The Communication Manifesto, Revisited
You’d yawn, if you started reading here about the trouble with corporate life these days, and corporate communication and I was saying stuff like: “Employee levels of distrust have probably …
To speak, or not to speak?
You could sense the desperation in the speechwriter’s email: “I’ve been tasked with developing rough guidelines to use when evaluating incoming speaking requests. In your travels, have you come across …
How speechwriters are doing (and what you should do about it)
I went to get some pants let out a few weeks ago, and discovered every tailor in Chicago is overwhelmed with such work. This didn’t surprise me, as I’d just …
A Postcard From the Liminal Space
Four years ago, I was honored to attend the inaugural meeting of the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business’s newly formed Leadership Communication Council, in Charlottesville, Virginia. I summed …
Speechwriting: Still a Marvelous Job for a Moonlighter
Professional Speechwriters Association chief David Murray got a question awhile back from a guy who normally has the answers—speechwriting sage Robert Lerhman, co-author of The Political Speechwriter’s Companion, speechwriting teacher at American …
Fear and loathing in leadership communication
As the pandemic lifts and life slouches backwards toward normal, we’re hearing more, not fewer, reports of real distress among the communication colleagues we serve. Communicators routinely breaking down in …
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 …