The Speechwriter September 2011

September 2011 | Volume 07

The SpeechwriterNewsletter of The UK Speechwriters’ Guild

WelcomeWelcome to the seventh

edition of The Speechwriter

newsletter. The purpose of

this publication is to circulate

examples of excellent speeches to

members of the UK Speechwriters’

Guild. We do this by picking out

openings, closings, one-liners

and quotations and other topical

extracts from newspapers and the

internet to identify techniques,

stimulate your imagination and

provide models which you can

emulate.

This newsletter appears

quarterly and is available to

anyone who is a Standard

Member of the UK Speechwriters’

Guild.

ContributeWe need your speeches. Most

of the examples in this edition are

taken from the Americans.

We want to raise standards in

the UK. Please send examples of

speeches to:

[email protected]

W W W. U K S P E E C H W R I T E R S G U I L D . C O . U K • I N F O @ U K S P E E C H W R I T E R S G U I L D . C O . U K

In their book Made to Stick, Why Some Ideas Survive and

Others Die, Chip and Dan Heath ask why some ideas take off and some don’t. They worked out the broad characteristics of messages that become viral.

1) SIMPLICITY

Strip an idea down to its core. As Dr Johnson said, “He is a benefactor of mankind who contracts the great rules of life into short sentences.”

2) UNEXPECTEDNESS

Open gaps in the knowledge of your audience. Get their interest and surprise them.

3) CONCRETENESS

A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. Marvel at how vivid and memorable this image is and try to replicate.

4) CREDIBILITY

We need to make people believe our ideas. Make reference to external authorities.

5) EMOTIONS

How do we get people to care about our idea? The content has to engage strong feelings.

6) STORIES

Stories are like mental flight simulators they allow us to rehearse problems and become better at dealing with them. They need to include vivid images and situations people can relate to.

The headings spell ‘SUCCES’. Apply this checklist to your speech. If you cover all these bases you’re well on the way to creating a ‘sticky’ message that will be remembered by your audience.

MASTERCLASS by Chip and Dan Heath


Bernstein, TED and a pastor from the Presbyterian church.

She suggests that all presentations should create repeatable soundbites and a STAR moment – Something They’re Always Remember. The text never drags and the points are made in succinct and fun ways.

I liked the bit about how Enron executives were brilliant at PowerPoint presentations and the rather endearing chapter heading, “Don’t Use Presentations for Evil”.

The fact that the business Duarte.com exists is great news for speechwriters. As far as I can see, the agency based in California specialises in advising businesses on how to construct their presentations using different technologies.

Room 121: A Masterclass in Writing and Communication in Business By John Simmons and Jamie Jauncey, Published by Marshall Cavendish International (224 pages) ISBN 9814328596, £12.99

Resonate: Present Visual Stories That Transform AudiencesBy Nancy DuartePublished by John Wiley & Sons (248 pages)ISBN 0470632011, £19.99

This is a lavish coffee table-style book, but where it differs from

other coffee-table books is that it’s packed with useful and adaptable techniques for improving your presentations.

Nancy Duarte’s special theory is a chart called a ‘sparkline’ which shows how a great speech is structured and the path it needs to take. She created this template and then saw that it worked for many memorable speeches and other works of art. It’s worth taking a look at.

Another excellent innovation in this book is the references to the Duarte.com website. You can watch the speeches she talks about online. The text drives you to the website and the website sends you back to the book.

Another virtue of this text is that it goes beyond the hackneyed examples of good communication to include new material from Richard Feynman, Martha Graham, Leonard

They say that the author photo can help to sell books. The

photo in the back of this book is of two bespectacled, white-haired old men. The narrative is an exchange of letters between the two through four seasons on the subject of what makes good business writing.

This sounds very unprepossessing, but actually the content is riveting. It’s like a correspondence between two dons, each of them telling stories at High Table. They have years of experience and they share their lessons lightly. The title is a bit odd, perhaps a more direct American-style “Be The Best Business Writer” cover would explain what the content is, but that wouldn’t be in the spirit of this very civilised book.

