A speech for “enough of us”?
For many years I’ve shown audiences of speechwriters all over America and all over the world President Carter’s famous “Crisis of Confidence” speech, also known as his “malaise” speech, even …
Let’s mull the lull
Is your internal exec comms falling off a little lately? Or is it falling off the table? Into our fifth month of publishing our daily Executive Communication: Coronavirus newsletter, we still have …
The first year of your new career
Last Friday the Professional Speechwriters Association and the Executive Communication Council held our first full-on virtual conference. In my keynote remarks, I suggested that this isn’t the most crucial time …
Speechwriter, Spiel Thyself
For almost 30 years, I’ve made some part of my living convening professional speechwriters or covering their silent struggles. If there’s been one prevailing sentiment among speechwriters across all that …
U.S. Bank CEO weighs in on George Floyd
“Why George Floyd mattered—to us all,” is the subject line of an all-employee email sent yesterday by U.S. Bank CEO Andy Cecere. The bank is headquartered in Minneapolis, where Floyd was …
Professional speechwriters, speaking privately
The conversation began with a constructive query in a private Google Group by a professional speechwriter looking for advice from his peers on how to help his client, an important …
Senator Attempts Humor, Makes Fool of Self
Not every speech can be the Gettysburg Address. But every speech does have the potential to be a rhetorical train wreck like this going-viral commencement speech by Republican Senator Ben Sasse. Investigators …
How to Write a Commencement Speech
I can’t even keep track of all the online commencement speech festivals taking place this week for college grads and next month for high schoolers. But I do know that …