I was steered to a web video the other day by an e-mail from a friend, and found myself in a garden of presentation skills coaches (also on video), many of whom quoted research done by Dr. Albert Mehrabian of Stanford… Read More »Scientific research on communication
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
The famed defense attorney, F. Lee Bailey, was once asked what the key was to a successful case. People expected him to say a spellbinding closing statement or a good jury selection process or an impressive cross-examination of a crucial… Read More »Facts Make the Speech Writer
The Bush Doctrine on Speech Writing In his entertaining memoir Speech*Less, speech writer Matt Latimer reveals something about the speeches developed for President G.W. Bush. By the way, he was one of the speech writers. ‘I quickly discovered the answer… Read More »The Bush Doctrine on Speech Writing
We are entitled to our own opinions, but none of us is entitled to our own facts. In fact, most of us hold our opinions with little respect for facts. For instance, when you ask a passionate partisan why she voted… Read More »Let us now praise specifics
At the annual LP meetings I’ve been working on, I have noticed that the senior guy wants to give his views on the macro economic picture. He wants to do this for good reasons: To put the results his team… Read More »An Emerging Problem at Limited Partner Meetings