The authors are not unworldly. They have worked with corporations and household brands and their examples of fine writing come from eclectic sources like pop music and poetry. They are making the case against ‘multidisciplinary stakeholder partnership consultations’ and pleading for the expression of good manners through gentle but effective communication.

Like a Jane Fonda Workout video, the letters are broken up with exercises to improve your own verbal muscle. There is lots of good stuff on speechwriting and branding.

I see this book is part of a movement to win more respect for corporate writers. Our value is often overlooked and the company of Simmons and Jauncey instills confidence, reminding us of the important role we play in the success of products and organisations.

Brian Jenner

http://www.thespeechwriter.co.uk


BOOK REVIEWS

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Newsletter of The UK Speechwriters’ Guild

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Dan Pink was the chief speechwriter for Vice

President Al Gore from 1995-1997. He wrote some tips for delivering world-class presentations on the Tim Ferriss Blog http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/. Here is an extract.

What are the necessary ingredients in a good speech?

I’ve said many times that the three essential ingredients in any good speech are brevity, levity, and repetition. But at a broader level, the most important aspect of any speech, as Garr Reynolds reminds us in Presentation Zen, is being able to answer two questions: A. What’s your point? B. Why does it matter?

That’s the whole enchilada. If you have a single point and can explain to a particular audience why it matters to them, you’re ahead of 90 percent of the business and political speechgivers out there today.

How do you plan and structure presentations?

There’s no single formula for making a point and showing why it matters, but you typically won’t go wrong if you abide by four principles:

1. Give the speech a beginning, a middle and an end.

You don’t have to take the audience by the hand and walk them through each step. And you don’t have to proceed chronologically. But having that structure in your head

will give your speech a shape. And it will provide your audience some guideposts about where you’ve been and where you’re going.

2. Mix up the elements. Variety can keep your audience engaged. For instance, funny stories are great. But a half-hour of nothing but zany tales can actually undermine your point. Pelting people with factoids for 40 minutes is usually a mistake. But removing them altogether is also an error. Mix it up. Audiences are so accustomed to predictable speeches that surprise can be your ally. Indeed, one of my favorite speech models doesn’t even have words. It’s Haydn’s Surprise Symphony (No. 94 in G Major). It engages the listener by offering variety and surprise within an established structure.

3. Once you’ve mapped out your speech, remove 20 percent. In all my years of preparing and watching political and business speeches, I’ve yet to hear anyone say, “Gee, I wish that speech were longer.”

4. Here’s the key lesson: It’s not about you. It’s about the audience. Think of it from their perspective. Again, at the risk of being too critical of all those who stride the stage or command the podium, too many speechmakers – either through nervousness or ego – seem to forget that what really matters is the audience’s experience, not their own.

What are the most common mistakes that presenters make and how do you fix them?

There are three that I see all the time:

1. Thinking a speech is a right rather than a privilege. When you deliver a speech, you’ve got 10 or 100 or 10,000 people who have decided that the most important thing they

can be doing at that moment isn’t taking care of something at the office or being with their families – but sitting there listening to you. That’s an extraordinary — and humbling — gift. Alas, not enough speakers think of it this way. The goal is to for the audience to leave saying, “I’m sure glad I listened to that guy for an hour rather than returned those phone calls or answered those emails.”

2. Forgetting the Lamott rule. Anne Lamott wrote Bird by Bird, one of my favorite writing guides. In the book, she describes how an editor of hers cut out a sizeable portion of some chapter she had written. Outraged, she asked him why. He said: “Just because it happened to you doesn’t mean it’s interesting.” Great advice for speakers.

