Cynthia J. Starks, executive speechwriter

I love music; I love lyrics. (I love my baby and my baby loves me). Ahem…

Several years ago, my sister-in-law gave me a copy of Reading Lyrics, edited by Robert Gottlieb and Robert Kimball. It’s filled with “more than 1,000 of the finest lyrics from 1900 to 1975,” and is one of my favorite books. When my son was younger, he’d like it when I’d open the book, pick out lyrics to a song I knew and sing it for him. 

I grew up with a mom who had (and still has) a lovely singing voice and a love for “The Great American Songbook” – the songs of Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, the Gershwins, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Hoagy Carmichael, Frank Loesser, Duke Ellington, Jule Styne, Jerome Kern, Johnny Mercer, Jimmy Van Heusen…stop me, please!

As a lover of music and musical theater growing up in New Haven, Connecticut, there was nothing better than season tickets to the Shubert Theater.

Two years after opening the Shubert in New York City, the Shubert Brothers built New Haven’s Shubert. Opening night, Friday, Dec. 11, 1914, featured The Belle of Bond Street, in which popular comedian Sam Bernard sang, “Who Paid the Rent for Mrs. Rip Van Winkle while Rip Van Winkle Was Away?” Better fare was yet to come!

“Our” Shubert was called “The Birthplace of the Nation’s Greatest Hits,” because it hosted more than 600 Broadway try-outs, 300 world premieres and 50 American premieres since it opened, double that of any New York theater or try-out house.

According to a New York Times article on the 75th anniversary celebration of the theater, “Nijinsky danced there. Bernhardt acted there. Rachmaninoff played there, and the Marx Brothers carried on there.”

When I was growing up, however, the economics of Broadway productions and out-of-town try-outs had changed. So with our season tickets, my mom and I enjoyed good road company productions of The Sound of Music, Camelot, West Side Story, Fiddler on the Roof, Oliver!, My Fair Lady, Damn Yankees, The King and I, Stop the World, I Want to Get Off and many others.
 
My mom bought the cast albums from all the shows. We’d play them over and over, and sing along until we had the lyrics down pat. After all, when you’re a Jet, you’re a Jet all the way…and you’ve got to know what you’re singing to Officer Krupke.
    
I was thinking today about how all those songs began – usually without fanfare, without preface, without introduction. They launch right into the story they’re going to tell us, just the way a good speech should.

So in Gypsy, Stephen Sondheim writes this opening for “Some People,” sung by the Gypsy Rose Lee character, describing a life she cannot live: “Some people can get a thrill/knitting sweaters and sitting still/That’s okay for some people who don’t know they’re alive. Some people can thrive and bloom/living life in a living room/that’s perfect for some people of one hundred and five. But I/at least gotta try…”

And Johnny Mercer opens “One for My Baby,” his lament for lost love, like this: “It’s quarter to three/There’s no one in the place except you and me/So, set ‘em up, Joe/I’ve got a little story you oughta know. We’re drinking, my friend/to the end of a brief episode. Make it one for my baby/and one more for the road.”

Finally, Rodgers and Hammerstein raise the issue of racial prejudice in the opening lines of “You’ve Got to be Carefully Taught” (South Pacific). “You’ve got to be taught/to hate and fear/You’ve got to be taught/from year to year/It’s got to be drummed/in your dear little ear/You’ve got to be carefully taught.”

More contemporary songs do the same thing – using few words to set up or begin telling their stories. 

Bon Jovi’s “Livin’ on a Prayer” begins, “Tommy used to work on the docks/union’s been on strike/He’s down on his luck/so tough, so tough…”

Billy Joel’s “Allentown” starts, “Well we’re livin’ here in Allentown/And they’re closin’ all the factories down/Out in Bethlehem they’re killin’ time/fillin’ out forms/standin’ in line..”

“Like a comet/blazing ‘cross the evening sky/Gone too soon. Like a rainbow/fading in the twinkling of an eye/Gone too soon. Shiny and sparkly/and splendidly bright/here one day/gone one night…” is the way Michael Jackson begins “Gone too Soon,” his tribute to AIDS’ victim Ryan White, who died at age 18.  
 
What can these poignant and powerful songs teach us about writing speeches? Just like a song, a speech is a story. Like a song, a speech has only a brief time in which to capture an audience’s attention and pull listeners in.

Don’t waste that precious time thanking the college president, his board of trustees, the mayor, the faculty, distinguished guests, the parents, the students…and oh, Mr. Don Dollars who endowed the new gymnasium. 

Jump in there! Take flight! Be bold! Tell your story!

You’re a Jet. Act like one.

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This week I’ve been glued to my CD player listening to the audio version of John Eldredge’s not-new, but wonderful, book, Wild at Heart. This morning, it occurred to me that the themes he presents might be woven into the speeches you and I write.

