Worst Speech intro we’ve seen this year

Boring doesn’t begin to describe introduction to a speech that Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr delivered to the Asia Society and the Economic Club in New York on Sept. 24. Originally written for Prime Minister Julia Gillard, who took ill (perhaps upon reading the script), these lines were actually uttered by Carr:

One way I describe today’s environment for decision-makers is this: almost every hand on the lens is tightening the focus.

Flattening our perspective, simplifying our picture—and missing complexity.

Yours is one of the few that is working to wind the other way—encouraging us back towards “deep focus”.

When half the world is looking through the camera lens of a mobile phone, you’re seeing it like Orson Welles.

Dedicated to seeing the complexities—to seeing the world through the long view, in perspective, in depth.

So that’s the kind of discussion I’m looking forward to joining in today ….

Thanks to Aussie speechwriter Lucinda Holdforth for passing this along, with her own description: “pretentious, unintelligible twaddle.”