3. Not doing their homework. This may seem self-evident, but it’s important to know whom you’re talking to. Yet too many speakers ignore this simple truth. They deliver the same speech to a group of nuns that they delivered three days ago at a punk rock convention. You don’t necessarily have to craft an entirely new speech from top to bottom every time you open your mouth. But there are all kinds of ways to tailor and customize the message to the people at hand. For example, when I was working for Gore, we used to love to include in his speeches what we called “How the hells?” For instance, say he was speaking in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. We’d find out the most popular coffee shop in Sheboygan and its most popular pastry. Then somewhere in the speech, we’d include a place for him to say matter-of-factly, “If you’re talking about health care down at Charley Café’s – and maybe eating one of those cherry-walnut scones – you might wonder whether our Medicare plan covers . . . “ People love that sort of touch. Homework pays.


THE WHOLE ENCHILADA - WHAT WORKS IN SPEECHES by Dan Pink

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Dear fellow speechwriters, friends and colleagues. There

is a line from Shakespeare about the darkest hour being just before dawn. “Let me tell you about the darkest hour in my career …”

Andrew B. Wilson, freelance speechwriter, in remarks titled Stay Up and Fight: Advice from a Corporate Speechwriter.

You can always tell how highly you are rated as a speaker by

how long before the event you are asked to speak.

International statesmen, of the calibre of Tony Blair and Paddy Ashdown are often approached 18 months in advance.

Former British Cabinet Ministers might need SIX months notice.

You might be able to book a reasonably well-known national TV celebrity with four week’s warning.

On the other hand you can probably get a local public figure or clergyman if you have the courtesy to let them know a couple of days before your event.

So..it was with enormous pleasure.. that I received your Chairman’s phone call at 6.30 this morning.’

Quoted in The Presentation Coach by Graham Davies

If you’re here this evening to experience a wonderful

company dinner with glittering entertainment and devastatingly witty speeches, you’ve come to the right place.....you’ve come on the wrong night, but you’ve come to the right place!

Mitch Murray

Speechwriters the world over talked

about The King’s Speech and its insights into the relationship between a high profile speaker and the one person who was able to help him overcome a stutter.

According to the film, speech therapist Lionel Logue went to great lengths to support King George VI. Before important broadcasts, he created a “cosy” setting, opened the windows, and performed like a maestro, conducting his royal client through the script.

Your speaker probably doesn’t need or expect you to take those steps. However, you can provide value that goes far beyond the words you write.

Here are five things to do to help your speaker succeed.

1. Get a good sense of the lay of the land.

Whenever possible, speak with the event organiser to get a clear understanding of the speech window. Find out how long the speaker is supposed to talk as well as the time for activities such as the introduction and Q&A session. Ask who else is going to speak, in what order and for how long. Then make sure your speaker is well briefed so there are no surprises.

2. Knock down the barriers between speaker and audience

Build a profile of the audience and use the information to choose language, imagery and examples that will help your speaker connect with his or her listeners. Also, ask yourself: what do these people need to hear to get behind the speaker’s

ideas? Then make sure the answers to that question end up in the speech.

3. Provide a script that’s easy to read

Set up the speech so that each sentence is its own paragraph. It’s too easy for a speaker to get lost in a sea of words when the text is set up in dense clumps. To help your speaker hold his or her head high, only use the top half of each page.

4. Leave time for your speaker to pause

Speakers and listeners both benefit from pauses. The speaker can use a pause to gauge the interest level of the audience. Listeners enjoy them too, as they provide a break and a chance to reflect on what is being said.

5. Understand that the last reason to include humour in a speech is to make the speaker funny

Most speakers aren’t skilled enough at handling humour to get the audience rolling in the aisles. Nor should they try. That’s what comedians work hard to do. Audiences are more than happy with the kind of humour that elicits a smile or a few chuckles. Quips, one-liners and personal anecdotes warm up the atmosphere, allow the speaker to express some personality and give the audience a chance respond through smiles, laughter or even applause.

Wendy Cherwinski will be running a seminar Adding Value Beyond Words: The Many Roles of the Speechwriter at the UK Speechwriters’ Guild conference on Friday 16 September at Bournemouth University.


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LESSONS FROM A MOVIE: PROVIDING VALUE BEYOND WORDS

OPENINGS


The UK Speechwriters’ Guild exists to promote better

public speaking.

