Archive for: Allan Golombek

It’s a lot easier to think of bad Oscar acceptance speeches than good ones.  That is why the acceptance speech of best supporting actor Christoph Waltz at last night’s 2009 Oscars was such a delight. Waltz started off with a great scene-setter, an opening sentence that reminded us of his already-classic line from Inglorious Basterds, referring to the combination of the Oscar and presenter Penelope Cruz as an “uber bingo.”  He then wrapped the usual recognition of his colleagues into a metaphor about discovering a new continent — thanking Quentin Tarantino (“this fearless explorer”) for “putting together an expedition” and producers Harvey Weinstein et al for equipping it, and then again praising Tarantino for his “unorthodox methods of navigation.”   Waltz ended on a gracious note, saying to Academy members ”there’s no way I can ever thank you enough, but I can start right now. Thank you.” Read

When we think of exports, we tend to visualize container ships, trains or planes carrying large, heavy cargo. But former Federal Reserve economist W. Michael Cox tries to correct that impression in today’s New York Times (Feb. 17). While praising President Obama’s State of the Union speech call for the United States to “export more of our goods”, Cox says it would have been much better to have said “goods and services.” As Cox points out, the United States has a $144 billion surplus in services, including an 8-1 edge in operational leasing — handling short-term deals on planes, vehicles and other equipment — a 6-1 margin in movie and television program distribution, and a 4-1 advantage in architectural, construction and engineering services. In total, the United States is competitive in 21 of 22 services categories, with significant surpluses in 12 of them. Read

I’m a movie fan. I’m also an Oscar fan. One of the compensations for cold winters was always waiting with anticipation for the Oscar nominations to come out, when I could compare the various nominees, agree or disagree with the picks, and try to guess which nominated movies were in serious contention. This year’s nominations came out last week, and I still can’t name all of the nominees for best film. There are simply too many of them. Trying to recognize the achievments of more films, the Academy has doubled the number of Best Film nominees, from five to 10 — thereby diminshing the attention paid to each of them.

Who can focus on 10 movies? Who can take seriously that long a list of “excellence” in one year? And who can look forward to an Academy Awards show that will be even longer than usual? The Academy’s decision to double the number of Best Film nominees is a classic mistake in messaging — a failure to recognize that less is more.

What we have here, as Strother Martin might have pointed out in Cool Hand Luke, is a failure to communicate.

Kraft’s four-month battle for control of Cadbury was one of the leading Transatlantic business news stories of 2009. It was fiecely fought. It may be no coincidence that it was a battle of jock CEOs. In one corner was Kraft CEO Irene Rosenfeld, a former varsity star of four high school sports who decided to attend Cornell partly because of their athletic program. In the other corner was Cadbury CEO Todd Stitzer, a former professional tennis player.

It may be that the competitive spirit one learns on in competitive sports translates into a significant advantage in business. Neither CEO gave up easily: Rosenfeld has turned Kraft into the world’s biggest confectionary company, replacing Mars. Stitzer managed to get for his shareholders a 50 percent increase over Kraft’s original offer last September.

Statistics are like a birthday gift. You never know what you’ve really got until you unwrap them. Take today’s unemployment data (for December). It shows the unemployment rate at 10 percent. That’s still lower than the rate at the peak of the 1982 recession — 10.8 percent in December of that year. But any experienced speechwriter knows that topline numbers are only a starting point, not a finishing line. Read

In the current economic environment it takes some courage to talk about a forthcoming, prolonged boom in the global economy. But Gregg Easterbrook (author of The Progress Paradox) has never been known for repeating concentional wisdom. His latest book — Sonic Boom: Globalization at Mach Speed — can serve as a primer on how to describe global economic change (and its likely intensification) in a way that a broad-based audience can relate to. He acknowledges that there is a paradox at the heart of globalization — more economic growth and opportunity, more stress and insecurity. And he describes both sides of the global economy coin, using both economic data and stories about communities.

This is not just a book about how Shenzhen is thriving. It is also about how Waltham, MA and Camden, S.C. are bouncing back. And it is about the fact that all communities will have to continually reinvent themselves to compete in the heightened, prolonged era of globalzation the author argues is coming. For anyone looking for a deep intellectual explanation of globalization, there might be more apporpriate books to recommend. But Sonic Boom is a valuable resource for anyone whose job includes explaining global economic change.

When communicating with people in The Netherlands, one of the easiest ways to get in dutch is to refer to their country as Holland. North and South Holland are just two of the 12 provinces in The Netherlands. Calling the whole country Holland is like referring to the United Kingdom (or Great Britain) as England. (For that matter, it’s like referring to the United States as America when you are speaking to Canadians.)

These are just a couple of small examples of the kind of idiomatic and cultural knowledge it is increasingly important to have, whether writing a speech, an article, a report or any other communications tool aimed at reaching a foreign audience. Read

As the 1972 election campaignwas approaching, strategists for President Richard Nixon had a problem. They wanted to announce the formation of a re-election committee. But there had been some question raised in the media about whether Vice-President Spiro Agnew would be on the ticket. They couldn’t call it “Citizens for Nixon-Agnew” because that would pre-empt the President’s decision. And they couldn’t call it “Citizens for Nixon” because that might appear to be throwing Agnew under the bus. They turned to the resident master of language, William Safire, who was then writing speeches for the President. His suggestion? “Committee to Re-elect the President.” Read

Perhaps the most important aspect of writing a speech is crafting a clear message. The goal of a speech isn’t to impress people with how well you can write — it’s to get across the point you are trying to make. But what is the key message? Frequently there are several. Which one do you really want to focus attention on? Which message do you want to build the most quotable soundbite around; which point do you want to build up to, and build the speech around? Read

Trade negotiators for the EU and Latin American countries may soon be able to say ‘yes, we have no bananas’ crowding their trade agenda. According to a report from the Financial Times, an end to the world’s longest-running trade dispute — involving preferential EU tariffs on bananas — may soon be in sight. The newspaper suggests that a resolution of the 16-year-old conflict may give a boost to the World Trade Organization’s floundering Doha Round negotiations, especially if it leads the way to a resolution of tariffs on dozen of tropical products. Read