What I Saw at the Reunion
As a trade journalist, I used to cover communication-industry conferences as compellingly as industry conferences could be covered, I thought. Now that I run an industry conference, and oversee the …
Badassery, at the 2022 PSA World Conference
We may seem a quiet, cerebral group, practitioners of a refined craft dating back to classical Greece, when the likes of Aristotle, Plato, and Socrates dusted the hems of their …
Writers who want to lean on AI: lazy, cynical, bored or overwhelmed
I was trying to keep things light last week on my personal blog Writing Boots, when I made fun of this ad for an AI writing program that “will write …
The ‘Moonshot Speech’: The Reason to Take the Risk
Last week, at the request of David Murray, I addressed the inaugural Executive Communications Summit about writing the “moonshot speech:—a goal-setting, line-in-the-sand-drawing, marker-dropping leadership declaration. David thought this topic would …
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 …