Working with brand agency, RT Media, we’ve created a competition that uses YouTube to draw attention to those speakers who have important things to say. Would-be competitors submit their videos which are made available for viewing by the public.

This year is the pilot. We’ve invited eight speakers to take part in the final. The plan is for the overall winner to be selected by a live audience. When better to host the final than when over 40 speechwriters are in Bournemouth on the eve of the annual UKSG conference?

Brian Jenner explained the thinking behind the contest.

“One theorist of social change identified three things that motivated people: carrots, sticks and sermons.

In politics they’re always talking about taking away benefits from those who don’t want to work, or giving them free training in the hope of finding a new career. How about encouraging them to listen to inspirational stories and find potential within themselves?

A motivational speech is like a good sermon. It engages the heart. It makes you see the world in a slightly different way. We all lose hope and get into ruts at times. A collective emotional experience can inspire us to do great things on the sports field, deal with a difficult situation or take action to start a new business.”

The speakers have been instructed to deliver ‘an inspirational business message for our times’. Pavilion Dance in Bournemouth has a state-of-the art theatre which will host the contest. The speeches will start at 7pm on Thursday 15 September 2011.

The competition will be run on an X-Factor format with the judges and the audience having a vote towards who becomes the winner.

Max Atkinson, author of Lend Me Your Ears will be chairman of the judges.

“Most of the world’s top business gurus are American, this is a great opportunity to find the British equivalent of Tom Peters or Stephen Covey.” said Ross Thornley, owner of RT Media.

You can buy your ticket at: http://championspeaker.eventbrite.com/

You came to see a race today. See someone win. Happened

to be me. But I want you to do more than just watch a race.

I want you to take part in it.

I want to compare faith to running in a race. It’s hard. It requires concentration of will, energy of soul.

You experience elation when the winner breaks the tape - ‘specially if you’ve got a bet on it.

But how long does that last? You go home. Maybe your dinner’s burnt. Maybe, maybe you haven’t got a job. So who am I to say, “believe,” “have faith,” in the face of life’s realities?

I would like to give you something more permanent, but I can only point the way. I have no formula for winning the race. Everyone runs in her own way, or his own way.

And where does the power come from to see the race to its end? From within. Jesus said, “Behold, the kingdom of God is within you. If, with all your hearts ye truly seek me, ye shall ever surely find me.”

If you commit yourself to the love of Christ. And THAT is how you run the straight race.

Speech from Chariots of Fire, Ian Charleson as Eric Liddell


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One of the stated aims of the UK Speechwriters’ Guild is to

‘repopularise rhetoric’. The trouble is that this makes for a dry mantra. Few people could give a simple definition of what rhetoric is and the whole concept reeks of Latin and obscure grammatical rules.

Tom Hodgkinson is the founder of The Idler magazine and the author of several books on living well. He has extended the franchise further and created The Idler Academy on Westbourne Park Road in London.

Browsing his website, I noticed he offered a class in The Art of Rhetoric. Even more surprising was that the course was being taught by a company called The Academy of Oratory. How could a company can that sounds 2500 years out of date persuade corporates to engage their services? That would indeed be a formidable exercise in rhetorical skills.

I dropped in on the class. The trainers, Giles Abbott and Leon Conrad, exude the confidence of top actors. They both wear musketeer-like beards and they both speak beautifully.

As soon as introductions were over we were taking part in interactive exercises. As if we were in drama school, we were given a task to bring us into ‘the moment’. We had to prowl round the room pointing at objects and calling them the wrong name.

Giles urged us to think of a simple anecdote from our lives. A story we had told that week. He then illustrated three styles of opening a story: direct, indirect and gear change.

I think I grasped that direct involved a formal beginning ‘once upon a time’ – indirect involved a rambling introduction and ‘gear change’ – was like the opening of Paradise Lost – a dive into the ‘middle of things’. It didn’t really matter, the point was made that there were different ways to start a story.