The human heart is at the center of Eldredge’s book. His premise is that our culture, including our churches, our schools and the very way we raise our children, has produced and continues to produce men and women whose innate need for passion, risk, adventure and freedom has been wrung out of them. Consequently, their hearts have gone underground.

Instead, we have the corporate man, the passive man, the sports fanatic. The bitter woman, the football widow, the career woman.

Part of this change is because few of us live in “natural” settings anymore – on farms or ranches, in the “wild” places where children can muck it up among the animals and experience hard work, freedom and adventure.

These days, we’re civilized, city-fied and computerized.

Huck Finn knew what this does to a boy’s soul. “The Widow Douglas she took me for her son, and allowed she would sivilize me; but it was rough living in the house all the time, considering how dismal regular and decent the widow was in all her ways; and so when I couldn’t stand it no longer I lit out. I got into my old rags…and was free and satisfied.”

What do today’s men and women not only long for, but need, according to Eldredge? A man needs a battle to fight, an adventure to live, and a beauty to rescue. A woman needs to be fought for. She needs an adventure to share and a beauty to unveil.

What does all this have to do with speechifyin’?, Huck Finn might ask.

Certainly, the executives for whom we write cannot fulfill all the deepest desires in the hearts of their audience members. But in the same way that I believe speakers should inspire their audiences to embrace a cause larger than themselves; they can also give their audiences something to fight for…an adventure to live. And maybe that’s just two ways of saying the same thing.

Here’s one way NOT to do it: In an old Twilight Zone episode called “A Stop at Willoughby,” New York City ad man Gart Williams is beaten down by a boss who keeps reminding him “it’s a push, push, push world!” and he should get out there and “sell, sell, sell!”

Coming home by train one night to a shrewish wife in Fairfield County, Williams dreams of an 1880’s town called Willoughby, “where a man can live his life full measure.” At the end, Gart Williams steps from the train into Willoughby for real…or falls off the train and dies – I’m never sure. That Rod Serling…

But I digress.

A speaker will never inspire or touch anyone’s heart if his message is “go out and kill the competition,” “sell more widgets,” or “meet your quotas.”

A speaker will only touch and set on fire the hearts of men and women if he gives them something to fight for and an adventure to live.

A defense contractor might speak of the lives saved by the equipment his employees make and sell. He might show a video clip of a soldier talking about how his HumVee, newly armored with your product, saved him from a roadside IED.

I once wrote a speech about women inventors, including Stephanie Kwolek, who invented Kevlar when she worked at DuPont. Kevlar is five times stronger than steel and is the substance that makes bullet-proof vests…well, bullet-proof. How hard would I work if I knew the Kevlar I made saved a policeman’s life last night?

If I headed a pharmaceutical company, I might touch and inspire my audiences by talking about the particular drugs the company makes that cure malaria, purify drinking water or help fight cancer…and the people who have benefitted from them.

The head of a telecommunications company might talk about the ways the company’s cell and text phones have saved the lives of people stranded in a snowstorm, in a car crash or lost and afraid.

A car manufacturer might talk to a group of industry peers about her company’s commitment to “green technology,” which will only just help save our planet going forward.

It all comes down to “story,” doesn’t it? What are the stories we can tell as speechwriters? What are the stories that will give a man his heart back? That will give a woman an adventure to share?

While you’re mulling it over, pick up a copy of Wild at Heart.

 

 

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Last week I gave a “speech on speechwriting” to the Columbia Club of Indianapolis. It was well-received (attendees filled out speech evaluation sheets).

Now I’m working on leveraging the speech to additional audiences, hoping it will generate new speechwriting assignments.

Here’s what I’ve done/am doing:

1. I posted a blog about the event with a link to the speech on my Web site, www.starkscommunications.com/blog.

2. I posted the same blog to my Speechwriters’ Blog on the IABC (International Association of Business Communicators) Web site (www.iabc.com).

3. My blog with the speech link was picked up and featured on Andrew dlugan’s Web publication, “Six Minutes: Public Speaking and Presentations” (www.sixminutes.dlugan.com).

4. I sent the speech to Vital Speeches of the Day, asking David Murray to consider publishing it in this periodical.

5. I sent the speech to several communications contacts I have at companies from which I’ve been trying to secure initial assignments.

6. I’m working on getting e-mail addresses for all the Columbia Club Business Network members who were not at the luncheon at which I gave my speech so I can send it to them.

7. Finally, I’ve thought that my “speech on speechwriting” could be given to other groups – the local chapters of PRSA, IABC, the American Marketing Association and the National Organization of Women in Business, for example. I’ll contact these and other groups which might offer appropriate speaking opportunities for me.

What else should I be doing?  How else can I after-market this talk? I’d love to hear your ideas. What would you do?

