtime entertainment’ at an annual marketing conference. I happened to learn that the previous (year) they’d had some of those wacky fire dancers, which hadn’t gone over so far. I opened with something like ‘I understand that last year in this slot you had some fire dancers. If I get dull, I can swallow a sword, but hopefully things don’t come to that.’

“It hardly brought down the house, but I believe it had the desired effect.”

And from rabble.ca columnist Scott Piatkowski:

“I recently took part in a press conference announcing the launch of Grand River Transit’s Bus’n'Bike program (Waterloo Region is now the only community in Ontario with a bike rack on the front of every bus in its fleet (feel free to chime in with how long the GRVD has had this). I spoke after a politician, a transportation bureaucrat and a hospital executive, on behalf of the Cycling Advisory Committee. I opened with the following joke, which given the context of the event and the quality of the air that day, went over great:

“‘Thank you. Can I just check… can everyone hear me through the smog?’

“I think I broke your vetting rule, though, as I thought of it about 30 seconds before I went up to the podium.”

* * *

If you’ve enjoyed what you’ve read here, if you’ve disagreed with something, or if you have something to add or an idea for an upcoming issue, please drop me an e-mail at feedback at robcottingham dot ca. I’ll include a sample of the feedback I get in every edition.

6. Subscribing, unsubscribing and passing along the news
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Know somebody who’d be interested in SpeechList? Please forward this message to as many people as you’d like.

To subscribe, just click on this link.

The writing fraternity in Canada is abuzz with talk that the Prime Minister’s speechwriter, Scott Feschuck, has decided to vacate his post. This means that for the first time in decades there is an actual job opening for a writer in Canada. Wherever writers gather, be it at book clubs, poetry circles, narcotics anonymous meetings or Margaret Atwood’s house, this subject has dominated all others.

Personally I think this represents a wonderful opportunity not only for professional writers but for all unemployed Canadians.

Unlike most jobs, this one is a cinch to apply for; all letters to the Prime Minster of Canada are postage free.

You might want to hone your skills here.

As I doubt the PMO’s HR people are going to be banging on my door any time soon, I’m happy to pass on the job posting.

Oh, and me.

There’s a lot of solid advice in there, some good clashing perspectives and a little standup comedy from yours truly. And there’s this intriguing bit from Porteous that could be the subject of an entire book on the unique relationship between politicians and their aides:

While he and Trudeau worked hand-in-glove to produce some of the most important Canadian political speeches of the early 1970s, Porteous believes all politicians are in a state of tension with speechwriters, no matter what their personal relationship. “The existence of a speechwriter is kind of a rebuke to the politician. Theoretically, the politician should be writing his own material. If he isn’t, it looks like he’s either lazy or incompetent.”

But the reality is, according to Porteous, political figures don’t have time to research a speech and write it. “Nevertheless, when he stands up in front of an audience, they want to believe they’re hearing him. They don’t want to believe that he’s reading something that’s been written by somebody else. So, there’s a kind of resentment from the audience if they believe the politician didn’t write his own speech. And there’s resentment from the politician himself that he has to rely on a speechwriter.”

(Thanks for the time and patience, Brandon and Adam. Gracias as well to Gazetteer for pointing to the article, and Sarah Marchildon for letting me know it had hit the streets.)