The background of both trainers has been voice coaching; breathing exercises also featured in the lesson. The blend of different dimensions of speech-giving kept our attention and gave the course a ‘holistic’ feel.

Leon explained there were five

levels of gesture. From waving your hands in the air like a mad scientist to keeping them behind your back like a Royal. This was a curious exercise for me because I occasionally do something similar for wedding speeches when I’m stuck for inspiration. There’s an insight here – gesture can help to generate text.

Most of the exercises involved working with a partner. We had to find a beginning, a middle and an end for our anecdote by oral experimentation. Our partner would fire imperatives at us to change the tone of the story: Action! Description! Feeling!

150 minutes passed rapidly. Without weighing us down with figures of speech, they shared some of the joy of using effective storytelling techniques. At the end of the session every delegate stepped up to the podium to deliver the bare bones of their story. Nerves had disappeared and everyone remembered their lines. I went home eager to polish up some of my other anecdotes to give them a wider audience.

Giles and Leon ( http://www.academyoforatory.co.uk ) are running another course on 20 September at the Idler Academy 020 7221 5908, £40

“Hypnotizing chickens “

The process of developing PowerPoint slides and other media that will induce coma in the audience.


THE ART OF RHETORIC - A COURSE

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Giles AbbotLeon Conrad

DEFINITION



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David Murray, keynote speaker at UKSG 2011, is editor of Vital Speeches of the Day and Vital Speeches International. Murray has covered speechwriting and executive communication for nearly two decades.

What is Vital Speeches of the Day?

Vital Speeches has for 76 years now collected the best speeches from the leading thinkers in the world. The original idea, back in 1935, was that newspapers and radio so finely filtered what we heard, that it would be a service to the nation—Vital Speeches was then a very much America-centric enterprise—to provide a look at whole speeches, not just sound bites chosen by biased media organizations.

That musty old mission sounds kind of modern, doesn’t it?

Have you featured any speeches by British speakers lately?

Yes, Vital Speeches is now global in its scope, and we also publish a sister publication called Vital Speeches International, which almost exclusively runs speeches from outside the US.

British political speeches are often better—more substantive and more rhetorically powerful—than American ones. In Bournemouth, I will be looking for examples of corporate speeches from the UK, as I don’t see enough of those even to have an opinion about them.

How do speechwriters submit speeches?

Easy: Send a Word doc to me at [email protected].

I read every speech I get.

What are the Cicero Awards? And how did they come about?

The Cicero Speechwriting Awards recognize excellence in speechwriting. They’ve been around for five years, and they were a natural outgrowth of the longtime function of Vital Speeches as an arbiter of excellence in rhetoric.

Did you study rhetoric at university?

I studied English. Straight out of university, I went to work for a Chicago company that published a weekly Speechwriter’s Newsletter. They put on an annual Speechwriters’ Conference, too. Helping write the newsletter and run the conference, I got to read a lot of speeches and to know a lot of speechwriters. I liked the speechwriters better than the speeches, which were mostly corporate drivel and political pap. My appreciation for the rarity of a good speech prepared me well, I think, to be editor of Vital Speeches of the Day.

Have you ever worked as a speechwriter?

I’ve consulted on speeches for others, and I’ve written many speeches for myself. But never written one for hire, no. I’d like to, but then who would send it to Vital Speeches? And who would consider it for publication?

What are your favourite examples of British rhetoric?

Well, we’re big Churchill fans over here, and Tony Blair is widely respected. I guess with this new Thatcher movie out, we’ll be considering her rhetoric, too. I don’t mind Cameron’s speeches, and we’ve published Clegg’s too,

though neither of them has delivered anything immortal. I hope to be turned onto some great British speakers while I’m in Bournemouth.

What does the American Dream mean to you? And how does it shape American speechwriting?

As it relates to rhetoric, the American Dream is simply an assumption that things can get better, and that they probably will get better and that you, the American, have the power to make them better. Wherever you’re speaking, you have to find the “American dream” inside the audience. Napoleon said that a leader is a dealer in hope. A rhetorician is, too.

