It’s not every day that a high school English teacher gets a job as a speechwriter for the President of the United States. But that’s exactly what happened to William Gavin after he wrote to Richard Nixon in 1967, urging him to run for the White House.

Through an improbable series of circumstances, Gavin, who had never written a speech, was hired to write for Nixon after he won the 1968 election. He got to work with such luminaries as William Safire and Pat Buchanan.

It was Safire who told Gavin, who later went on to write for President Ronald Reagan, that a key to good speechwriting was to “get to the point.”  Gavin also learned that he not only had to give Nixon what he wanted in a speech, his job was to tell Nixon what he needed in a speech.  A good speechwriter, he learned, serves as not only a scribe, but an advisor.

Gavin has written a book about his 30-year career as a speechwriter titled Speechwright: An Insider’s Take on Political Rhetoric. It’s worth a look.

T-Shirt blurbs for speechwriters

Akash Karia assembles a series of posters with advice for speechwriters. I think each of them would make good material for T-shirts.

They offer sage advice. My favorite, of course, is the quote by Winston Churchill. The man was a master at word images.

” There are two things more difficult than making an after-dinner speech:
Climbing a wall which is leaning toward you and kissing a girl who is leaning away from you.”

Winston Churchill

When it comes to webinars…

…PowerPoint is more than okay. It’s essential. How else are you going to provide lots of information to folks tuning in to your session on their computer?

Julie Newman, a communications consultant, offers good advice on how to create a winning webinar slide presentation. And she provides great tips on post-webinar followup.

Teleprompters: They're not just for Presidents

When last we met, I reported on the 2012 Ragan Speechwriters and Executive Communicators Conference in Washington.  I wasn’t the only blogger at the conference and I wanted to share with you comments from other speechwriters who attended.

Ian Griffin reported on a presidential speechwriters panel in which former White House scribes talked about the 2012 campaign. I completely agree with Chriss Winston’s comments about how the Republican candidates are more focused on each other and the process than they are on the issues that voters are concerned about.

Deja vu all over again

That seems to happen in every election cycle. The candidates, their strategists, the media, and the pundits get caught up in a tornado of criticism and analysis that sucks everything else out of the campaign.

Reminds me of a time I went to the Humane Society to adopt a dog. I found a splendid border collie who spent all his time barking at the other dogs and could barely focus on charming me. I had to get him away from the shelter to find out what a fine fellow he was.

Kate Middleton, please don’t read

There was also some talk at the conference about teleprompters – of course – since President Obama uses them often. As Nick Morgan points out, there’s no shame in using a teleprompter, especially if you’re the leader of the free world and you make multiple speeches a day.

Teleprompters used to be so expensive that only heads of state and other deep pockets could afford them. But now, they’re easily affordable for almost any speaker. I’m sure money was not an issue for Kate Middleton in her first public speech a few days ago. A teleprompter would have helped her delivery immensely.

The Ragan Speechwriters and Executive Communicators Conference just wrapped up and as usual, it was a first-rate, first-class event.

More than 200 communicators from the United States, Norway, the Netherlands, Denmark, Nigeria and other nations gathered for this annual training and networking session in Washington, D.C.

Ragan Communications, a Chicago-based publishing company, sponsors the conference and they always host it at the Mayflower Hotel, one of the nicest venues in the nation’s capitol.  For those of us who attended, it was two days of learning from the best speechwriters on the planet.

Here are just a few of the valuable insights I gathered at the conference:

• People remember a speaker’s tone and the stories he/she tells, not the actual words of a speech. To get the tone right, practice in front of your dog. Canines, like people, take their cues from your tone.
• Keep the facts to a minimum. Audiences can’t absorb a litany of facts and they usually find bar charts and pie charts boring and unhelpful. What they want from a speaker is to know that he/she understands the facts and can intelligently interpret them.
• Speeches go better when they come across as conversations with the audience. Smart speakers arrive at a venue early and spend time talking to audience members before the event begins. It helps them relax and gives them familiar faces to focus on when they are speaking.
• For a speech that keeps on giving, have it videotaped and posted on YouTube. You can use a flipcam or smartphone and break it up into three or four segments. Audacity offers a free audio editor that can be downloaded onto a Mac or PC.
• Another way to give a longer life to a speech is to turn the topic into an op-ed and place it in a newspaper. Op-eds are read by policymakers and opinion leaders and are great ways to spread influence.

