The Speechwriter

The Owl of Minerva

Part of the role of a speechwriter is just making dull information interesting by analogies and stories. One idea I rather like which can spice up a speech is the owl of Minerva.

The owl of Minerva is the owl that accompanies Minerva in Roman myths, seen as a symbol of wisdom. The philosopher G.W.F. Hegel wrote that "the owl of Minerva spreads its wings only with the falling of the dusk" — meaning that philosophy comes to understand a historical condition just as it passes away.

I had this feeling when I was watching John Moulton, the private equity entrepreneur and founder of Alchemy Partners, speaking to a Commons Treasury Select Committee about the credit crunch. He made a devastating attack on the behaviour of bankers, put together with a few PowerPoint slides.

It was gripping to watch. But actually I thought it was a bit bizarre, too.

It was blatantly obvious that the banks were behaving irresponsibly. In my local branch of NatWest, they were offering students cash incentives to take out overdrafts of £1,500. It wasn't banking, it was bribery. If unsecured debt is at a trillion pounds, and rising, there's going to be a problem when you start having to pay it back. When house prices rocket, that might please journalists and make everyone who owns property feel good, but it never cheered those who didn't have a roof over their head.

Should a Government have regulated a booming economy? Of course not. They would have got it wrong, and they would have elicited howls of anguish.

Moulton's analysis is chillling. And only when the corruption and recklessness in the system has been exposed, and the system crashes, does the owl of Minerva fly from her perch - and people listen.

But to blame the bankers, and even the Government, is pointless, and to some extent dangerous. We've been there before, too. If everyone's making money, you're mad to be the one to put your head over the parapet and say, "Actually chaps, I don't think we really deserve all this extra money."

Besides, the idea that we are part of a collective narrative of prosperity and austerity is nonsense. In our personal lives, our lives can boom in a Depression, and be thoroughly depressed in a Boom.

If estate agents and silly restaurants close, and the number of motor cars on the road falls, that's progress. If thousands of people lose their homes, it's very unpleasant. But it's manageable, if you are prepared to make great sacrifices in your lifestyle.

As Moulton pointed out, in the private equity business, there is less focus on making money, more on managing the businesses they have properly. There is lots of good news around, too.

Anyway, here are some of Jon Moulton's ideas:

Peggy Noonan on Ronald Reagan

Noonan is one of the world's most famous speechwriters. And Ronald Reagan is acknowledged as one of the great political communicators of the C20th. So When Character Was King, A Story of Ronald Reagan was a promising book.

It's a very weird book, however. Twenty years on and Noonan looks back at Reagan as some kind of saint. Even when he was exasperating, Noonan looks back and sees it as exhibiting a superior wisdom. I've noticed that British journalists like Charles Moore and Simon Heffer take this sort of line on Mrs Thatcher. They were young, they had privileged access, so they look back on those times through a deep romantic haze.

Noonan is treacly about her old boss, and it grates from time to time. But for some reason you just don't stop reading. Maybe there's a lesson there about speechwriting, the message has to be so positive, it's almost over the top. Listeners don't want criticism or edge.

I took away several lessons about politics. Reagan's rise was swift because he had a message and he'd honed it over many years working as a travelling speaker for General Electric (it was a very unusual job). Like Bruce Forsyth, he did his time in the provinces, perfecting his act.

Reagan drew most of his political capital from painting a picture of the Soviet menace. He picked on fear of an external enemy to win support. Thatcher did the same thing. The fact that, in retrospect, the fear might have been exaggerated, is forgotten.

He wasn't exceptional. Apart from his ability to act. He looked the part and did the best he could. Noonan isn't all schmaltz. She does suggest that Nancy was a bit of a nightmare. And Reagan's kids were not great fans.

Reagan was a man full of stories. And Noonan suggests they could become a bit wearing in the White House. But it backed up my experience meeting speechwriters in America, leadership is often just about being able to articulate through stories what has to be done, and the difficulties that entails.

It's a sad story with Reagan ending up isolated from the world, unable to recognise anyone or remember anything.

Simon Amstell in Bournemouth

TV presenter Simon Amstell was in Bournemouth last Friday as part of his stand-up tour. You get a different person on stage: wafery-thin, melancholic, squeaky, relaxed, absent-minded. I enjoyed his intellectual humour, and his ability to send things up.

The first joke in any performance should be local, putting things into context. Amstell just said, "Yellow buses", which was spot on for Bournemouth. He was very poised, at one stage he seemed to forget what he was saying, but all he did was take out an A4 sheet folded in four, open it up and get his place back.

What Amstell does best is be rude or crass about celebrities. He only did it a couple of times. About Kylie and her cancer. "Nobody would have cared if Dannii got cancer." He said he got to know the producer of Hollyoaks, and asked her why they didn't make it better. She said they tried making Hollyoaks better, but the ratings fell. So they went back to the way they were doing it before.

There were funny bits about Fairtrade, innocent smoothies, ethical shopping and a wry account of being caught up in the tsunami. Amstell has a super comic persona, his vacant, slightly depressive manner is very appealing. Not just a TV presenter.

Talent in Bournemouth

Sometimes it feels as if civilisation stops at Southampton, so I was very pleased to bump into a local comedian, Gareth Richards, this week. I really enjoyed watching his video. Not least because it illustrates an important point about giving speeches. Watch how the compère at the Comedy Store goes over the top to warm up the audience and big up the performance.

Whenever you speak you should make sure you've got somebody competent to introduce you. Sometimes it's a good idea to write the script for the introduction and give it to the host.

