Gary Forman is a friend of mine. He’s a great speech writer. He was working on a stump speech for himself. He came over to read it to me and get my feedback. It was fabulous, and so was he, a fierce partisan in… Read More »The Youie Youness of You
Over cigars and Chivas on Sunday night with Dikki Ellis, Michael Christensen and Zach Grenier, we came across an interesting distinction between clowning and acting, and one that is helpful to business speakers. Michael is a Co-Founder of the Big… Read More »The fourth wall or not
Some of us are born with, or acquire through experience, a voice that is tentative and evokes in others the tendency to ignore what we say. Habits such as talking too quietly, or too quickly, or going up at the… Read More »Training the Speaking Voice
When we watch TED talks, such as Rory Sutherland’s on the power of advertising, or Hans Rosling’s on the power of data, we are watching two men who know their way around the presentation platform. Both speak without notes, use… Read More »Using speaker’s notes
I just witnessed several clients reading scripts. There was something very unsatisfying about the experience for me. They lacked life and expression. They didn’t appear to mean what they were saying. Yet scripts are often useful and necessary. So what… Read More »Reading a speech vs. giving a presentation
A good speech has a voice. It sounds like an individual—specifically, the individual who is delivering the speech. It should not sound like the speechwriter. And yet us speechwriters are often given only a brief time with the speaker to… Read More »Your speechwriter: How to get the most out of him