Slouching towards blandness
Jan 06, 2016
As communicators, we often complain that the leaders we serve don't want to say anything meaningful. They prefer platitudes to specifics, bromides to personal opinions and dullness to daring. As …
Empty lecterns
May 02, 2017
As a nation, we’re divided. The Communication Nation, I mean. And we’re divided on an issue that seems like one that should unite us: whether or not celebrity speakers ought …
“He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more”
Jul 03, 2012
“What will be remembered,” President Obama says in the aftermath of the shootings in Aurora Colorado, “are the good people who were impacted by this tragedy.”
One more time: Why we are ‘sharing information with employees’
Jul 02, 2009
In a book titled Sharing Information with Employees, management guru Alexander Heron explains how executives know they’re doing a good job of sharing information with employees. [T]he evidence of success—will …
It’s All a Show, People!
Jan 07, 2020
"Speak it, Ricky," spake a professional communicator friend on Facebook. She was praising Golden Globes Awards' hired badboy emcee Ricky Gervais for having directed honorees, "If you win, come up, …
Remembering Chuck Francis, fondly
Nov 20, 2009
Chuck Francis died on Wednesday. What you won’t read in his obit, which reviews his happy career as a speechwriter and general communicommando at IBM for 30 years and his …
Book Review: “The Four Speeches Every Leader Has to Know”
Dec 12, 2019
Review of The Four Speeches Every Leader Has to Know by Bård Norheim and Joar Haga (Palgrave Pivot, 2019, 125 pages) “Dying is easy; comedy is hard” – these were …
He knows of what he speaks
Dec 10, 2019
Review of Mastering The Moment: Perfecting The Skills and Processes of Exceptional Presentation Delivery, by Tim Pollard (published 2019 by Conder House Press; 319 pages) This well-executed book by Tim Pollard …
“Undercover Boss”: Shouldn’t executive communication pros have something to say about this?
Feb 16, 2010
Have you seen “Undercover Boss,” the new reality show where CEOs take off their suits and don coveralls for a week, to find out what really goes on in their …
Speechwriters Conference snowed out; scribes flock to sunny Scottsdale
Feb 09, 2010
By and large, speechwriters are lonely folks who get together only once a year. And so when a couple hundred of them learned this morning that the Ragan’s Speechwriter’s Conference …