These tips are courtesy of John Barnes, director of executive communications at BP America; Mark Schumann, 17-time winner of the IABC Gold Quill Award; and Ian Griffin, a veteran speechwriter and executive communications specialist.

For videos of speakers from previous speechwriters conferences, check out YouTube.

You may have been told that it’s taboo to use notes when giving a speech. I’m here to tell you that it’s not taboo – in fact, for most speakers, it’s a good idea.

Only the most accomplished speakers – like Steve Jobs or Bill Clinton – can deliver a stellar performance without notes. It’s important to remember that they have worked for years to reach their level of competency behind the lectern.

They have practiced and practiced. They have most likely worked with a speech coach. They have given hundreds, probably thousands of speeches. And they have worked with professional writers to capture just the right words to express their thoughts.

Most speakers don’t have these advantages.   So don’t let anyone tell you to rely solely on your memory to give a speech. It’s not necessary and audiences don’t expect it.

Rick Perry

Using an outline, note cards with bullet points or a full-blown written speech gives you added security that you will remember your key messages.

Think Rick Perry. If he had only had notes in that unforgettable debate weeks ago, he would have been able to rattle off the three Cabinet agencies he would have eliminated. Notes would have saved him from a damaging flub.

Think the Secretary of State, speaking on a sensitive diplomatic issue. Think the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, whose every utterance can have a huge impact on the stock market and the global economy. Many of their remarks are closely scripted because they can’t afford any verbal missteps.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton

The stakes aren’t quite so high for most speakers. But remember, you only get one chance to make a speech. So why not do the very best job you can?

Whatever form of notes you decide to use, here are a few guidelines to remember:

• Number your pages or note cards. If you drop them right before your speech, you can easily reassemble them.
• Use large print and wide margins. Make it easy to read your notes.
• Don’t staple your notes together. They are easier and less conspicuous to handle that way.
• Underline or highlight any important facts or statistics so you can spot them easily.

Good communicators strive to be persuasive and to be opinion leaders. That’s why they like to write articles for newspaper editorial pages. Such articles are called op-eds and they are a unique and powerful communication tool. Using journalism’s formula for the 5 W’s and the H (Who, What, When, Where, Why and How), here are the basics on op-eds.

WHAT is an op-ed?

An op-ed is an opinion piece that appears on the page opposite a newspaper’s editorial page – hence the term op-ed. The opinion pages are usually at the back of the first section of the newspaper.

WHO writes op-eds?

Op-eds can be written by executives and leaders in almost any field. Often, they are ghost-written by communications professionals and appear in print under the byline of a CEO, government official or other opinion leader.

WHY write and publish an op-ed?

There can be many reasons to seek publication of an opinion piece. Your organization may want higher visibility, especially among decision-makers in industry and government. Politicians read editorial pages and so do business people, advocacy leaders and others interested in public opinion and government policy.

Your organization may want to influence public opinion and/or government policy. You may be in a crisis situation and seeking to get your point of view out in the public arena.  The page opposite a newspaper’s editorial page is a good place to do just that.

WHEN do you submit an op-ed piece for publication?

Timeliness is essential. If there’s a news event or a controversy that directly impacts your organization, be ready to write fast and act faster. I have worked for organizations that procrastinated and labored over an op-ed for so long that the media had moved on to a new topic. They were no longer interested in the subject we were concerned about.

WHERE do you place op-eds?

It’s best not to set your sights on the Washington Post or the New York Times. Big dailies like these receive hundreds of submissions every day and your chances of getting published are very small.

You can still have impact in regional and smaller dailies. Try your hometown newspaper, which is automatically more interested in local businesses, government and nonprofit offices.

I have found the best way to get an op-ed published is to ask for an editorial board meeting. Take your CEO or top leader and a communications representative. Editorial writers and sometimes reporters will be at the meeting at the newspaper. Have an op-ed ready to leave behind after the meeting.

HOW do you write an op-ed?

Keep it at no more than 750 words. Open with your strongest point and use the rest of the piece to back up your major assertion.

Keep your sentences and paragraphs short and use active verbs. Close with a re-statement of your major argument and give a call to action.

Today started out great. I went to my regular Friday morning Rotary meeting and the speaker ‘s PowerPoint presentation wouldn’t come up on the screen.  Something about his laptop was low on battery power and he didn’t have a cord long enough to reach the electrical outlet. I wanted to stand up and cheer.