Click here to see the performance.

Networking Event Speeches

For the past ten years, I have been fascinated by how public meetings work. What makes an event buzz? Why are most institutions dying? How do you organise people?

This is particularly relevant to what I do because the key to a good event is a good speech.

I really don't like state-sponsored networking events. Someone from the council needs to round up a group of people in the community. So they organise a 'free' networking event.

That's a bad move from the start, because if there is a free buffet, you'll just attract people interested in the free buffet. A small charge at least focuses people's minds. Why am I there?

Yesterday I went to a meeting for theatre people in the Dorset area. It was a familiar experience.

At first it was difficult to find out where the meeting was. There were no signs in the foyer of the theatre.

A tell-tale whiteboard gave a hint. I approached the lady running it, let's call her Brenda, and she was quite welcoming. We were invited to fill in post-its to put on the wall, suggesting what we wanted for the arts in the area, because Brenda was about to apply for some grants.

I had some interesting conversations with the people who were milling around. Some of them had travelled from quite a distance.

And we just carried on milling around, until the play we were supposed to see started. Now what is wrong with such a meeting?

1) Brenda did not introduce herself to the group. She gave no speech of welcome explaining what the group was about.

2) There was no designated meeter-and-greeter to welcome people and maybe give them a badge.

3) The people there could not explain what their expectations were from the group. The alcoholics anonymous ritual is essential on this sort of occasion: "My name's Brian and I'm a....". It helps people to identify who they might like to speak to.

4) The group was asked to write down what they wanted. So there were some rather optimistic suggestions, like the council should pay for everyone to go on a theatre trip.

5) There was no mention of future meetings.

Later I asked a few people their opinion. They seemed slightly disappointed. I approached Brenda and tried to give her some positive feedback. But she replied that the group had agreed that they didn't want formality. They didn't want badges and stuff.

My conclusion is that Brenda didn't want to do the public speaking and organise the badges, and she projected that idea. As one person said to me afterwards, there was no leadership in the group.

In my group, BomoCreatives, people hate the ritual of explaining who they are in 30 seconds (which they sometimes have to do in front of over 30 people). But they come back because they see the benefits.

My suspicion is Brenda took a strong dislike to me. I tend to think I'm wiser to keep silent on these occasions and avoid these kind of groups.

It's sad, as it wastes enormous amounts of time and energy.

Sympathy for Gerald Ratner

I am creating a public speaking course to be taught later this year, and I've been asked to include some clips of speeches. Of course, public speaking horror stories don't come any better than Gerald Ratner's fall from grace at the Institute of Directors on 23 April, 1991. He ran a cheap and cheerful jewellery chain, which was an incredible retail success.

But reading his defence (see article in The Times), it sounds very plausible that he could never have imagined the response. He was just throwing in a few tried-and-tested jokes.

Supposedly the Financial Times printed the jokes a few years earlier. Comments like: "Diamonds are a very bad investment - especially ours."

The ones he actually used in the speech were good for a private audience. I like the comment that their earrings were "cheaper than an M&S prawn sandwich but probably wouldn't last as long."

His other perilous statement was, "We also do cut-glass sherry decanters complete with six glasses on a silver-plated tray that your butler can serve you drinks on, all for £4.95. People say, "How can you sell this for such a low price?" I say, because it's total crap."

In a way this is what people want from famous public speakers, the inside story, the insight into how it really is. I'm sure his audience thought he was a hoot.

My problem with them is that they are cheap jokes, which are not suitable for a businessman to deliver. Some people still wince at the use of the word crap, so it would have to go in my book.

These days you have to be a lot more careful and with mobile phones and other devices, you can be exposed in almost any context for speaking without due consideration.

Other comment on the speech points out that Ratner's mistake was to make a 1980s speech in the 1990s. How true. Stirring up envy of Ratner's ostentatious wealth was a good seam for the tabloids to mine during hard times.

Reading the account of how he put the speech together, asking friends and family if certain things were appropriate, gave me some sympathy for the man who gave the name to the phrase, "doing a Ratner".

Ronald Reagan's Jokes

This is a short video of some of Ronald Reagan's best lines.

Taking Calls on Your Mobile During Speeches

Should you or shouldn't you? It seems to be pretty obvious that under no circumstances should you take a call on your mobile during a speech. But even one-time Presidential hopefuls don't get it.

See this clip of Giuliani taking a call from his wife during a speech to the National Rifle Association. The audience reaction sounds positive, but I found this clip having read that members of the audience were appalled at Giuliani's action.

Book and Film Reviews

As a hobby, I like to review the books I read and the DVDs I watch. I am at present 1246 in the hierarchy of Amazon reviewers. Looking back, it's useful to know when you encountered an author or a director. Especially if a book has an influence on your behaviour. I took Nassim Nicholas Taleb's advice and stopped watching TV news. I've found Mark Forster's ideas on time-management very useful, but difficult to put into practice.

I'm in the habit these days of watching a DVD, then looking it up on imdb.com and Wikipedia. Then I write my Amazon review having got all the background.

I've also created a list of the top ten books for speechwriters.

Click here to read my profile page on Amazon and see the reviews.

Arthur C Clarke Obituary

A couple of lines were worth noting from the obituary of Arthur C Clarke in The Economist.

When asked about UFO's he said, "They tell us absolutely nothing about intelligence elsewhere in the universe, but they do prove how rare it is on Earth."

And his chosen epitaph? "He never grew up; but he never stopped growing."