Speechwriters, lost and found; Vital Speeches offers to help you organize!

A good speechwriter is hard to find. But the problem is, so is an average one.

Because speechwriters are their bosses’ best kept secret, they’re hard to locate: Hard for executive communication vendors like me, hard for recruiters and hard for their fellow scribes.

It’s not nearly as bad as it used to be. Before the Internet, the only organized network of speechwriters was the Rolodex of the editor of Speechwriter’s Newsletter. That publication is now defunct, but there are many other ways for speechwriters to network—notably on a number of LinkedIn groups devoted to speechwriters and exec ccomms.

But nothing bonds humans together like other humans, in the flesh. That’s why it’s so good that there are the New York Speechwriters Roundtable, the Washington Speechwriters Roundtable, the Houston Speechwriters Roundtable (which you can join by writing [email protected]) and the U.K. Speechwriters’ Guild.

And that’s why it’s so bad that the Chicago Speechwriters Forum no longer meets—and that so many other cities don’t have speechwriting groups.

Because it’s good for the speechwriting profession—and everybody around it—Vital Speeches hereby (and forever) offers to help local groups get organized. If you’re interested in starting one, write to me at [email protected] and we’ll talk about how Vital Speeches can use our national and international networks to help.

Speechwriters of the world, Unite! —DM