Why, you ask, would that be a good start to my day? Because anytime a speaker can shed the PowerPoint crutch, the better chance he/she has of really communicating with an audience.

When people think of giving a presentation, they automatically start planning PowerPoint slides.  They rely on the visuals to contain their talking points and as speakers, they can slip into the shadows when the lights are dimmed. Much less threatening.

I have to say, last week’s meeting started out great, too. The speaker didn’t have a PowerPoint show. Instead, she had a really interesting, funny speech about how humor is beneficial to our health.  She told stories, she talked about Rotary and did everything she could to engage us with her words. It was one of the best speeches I’ve heard at my club.

The moral of the story? Ditch the PowerPoint and spend more time on your words. Look for ways to connect with each audience by speaking to their interests.  Add a little humor and do your best to make your presentation interesting. Boring an audience should be against the law.

Picking on Mitt Romney

I don’t have anything against Mitt Romney other than he gives bland speeches.  He tends to get wordy when he’s trying to make a point.  And he never says anything memorable. It’s all vanilla.

Chris Seck opines in The Record that Romney’s background as an English major and his speechwriter’s training in the humanities may explain his lackluster performance behind the lectern.

No Comment

It used to be (maybe it still is) that when you said “No Comment” to a reporter, it was a red flag.  Something dishonest or illegal was going on and you didn’t want to talk about it in public.

Now we have some new ones that raise the antennas of journalists who are looking for deception or manipulation.  Like: Chief Financial Officer Joe Blow is resigning “to spend more time with his family.”  If you want to get a journalist on the trail of why Joe Blow is really leaving, say something like that.

Journalists know when they’re being manipulated.  (Take it from me. I used to be one.) And they appreciate it when executives and other leaders are real with them. Think Warren Buffett, who isn’t afraid to say exactly what he thinks. Think Ron Paul, who isn’t afraid to speak his mind, either. Authenticity is a powerful tool, as the Gotham Research Group discovered.

Last fall, I couldn’t help but notice the superior marketing strategy of the Susan G. Komen for the Cure campaign.  As part of Breast Cancer Awareness Month in October, the signature pink ribbons were everywhere – even in very unlikely places.

The organization was at a Dallas Cowboys game, raising awareness and funds for research to wipe out breast cancer. Komen founder Nancy Brinker was at the opening coin toss, standing on the field with the Cowboys team captains.

Game show hostess Vanna White did a Wheel of Fortune promotional NBCCam on behalf of the Komen foundation.

And most surprising of all – to me at least – was when Delta Airlines gave a commercial for the Komen campaign on a flight I took from Boston to Paris. I had never seen anything like it – an airline partnering with a cause for in-flight promotional marketing. I was impressed. This had all the earmarks of a prize-winning and highly successful branding campaign.

But then came the Planned Parenthood debacle of last week and Komen, which had been flying high, was making a crash landing. Its leaders are still sifting through the rubble trying to determine what went wrong, how to clean up the mess and how they can avoid such a fiasco in the future.

Meanwhile Planned Parenthood, which has taken a PR beating in recent years, got a big boost in donations and some vocal support in the media.

Blogger Mike Duerksen wrote a really nice analysis of this PR case study for the NonProfitPR website. He astutely points out that organizations not only need a crisis communications plan, they need one that includes social media strategies. Social media – Facebook and Twitter – were where the firestorm developed for Komen.

I encourage you to watch both Nancy Brinker’s video and the MSNBC interview with Cecile Richards, head of Planned Parenthood, and draw your own conclusions about how the two organizations have communicated during the crisis.

For her part, Richards wisely chose a conciliatory tone, hoping to repair the damage done to the Komen-Planned Parenthood relationship. Brinker focused on defending her organization’s decision.

In the end, the Komen foundation reversed its plan to cut off funding to Planned Parenthood for health screenings. But the mop up continues. It will be interesting to see how Komen handles the aftermath.

Mitt Romney’s recent spate of verbal gaffes have reminded me of why I have always regarded interaction with the news media with a healthy dose of respect – and some fear and trembling. As Romney has ruefully learned, even the most practiced and polished speaker can utter a statement that will sound bad and take on a life of its own.

Romney seems almost robotic in his delivery sometimes, as if he has practiced his responses too much. But despite his obvious preparations, you’ve seen him make one damaging statement after another.

