Soapbox (this article appeared in PR Week 14 October 2011)
I’ve been commissioned to write an analysis of the speeches at the Party conferences by Messrs Clegg, Cameron and Milliband, but I’ve got a confession to make. I didn’t watch them.
Instead I’ve been reading Chip & Dan Heath’s book, Switch: how to change things, when change is hard. The authors say analysing the causes of a problem rarely helps to solve it. If we want to change something we have to study what’s working and champion that.
As a speechwriter, I love listening to great speakers but I don’t expect to find them at party conferences.
If we want to change that, we’ve got to ask where we will we find them. Who is putting on the events that everybody wants to be at? Where do the great speakers go?
The answer is TED (Technology Education Design) – a private non-profit organisation. It began in the States and is now a global umbrella for several conference formats.
I’ve watched a future Prime Minister, Rory Stewart MP, give an unforgettable speech about foreign policy in Afghanistan. I’ve heard Sir Ken Robinson talk passionately about education policy. I spotted a brilliant speech at a TEDx in Brighton about the problems creatives have communicating with business people.
For me, there is a huge difference between these speeches and the speeches you get at party conferences: TED talks make me want to leap out of my chair and get involved in the world.
TED has a rule that no presentation can last longer than 18 minutes. If the Party leaders took only one lesson from TED, that would be a sensible one.
TED find articulate people with ideas worth spreading and they give them a platform. That’s the sort of thing we’d all like to see at a C21st party conference.
Brian Jenner runs the UK Speechwriters’ Guild
Pitching the World
Lots of our members would like to go freelance. Last week a blogger reported his experiment of writing to 650 MPs offering his services as a speechwriter. He tried raw honesty as as tactic and submitted a sample speech.
You can read about his experiences here: http://pitchingtheworld.wordpress.com/2012/01/11/how-to-be-a-political-speechwriter-part-one/
The Ups and Downs of Speechwriting
Speechwriting can be a satisfying and lucrative career. But our jobs hang by a thread, and we can never afford to forget that.
There are two ways of dealing with this insecurity. One is by using speechwriting as a stepping-stone to an editorial or managerial position. The other is by cultivating speechwriter survival skills.
Here are some tips I’ve picked up over the course of my own career:
First: Always remember that you have two clients: the person you write for – and yourself. And you are just as important as the client.
There’s no conflict of interest here. If you’re working to make your client look good, you’re also making yourself look good. For example: You’re hired to write speeches? Offer to ghost an article or op/ed for your client. If it gets published, the client looks good and you’ve got another choice writing sample to add to your portfolio; something to show potential employers that you’re good at different kinds of writing.
Second, Be visible. One reason why speechwriters are so vulnerable is that we’re often faceless, anonymous beings. Some of us think that being invisible makes us secure. Wrong. Don’t assume that if you keep you’re head down and do a good job, you’re safe, because you’re not.
Be visible. Be visible within the organization. Volunteer for projects that will help you grow professionally, win you friends and allies, and add to your portfolio. Offer to write an article for the company magazine, for instance.
Be visible outside the organisation as well. Look for opportunities to speak and write outside of your job. Build a network, because some day it may be your lifeline.
Third: Always have a contingency plan; always be prepared for the possibility that you may find yourself suddenly unemployed.
That means belonging to professional societies that have job banks; that means cultivating recruiters before you need them; that means scouting potential employers.
It also means learning how to market yourself. Here again, I recommend seeking opportunities to speak and to publish outside of your regular job. I know that freelance speechwriting on the side can be a dicey proposition, but you can still write an article, review a book, and add otherwise add writings samples to your portfolio.
I’ve always liked General George Patton’s definition of success. Patton said that success is how high you bounce when you hit bottom. And he was right.
Everybody falls at one time or other, sometimes through no fault of our own. But how high you bounce depends on you.
Hal Gordon is a former White House speechwriter. Click here to visit his website.
Politicians and broadcasters: collaboration or capitulation?
Dr Max Atkinson
Should politicians be making more speeches and taking part in fewer interviews?
Public speaking expert, Dr Max Atkinson, will explain why making speeches is a much more effective way to communicate messages than taking part in interviews, because broadcast interviews seldom deliver anything but bad news for politicians.
He will expound the ‘snakes and ladders theory of political communication’ when he delivers the UK Speechwriters’ Guild Christmas lecture on Thursday 8 December at the School of Life, 70 Marchmont Streeet, in Bloomsbury.
Dr Max Atkinson came to national prominence when, for the TV documentary World in Action, he trained a woman who had never spoken before to appear at the SDP conference, where she won a standing ovation. He went on to work for the former leader of the Liberal Democrats, Lord Ashdown.
He is the author of three books on the subject of communication, Our Masters’ Voices, Lend Me Your Ears and Speechmaking and Presentation Made Easy. The public speaking organisation, Toastmasters International, appointed him Communicator of the Year 2011. He runs a popular blog http://maxatkinson.blogspot.com
Doors will be open at 8am for a light breakfast. Max will begin his lecture at 8.45am. Places are limited to 40.
For tickets go to http://uksgchristmaslecture.eventbrite.com/
For details of the UK Speechwriters’ Guild, go to http://www.ukspeechwritersguild.co.uk or call 01202 551257
Book Review – Management Speak: Why We Listen to What Management Gurus Tell Us
By David Greatbatch and Timothy Clark
Published by Routledge, (156 pages)
ISBN 041530623X, £29.99
This book is a laconic, but rather devastating academic analysis of how business gurus ply their trade. Part of me thinks there may be a streak of envy in all this because academics are notoriously poor communicators. All the same the authors dissect how the gurus work their magic. They tell rather banal stories, they avoid criticising the audience directly, they make everyone laugh and they craft tales which paint themselves as being at the cutting edge.
The authors show how Atkinson’s analysis of political rhetoric is equally applicable to the spellbinding oratory of the gurus. Reading it fills you with confidence as a speechwriter, because you’re studying the flesh and bones of oral communication. What many people might find slightly disturbing is how they borrow from techniques used by charismatic preachers like John Wesley. Sure enough I watched some Tony Robbins after reading the book and saw some rather clever techniques being used. Read more
Profile: Stuart Mole
Stuart Mole is a freelance speechwriter and consultant. He is a former Director-General of the Royal Commonwealth Society and a former Director of the Secretary-General’s Office in the Commonwealth Secretariat.
What was the first speech you wrote for somebody else?
My guess it was when I was appointed the Parliamentary Press Officer of the Liberal Party back in 1975. My first draft was for Clement Freud, then MP for the Isle of Ely. He did the jokes and I inserted the party policy. I am not sure it was the ideal way to write speeches. Read more