The White House has an entire office devoted to protocol, led by the social secretary, to oversee every White House function from bill signings to state dinners.
So what’s the protocol when it comes to giving a speech in the rain? Well, that depends on just how much rain is in the forecast.
Torrential downpours and crashing thunder at Lincoln National Cemetery in Elwood, Illinois yesterday (literally) drowned out President Obama’s Memorial Day remarks. Read
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.
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!”
Last fall, Clark S. Judge appeared on Norwegian television to discuss President Obama’s speeches from the 2008 campaign. He addresses the role of speech writing in a campaign environment and other important factors that anyone communicating with varied audiences across multiple mediums should keep in mind.
A national meeting of the best and the brightest in the field. A day of powerful research on a topic of urgent importance.
All far less meaningful than it could have been because almost every single one of the presenters–to a man and a woman–made three simple mistakes.
–They arrived with many slides, in some cases more than 40, for presentations that were to be no longer than 15 minutes.
–They crammed their PowerPoints with enough words and bullet statements to fill a book.
–They insisted on reading their slides, instead of engaging in a conversation with the audience. Read
Surveys have found that, for most people, fear of public speaking exceeds fear of death. How does one in its grip deal with this fear? Former Microsoft executive and current professional speak Scott Berkum says just keep in mind that your audience dreads listening to you. They expect to be bored silly, so they won’t be disappointed if they are. For a witty review of his new book, Confessions of a Public Speaker, read this article.
Some people think that speaker training is all about loading the trainee with gestures, pauses, and all the elements of stage acting. Wrong.
More than anything else, speaker training is about getting the speaker so comfortable with a text that his or her enthusiasm for the subject and natural charm can come out.
Most business people are very good extemporaneous speakers, a skill that requires a fast mind and a heightened sensitivity to the audience. On the other hand, speaking from a text requires practice, practice, practice — practice until the text is so familiar that the speaker can stop thinking about the next word or sentence and start thinking about the idea being put across or the sale being made.
The first task in speaker training is getting the speaker to where he (or she) is prepared to make that connection with the audience.
Company X has a problem. Their Leader–recognized as trend-setting, dynamo by people in the upper-ranks of his industry–can come across as wooden, even defensive, when making a presentation before large audiences.
This Leader will soon be facing a very large and critical audience–the global meeting of the major investors in his company’s far-flung empire. The case has to be made that these investors need to reach into their pockets and pony-up for a fresh wave of modernization. To make this case, the Leader needs to get off the operational details and shift the thinking of his stakeholders to see startling possibilities.
He needs to be spellbinding. But he isn’t. Read