Archive for: Services

At the end of a testy exchange in an interview with blogger Michael Arrington of Tech Crunch, Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz resorted to a time-honored Anglo-Saxonism.

At least one other Fortune 500 CEO runs his own blog on which he denounces journalists in the coarsest, most graphic terms possible (accusing them of certain acts with certain financial insiders).  Other executives are also feeling free to speak like Tony Soprano in public.

Is this refreshing candor, or defining deviancy down for CEOs?

Whenever a U.S. official speaks with a foreign diplomat, there’s always the chance that something will be lost in translation.

But there wasn’t much to misinterpret about Steve Posner’s comments to Chinese officials last week.

During two days of talks about human rights, the Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy Human Rights and Labor thought he could break the ice by citing the recent Arizona immigration law as an example of “racial discrimination” here in the United States:

“We brought it up early and often.  It was mentioned in the first session and as a troubling trend in our society, and an indication that we have to deal with issues of discrimination or potential discrimination.  And these are issues very much being debated in our own society.”

Perhaps the comments put China at ease, but it certainly upset Americans here at home, considering China ranks among the worst human rights violators in the world.

An important lesson to remember when using a speechwriter is you only want to hire them for a speech – not a retraction.

Last night I attended the Cato Institute’s biennial dinner where they present the Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty to someone who has made a significant contribution to individual freedom.  This year the award was given to an Iranian dissident, Akbar Ganji, who spent many years in solitary confinement in an Iranian prison.

There to talk about freedom at large – and the threats posed to our freedom today – was columnist George Will.  And he was a hit. Left at home was his dry television persona, and on prominent display was his dexterity with words.  He drew his audience in and kept them there for no less than 20 minutes.  He had an endless supply of phrases that perfectly captured his ideas.

Here are a few of my favorite lines he used to describe the current state of government in America:

“Learned feudalism”

“Glutinous feast on the flesh of the future.”

No matter one’s opinion on the state of politics today, there’s no denying Will’s way with words makes his argument worth listening to.

Being invited to host the White House Correspondents Association Dinner seems like a great honor, but Jay Leno may tell you it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.

While it’s become customary for the president and vice president to attend the WHCAD, it looks like Tonight Show host Jay Leno got a run for his money, following what critics claim was a slam dunk performance by President Obama.

When news broke this week that a housing developer was buying the land where the famous HOLLYWOOD sign in Los Angeles stands, top names in the entertainment industry went on a rescue mission.

As a native of a Los Angeles suburb, I’m deeply familiar with the sign that punctuates the Chapparral Hollywood hillsides.   It’s certainly not a work of art; but it is a landmark.

Not many people probably know that the original sign – ironically an advertisement for a housing development – read Hollywoodland.  Dedicated in July 1923, the first letters were each 30 feet wide, 50 feet tall, and studded with 4000 light bulbs.  The developers only intended for the sign to be temporary, but the rise of American cinema in Los Angeles helped turn this advertisement into an attraction. Read

Making people laugh seems like an easy way to break the ice, but using humor in a speech is not for everyone – and it can certainly be a challenge to write. Perhaps that’s why speech-writing guide Joan Detz devotes an entire chapter to humor in her famous book How to Write and Give a Speech.

A cautionary tale: Just this week National Security Advisor Gen. James Jones began a speech to the Washington Institute for Near East Policy with a somewhat off-color joke. His “funny anecdote” that he used to start the speech is now all over the Internet, raising concerns that he relied on anti-Semitic stereotypes for a laugh. Read

No matter how you slice it, Americans today are down on government. New research from the Pew Research Center shows that “by almost every conceivable measure Americans are less positive and more critical of government these days.”

Compared to the Kennedy-Johnson years, when public trust in government reached nearly 80 percent, today that number has dropped below the 25 percent mark.  Increasingly, Americans claim to want to curtail government growth and limit its power.

While big-picture economic and political explanations abound, one researcher at Claremont Graduate University believes there may be a biological component, as well. Professor Paul Zak recently told NPR that the chemical oxytocin administered by the brain allows us to determine whom to trust.  His research has demonstrated that by increasing the amount of oxytocin an individual receives, the more trusting he or she becomes.

So, as Zak told NPR, he began to wonder, “How much does this scale up?” To what extent could biology – or, oxytocin – affect the public’s trust in government?  As it turns out, people who received more oxytocin did report trusting other people more and those same individuals also claimed to trust their government more.

But, perhaps more telling, is that trust in government usually decreases during periods of economic hardship – that’s when the public is generally exposed to prolonged periods of stress.   And stress, Zak says, is toxic to oxytocin. Stress inhibits the release of oxytocin, which therefore decreases public trust.

So while Republicans and Democrats will both try to explain this recent rebuff of Uncle Sam, perhaps one of the best explanations doesn’t bear any partisan weight at all.

In observation of Thomas Jefferson’s birthday (13 April 1743) it seems appropriate to look back at one of the most influential and important pieces of communication in history: The Declaration of Independence.

Scholars acknowledge that while The Declaration of Independence was “the great political document of the American Enlightenment,” it was not the most original.  Ideas of liberty and individual rights were commonly talked about in republican circles.  What was unique about The Declaration was the way it fused Enlightenment ideas of rational truths with republican principles of liberty:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

As Jefferson described the document, it was “an expression of the American mind.”

Some see being invited to speak before a large audience as a great honor. But being invited to speak before a large audience after dinner can be a challenge.

It reminds me of a story I once heard:

During the time of the Romans, a crowd came looking for an old hermit.  They brought him to the Colosseum in Rome where he was met in the middle of the arena by a pack of lions.  Surrounded by ferocious – and very hungry – lions, the old man slowly approached the leader of the pack and whispered something in his ear . . .after which, the lions ran frantically out of the arena and back to their cages.

The audience, which had been waiting in anticipation for the man to be eaten by the lions, mumbled and moved anxiously in their seats – they couldn’t believe what they had just seen. Finally, the head of the legion asked the old man, “What did you say to the lion?”

The man just smiled and said, “I told him that after dinner come the speeches!”