Is the need for a specialist speechwriter widely accepted in the US or do most executives see it as part of the PR skillset?

There used to be dedicated speechwriters, but now it’s mostly just a part of the PR skill set. That’s fine for many speeches, but when a truly artful speech is needed, I hope the communication VP is LinkedIn to some real writers who actually have time to think and space to dream outside the corporate box.

How did the Ragan Communications’ Annual Speechwriters’ Conference in Washington come about? What was your involvement with it?

That conference started in Chicago in the late 1980s; I used to help organize it in some of those early years, and wound up programming it for most of a decade, in the 2000s. It was a great event, and it still is.

But I have a little more fun at Leadership Communication Days, an event that Vital Speeches initiated last year. It’s super small—we cap attendance at 25—and all we do

QUESTIONS FOR DAVID MURRAY

A WINNING SIGN



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is tell one another the truth about this work for two straight days. At meetings, over meals, over drinks. You leave with new ideas and new friends.

(It’s in Washington, D.C. this year, Oct. 27-28; we’d love to have a UK speechwriter there.)

http://www.vsotd.com/Page.php?p=11

What’s your favourite line of poetry?

No ideas but in things. William Carlos Williams.

What’s the best website created by a US freelance speechwriter in your opinion?

For my money, it’s The Eloquent Woman, run by speechwriter and communicator Denise Graveline. Full of ideas and great examples of speeches—refreshingly, all speeches delivered by women.

Check it out and see if you disagree.

http://eloquentwoman.blogspot.com

Do you write your own speeches verbatim as preparation, or do you assemble your ideas and then speak impromptu?

Verbatim. For me there are no ideas without words. Sometimes I then decide to go off notes—that’s what I’ll do at your conference—and other times I actually deliver them off the page. That’s hopelessly old-fashioned, I know, but when you really positively have to get something across exactly as intended—and you’re a writer—how can you leave the verbiage to chance?

Do you listen to audiobooks?

No. I work at home, and when I travel it’s usually on a motorcycle,

so there’s not much time to listen to books. Books on tape drive me nuts, because books inspire ideas, and I find myself drifting a hundred miles away from the story, needing to rewind the damned thing.

Who is the next best speaker among Presidential hopefuls after Obama?

Lady Gaga.

Jon Steel in his book Truth, Lies and Advertising tells an

anecdote that reveals the sort of brain work a speechwriter does for a client.

Living in the San Francisco Bay area, he explains that one of the most prevalent forms of communication are signs held up by homeless people to attract donations from passers-by. The most common sign was ‘Will Work for Food’ which Steel thinks is very powerful.

It credits the passer-by with intelligence, and then addresses a popular prejudice about the homeless not wanting to do any work. Mentioning food also counters the fear that the person is going to spend the money on drugs or gambling. It’s also direct and to the point – just four words.

Steel then looks at other ways you could express this message. His comments are part of a chapter that examines the objection that creativity is a needless distraction from selling, and the task of

advertising is just to tell people what to think. What would be a functional way for a homeless man to express his need?

I’m homeless. I need money.

That’s clear, but to give the communication focus he could say:

I’m homeless, I need your money.

But the sign would lack some urgency, so he could add.

I’m homeless, I need your money now.

That’s a bit raw, but it could suffice, but it’s hardly imaginative or special. It doesn’t deal with casual prejudices.

Steel goes through other strategies.

Non-smoker. On the wagon. Faint at the sight of a needle.

That’s a bit vague. Then he goes for the stylish line:

Just give it.

Finally he ends up with two signs he saw on the streets of San Francisco that show ingenuity and charm. One read:

Why lie? I need a beer.

And then on foot, he saw a man with the demeanor of a man without a bed for the night, brandishing a tatty cardboard sign:

Need fuel for Lear Jet.

Steel was so impressed, he stopped, gave him $5 and wished him a pleasant journey.

The Speechwriter is edited by Brian Jenner.

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