Or can you? Simply hit this link and compile a list for yourself.
I love writing speeches for folks and one of the musts in speeches for business audiences is the ability to both engage and inspire during the speech.
One of the best speeches I’ve seen in the past couple of years was the one that Al Gore delivered at Disney during a business conference I was covering. His opening line was, “Hello, I’m Al Gore and I’m a recovering politician.” With that singular line he held the audience’s rapt attention.
Self-deprecation is a surprisingly good tool in the current economic stratus because we all need a bit of a lift when it comes to surviving these challenging times.
Gore’s past speechwriter and best-selling author, Daniel Pink, noted three important elements in speeches, during an interview with Tim Ferriss who asked, “What are the necessary ingredients of a good speech?”
Pink said, “I’ve said many times that the three essential ingredients in any good speech are brevity, levity, and repetition.”
(To see the full Ferris interview.)
Effective speech giving is being able to naturally and authentically incorporate the real you into the speech. We all long for true connection especially in these days of Web 2.0, 3.0, 80.0 and beyond, we still want to be inspired and genuinely touched.
When I interviewed Doris Kearns Goodwin, I asked, “What is the most rewarding thing about being a historian?” and her response was, “It is a great gift to really get to know people through their letters and speeches because that is often where you will find the real person behind the historical persona.”

One of the best things you can do when you prepare a speech is to be a real person.
A stunning and still inspiring speech was Pierre Omidyar’s keynote speech, in that speech Omidyar says,
Great post on how PR should evolve from public relations to public relationships by Jerry Michaelski.
I had a tough week last week and while in a meeting with a very respected PR practitioner whose been in it for more than twenty years, we came up with a list of what PR can and cannot do. I thought some of those might be good to share.
1. PR is not guaranteed coverage. Hiring a publicist means they will do their best on outreach to a certain number of designated sites agreed on by both parties. It does not guarantee in any shape, form or fashion coverage for those sites.
2. PR is not easy.
3. Generating a press release does not mean the press release will get coverage.
4. PR is not pay for play. Espescially in terms of reaching out to bloggers, each blog list is customized and it is completely up to the bloggers as to whether they choose to cover your book, event or news.
5. PR is arduous and good PR does not happen overnight. Again, in terms of reaching out to bloggers they actually READ the books they are sent, so getting a mention on a blog site from the initial outreach can oftentimes be a lengthy (but well worth it) delayed posting. In terms of bloggers you also have a great opportunity to actually connect with someone who truly is vested in covering what their readership wants to read about. It’s a wonderful thing that bloggers READ the books they are sent, so be patient instead of impatient when it comes to them possibly posting about your book.
6. Bloggers do not exist to be marketing entities for your next book, project or venture. They truly are citizen journalists and should be respected on the same level. That means they decide when, if and what they will cover in terms of your book, news or event.
7. PR is public relations not marketing, not fluff without a news hook, not advertising relations. It is public relations.







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