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On Tuesday, Feb. 16, I finally gave my speech on speechwriting to members of the Columbia Club in Indianapolis. Thank you, dear reader, for putting up with the previous blogs I wrote about it throughout my preparation.  

In addition, I want to thank the fellow speechwriters who responded to my blog request for input on what a speech about speechwriting should include. Your excellent suggestions helped me fashion the talk.

I also reached out to more than half-a-dozen people who would be in the audience for the speech to find out what they wanted to know about writing and giving a speech. They also had great questions, the answers to which I worked into the talk or responded to at the end.

On a personal note, I found I was more nervous than I thought I would be and took many deep breaths before I got up to speak. I also talk fast when I’m nervous and had to make a concerted effort to speak slowly.

I handed out speech evaluation sheets to everyone present when I had finished the talk and got excellent feedback. It was overwhelmingly positive, including remarks like “Great job!,” “Very effective transitions,” “It  was informative without being boring,” “Right off the start you got the attention of the audience, “ “Good overview,” “It had a clear direction,” and “It was very good insight on things I could work on.”

In addition, I received comments that showed I still have room for improvement, including these: “A little more humor, please,” “Eliminate nervous laughter,” and “It was a large room with a lot of things going on. Maybe speak a little louder.” 

Excellent suggestions all; I will take them to heart and work on them.

Now, I’m thinking about a “next time.” What other speaking opportunities can I pursue? How can I leverage this talk to additional audiences?

All that in my next blog.  In the meantime, here’s a link to the speech I gave, called “How to Write a Speech that Matters.”

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As readers of my blog know – and are probably sick of hearing – on Feb. 16 I’m giving a talk on speechwriting to 25-30 members of the Columbia Business Network, a club I belong to in Indianapolis.

 

In preparing my presentation, I did what good speechwriters do – some audience analysis. I asked about half-a-dozen members of the group what they’d like to hear and learn about speechwriting.

 

In addition, my blog post of Feb. 6 was called, “Seeking advice: What should a speechwriter say about speechwriting?”  Many smart speechwriters responded with their thoughts and ideas.

 

Here’s a sampling of the questions I received from club members, in case you, too, find yourselves talking about the process and craft of writing a speech.

 

Joe said, “I would like to know how you tailor the speech to suit the style of the speaker.”

 

Nancy asked, “How do you write an effective speech for 500 people vs. 50 people? What are the critical elements of writing a speech?” And “should speeches be interactive?”

 

“What are the four or five things to avoid and the four or five ‘dos’ for every business presentation?” asked Rhoda.

 

Denise wondered “Do speakers take the credit for their speeches, or do they recognize their speechwriters?” Alas, speechwriters know the answer to that one.

 

Tony asked, “How do you discern when to take a humorous vs. a serious tone in your speech?” He cited Toyota’s current troubles and wondered if the folks advising and writing the remarks for the Toyota CEO are getting the tone right.

 

Excellent questions all.

 

My speechwriting colleagues from LinkedIn and the Quintilian Speechwriters Group also offered valuable tips on talking about speechwriting.

 

Fletcher wrote, “I think I’d go at it from the perspective that speeches aren’t just for presidents and politicians. Talk about what benefits a good presentation can provide them – from Rotary to trade shows to conferences – in the form of cohesive messages and the ability to begin building a thought leadership position.”

 

Carolyn reminded me that, “The opportunity to connect with an audience – to hear their heart beat – is an inherent part of giving a speech. You do need to discuss process…but you can’t overlook connection as a means to effective communication.”

 

Michael suggested, “Keep it short. Avoid PowerPoint presentations. Do what good songwriters do; have a hook, a repetitive element that drives the point. Understand drama and stagecraft. Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse.”

 

“A speech doesn’t happen on the page; it happens on the stage,” wrote Tony. “A great speech might not look like ‘fine writing’ on the page. It might have incomplete sentences and fragmented grammar; it won’t win literary prizes, but it will have great rhythm when spoken.”

 

He continued, “A speech is a moment in time – in a specific place, with a specific audience – and when you’re writing you have to imagine yourself into that moment, see and hear the audience, imagine how they’re feeling, what their hopes and expectations are, and hear your words echoing off the walls.” He concluded, “Delete your favorite passage – it’s bound to be what’s lousing up the speech and it might as well go sooner rather than later.” 

 

Speechwriters used to call that most favorite passage their “baby.” And our bosses used to say, “You’ve got to be willing to kill your baby.”  Tony put it more genteel-ly.

 

Kevin wrote, “A talk must carry a theme right to the very last. In the end, a short summary of the main points and how all this is beneficial (to the audience). Humor, illustrations, visual aids, wicked modulation and a natural personality will never let the audience stray.”

 

My final online responders, Katie and Mike, had wonderful advice.