These gaffes are being played and replayed and used against him by the media and people in his own party. Inevitably, they will be used against him in the presidential campaign this fall if he is the ultimate nominee.

His most recent comment, “I’m not concerned about the very poor,” is another in a series of self-inflicted verbal mishaps.  I have to wonder how this has happened. I know Romney’s had media training – every serious presidential candidate gets schooled in this skill.

Aside from that, I can tell he’s had media training by the way he handles himself. He has key messages he wants to convey and no matter what he is asked, he harkens back to those messages in every response. That is media training 101.

So why would he say something like that? If you watch the entire interview, you’ll see that Romney turned the gun on himself after essentially answering the question the newscaster asked him.

The “poor” statement was offered in the context of “by the way.” It was an add-on. Romney thought he was going to make the point that he is for the common man/woman. But he ended up saying too much. He should have stopped before “by the way.”

I think there are two simple lessons here for people who are in the public eye and who are asked questions by reporters and the public. First, don’t volunteer information. Answer the question and be sure to get your key messages in. Make simple statements and keep them brief.

Second, as a general rule, it’s a good idea to stay away from negative statements. He could have bypassed the whole issue by saying something simple like: “My focus is on the middle class and making sure they have jobs.”  Veering into what he’s not concerned about just left him open for criticism.

I had a business meeting via Skype today, a first for me.  I’ve used Skype before for personal calls, but this was the first time I have used it in a professional setting.

It is an amazing tool – easy to download, easy to use and the visual quality is remarkable.  I think in the near future, this type of visual communication tool will be used more and more in the workplace. Here are a few tips for putting your best face forward when using Skype.

Look your best

Even though you may be sitting at a desk and looking into a laptop camera, dress as you would for any professional in-person meeting.  And that means full dress – not dressing from the waist up. You never know when you might have to stand up and reveal those sweats or undies.

I wear makeup when I’m on a video cam. I usually wear makeup anyway, but just a light dose of it. Today, I took extra care with it and styled my hair. I perform better in meetings if I feel good about the way I look. I think most people do, too.

Test your equipment

This was a high-stakes meeting, so I did a dry run on connecting with the other party yesterday. I added them to my contact list on Skype, which makes it super easy to establish the connection when the time comes.

Remember, technology always has to be tested before any kind of presentation or communication event.

Be mindful of your surroundings

In most cases, you’ll want either a blank wall or shelves of books behind you.  Put any political campaign signs away.

Move barking dogs and meowing cats to another room and close the door. Turn the ringer off on your landline and cell phone.

Put any documents you need right next to your laptop or desktop computer and have a pen and paper handy for note-taking.

Smile and look into the camera

When I’m thinking, I tend to scowl. Don’t know why — it’s just a mannerism. So I try to remind myself to keep a pleasant look on my face. Video cameras are pretty unforgiving in the way they make you look — just like television cameras.

Also, remember to look into the camera, not at the picture you see on the screen. That way, you’ll be looking directly at the person/people you’re talking to.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Every year about this time, a speechwriter’s fancy turns to the eloquence of one of the greatest orators of the 20^th century – Martin Luther King, Jr. The guy was a master. We can all learn a lot from him and his famous “I Have a Dream” speech.

As Andrew Dlugan, founder and editor of Six Minutes, points out, King skillfully used repetition to make his points.  He not only repeated phrases to good effect, he repeated key themes.

At the risk of repeating myself, repetition is one of a public speaker’s best friends. Learn to use it to hammer home your key points.

Breaking into speechwriting

Apparently, I wasn’t the only one to think about Martin Luther King’s speaking skill this week. His birthday spawned countless articles, including this one from local Professional Writers of Austin.

The shoe was on the other foot for me in this piece. Instead of doing the interviewing and the writing, I was the interviewee. And I gave my best advice on how to write a great speech and how to break into the speechwriting business.

[Notice the mention of using repetition in speeches. But then, I’m repeating myself.]

The Eloquent Woman

I spend a lot of time listening to male speakers – they seem to be on the public stage a lot.  But Denise Graveline, who runs don’t get caught, a coaching business for speakers, has made a specialty of listening to women speakers.

And she has a lot to offer speakers and speechwriters in her regular essays on females who make a difference with the spoken word. Check her out on The Eloquent Woman. You’ll find not only speech videos, but critiques as well.