But it was the voyage of discovery metaphor that was key to the speech, and it worked because it summed up the movie, Waltz’ career, and movie-goers’ reaction to his extraordinary performance. Waltz may have discovered a new continent, but a new continent also discovered him. Until a few months ago, few if any North Americans had heard of him. Basterds was his first American film, and it opened him to a U.S. audience by taking him back into German history, to a period he would rather not be associated with — a different kind of voyage. But the counterfactual account was enthusiatically embraced by both the German cast members and many Nazi victims. Or in the words of Tarantino (quoted or paraphrased by Waltz): ”This is where we’re going, but we’re going the other way.”

Posted weekly, the program usually features Roberts interviewing a distinguished economic thinker.  On February 8th, Roberts broke from this format to discuss his own thinking about why trade is good.  Drawing on Adam Smith and David Ricardo, 18th and 19th century respectively giants of economic thought, he explored how trade increases personal productivity by a factor of a hundred and more.  As he summed up, “Self-sufficiency [in a person, a tribe, or a country] equals poverty.”

While listening, I found myself thinking of the campaign against Wal-Mart, which is essentially a campaign against productivity and global trade.  Wal-Mart’s enormous price advantages are based on harnessing the interplay of enormous global sourcing of product and advanced information technology to lower costs and, with costs, prices.  This is the dynamic the Roberts explains in his podcast.

Why am I talking about economics and a retailer on a communications website?  Because Wal-Mart is running an ad campaign that conveys precisely the same ideas as does Professor Roberts, but in the compact, anecdotal, and personal language of advertising.  Its slogan — “Save Money. Live Better” — condenses Smith, Ricardo, and Roberts into four words.

When writing for Ronald Reagan, I noticed that the President did something very similar.  He would sketch out the thinking of Adam Smith or Alexis d’ Toqueville or some other major thinker.  But he would rarely refer to the thinker by name.  Like Wal-Mart, he framed his discussion in compact, anecdotal, and personal terms.  Listening to him, you felt you had heard something very simple, when in fact you had heard an argument of high sophistication.

Companies facing the kind of agenda-driven challenge that Wal-Mart faces would do well to look at both the retailer and the former president as examples of how to communicate.

It looks simple.  It isn’t.

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.

Why do smart people make these stupid mistakes?  They do it because they are so in love with their research they that can’t bear to parse out a single point or telling fact.  They made the mistake of giving lectures when they should have given presentations.

Presenters understand that if they can communicate three ideas in a single presentation, they have succeeded.  Links to a full slide show or paper can present the details for those who are more deeply interested.  Otherwise, save the lectures for the classroom.

It would be interesting to see numbers on our industry. The White House Writers Group, of course, has provided considerable client services outside the United States, even outside this hemisphere. Ours is more of an export industry than ever, and we can expect it to become even more of one in the future. Just as technologies have made it possible to compete in communications services beyond one’s own shores, it will become an even more global market, as improvements in telecommunciations make it easier to communicate with clients and keep up-to-date on developments in international markets.

More and more, the most exportable products are ideas, and the ability to communicate them.

It boiled down to basically, it’s useless when it’s fake.  Just like in the real world, networking is only worthwhile when real substantial relationships are being cultivated.

Now, I’d add one grain of salt.  That is that for some applications of social networking, you are looking for volume and you can get away with have “less real” relationships by making up for normal symbiosis with other items of value (contests, discounts, etc).

Watch the two minute video after the jump.

Typically companies in Toyota’s position, clam up.  Statements are defensive and evasive.  Maintaining such a posture during the long life of a litigation will leave a company’s reputation in badly compromise.

Yet public opinion studies have shown that companies that publicly speak to their problems — that defend themselves but also that acknowledge faults and both pledge and work to fix them — build the trust of potential jurors, not to mention customers and suppliers.

Toyota is right to put corporate reputation first, and is likely to do better in court as a result.

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.

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.

At least that was the case in 1957 – two weeks after the Little Rock Nine were barred from Central High School – when Louis Armstrong gave one of his most notable performances.  But this wasn’t a musical riff.

According to a recent interview on National Public Radio, Larry Lubenow, a journalism student working at The Grand Forks Herald in Little Rock, AK, was sent to interview Armstrong about a concert.  Instead he got an (obscene) earful about politics and race relations that ultimately caught the attention of President Eisenhower.

As The Chicago Defender reported at the time, “Any white confused by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s polite talk need only listen to Mr. Armstrong.”  His words, they wrote, had the “explosive effect of an H-bomb.”

In communications, we have to think about not only what we’re saying, but also the way we say it.  We all know Louis Armstrong had a talent for striking the right note, so perhaps it’s no surprise he used his talent to effect political change.

At a time when people are bombarded by verbiage in myriad forms – email, Facebook, Twitter – we have to find creative ways to break through the noise.  And sometimes something a little off-key is just what we need.

First a note about history.  This being the music industry, we are talking about ancient history — 2001.

Fans will recall in that year’s Grammys a moment similar to tonight’s, when Sir Elton paired up with the rising rapper, Eminem.  The ostensible reason for that year’s duet was to save Eminem’s career.  Eminem had taken heat for a recently released song that included lyrics some judged anti-gay.  John is gay.  That he was willing to appear with the young star quelled the criticism.  But it did more.

Before that night, Eminem — though highly popular — was in many respects a niche player in a niche space.  Many saw him as something of a thug, which limited his potential popularity.  ”Stan” — the song that he and John performed and that Eminem had co-written — was a tremendously sensitive, evocative piece that transcended the style of its music and lyrics.  Eminem’s appearance with an artist as widely respected as Elton John led audiences that would never have looked twice at him to tune in and listen with an open musical mind, and they came away seeing Eminem as himself an artist who deserved attention and admiration.

Lady Gaga occupies in a similar place tonight, though without the homophobic baggage.  She, too, is a highly popular performer in a niche space.  Like Eminem, she, too, has the potential to reach a much larger audience.  Appearing with Elton John in such a high profile event will win her open-minded attention from a wide range of people that would otherwise dismiss her as a passing musical fad.

The public affairs lesson here?  You don’t always need people — third parties — to speak for you.  Sometimes it is enough that they simply stand with you.  That very fact opens otherwise closed ears to what you have to say.  Eminem used his opportunity brilliantly.  We will see tonight if Lady Gaga does as well.