 

Katie wrote, “Knowledge is important, but it sounds like your passion is to explain how to give your speech heart. Speak from the heart; go light and simple on the technical side and heavy on the heart side. I’m sure your delivery will be fantastic.”

 

Mike said, tell the audience what a speech is really for – to make a difference.

“The idea I guess is that in addition to telling them ‘how,’ spend some time reminding them ‘why.’”

 

Citing remarks Robert Kennedy gave at a gathering in Indianapolis the night Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed, and Ronald Reagan’s words when the Challenger exploded, Tony believes speechwriting is, “a noble craft that defines history.” I agree.

 

Thank you all for your great input. I’ve got a lot of expectations to fill – my audience’s, my online speechwriting friend’s, and my own. 

 

Time’s’ a wastin.’ Onward to Feb. 16.

 

 

 

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On Feb. 16, I’m giving a 20-minute talk on what a speechwriter does and how smart business, education and government leaders use speeches to accomplish their business and communications goals.

I plan to start my talk with very brief examples of three types of openings tied to my subject matter – one based on the date of the talk (in history); one based on the place of the talk – Indianapolis’ historic Columbia Club, founded in 1889; and then, for fun, to show a lively two-minute music video I produced for an IBM executive that set the stage for her remarks on how computers change the face of classroom learning.

Too much?

Then, I plan to cover the basics of speechwriting: how to ID, analyze and pursue the best speaking opportunities; analyze the audience so you write with their needs in mind; help your client focus the purpose and message of the talk; research the content; find and write to your speaker’s voice; edit and finalize the talk with your executive’s input. After the speech is given, use evaluation sheets to gauge the success of the talk, and “after-market” the speech to additional print and Web audiences.

However, as I know you can appreciate, I want to infuse my remarks with something more than just the method or process of speechwriting; I want to talk about giving your speech a heart. 

To my mind, that’s writing a speech that inspires an audience to believe they can make a “dent in the universe.”  A speech that encourages an audience to commit to a cause greater than themselves. And a speech that uses the beauty of words, just the right turn of phrase or quote that makes the talk come alive and have lasting impact.

Am I asking too much of my 20-minute talk?
 
I’m hoping the many wonderful speechwriters who read this blog will give me some thoughts and ideas.

If you were giving a 20-minute talk about the process of speechwriting and wanted to cover the most important aspects, what would you say?

Thank you so much for your help.

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The January 21 decision was a startling one.  

 

Michael Waldman, former Bill Clinton speechwriter, now executive director of the Brennan Center, a non-partisan public policy institute that specializes in political reform, said this: “Exxon Mobil’s profits in 2008 were $45 billion. At 9 a.m. Thursday morning, Exxon’s managers could not spend any of that money to back candidates. And at noon on Thursday, after the Supreme Court ruled, they could. There is nothing to prevent them from spending Mike Bloomberg-level money in every congressional district in the country.”

 

Politics Daily put it this way, “A little more than a century ago – just about at the same time Congress outlawed all campaign contributions by corporations – humorist Finley Peter Dunne, channeling the diction of an Irish bartender, shrewdly wrote, ‘Th’ Supreme Court follows th’ election returns.’

 

“Normally, though, the Supreme Court has the self-restraint to wait more than two days. On Tuesday, Massachusetts voters rebelled against special interests, Wall Street bailouts, and one-party rule by vaulting Republican Scott Brown into the Senate.

 

“Thursday morning the Supreme Court, by an ideologically predictable 5-to-4 margin, overturned as unconstitutional laws that ban corporations from running TV ads explicitly backing or opposing candidates during election campaigns.”

 

Startling as the decision is, it’s also an opportunity for communications professionals to craft messages executives should be giving to their stakeholders in the coming weeks and months.

 

If corporations decide to take advantage of the ruling to back specific candidates with funding for campaign ads, the reasons for those decisions should be explained to employees, customers, investors and industry peers through speeches, blogs, podcasts, policy pieces, and other communications vehicles.

 

If some corporations decide not to use corporate funds in this manner, these are also opportunities to communicate why.

 

Corporate, executive and strategic communicators will be delighted to be in the thick of it all – happy to advise corporate leaders on the pros and cons of this new option based on corporate values, business goals and best practices.

 

And we’ll be even happier to write the communications materials required to disseminate information on these choices.

 

With apologies to Sally Field, “They need us, they really need us.”

 

Even a bad Supreme Court decision can be good news for communications professionals.

 

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If you could write speeches for anyone, who would it be?

Some dream of writing for heads of state, industry giants, educational leaders, great humanitarians, advocates for peace, protectors of human rights, or organizers of important labor or environmental movements.

My dream job? Speechwriter to His Holiness, the Pope.

Why? Because writing for the Pope is like writing for all of the folks mentioned above, only better. As a Catholic, how thrilling would it be to write for a man who offers spiritual guidance, moral clarity and the light of the world to a people in darkness?       

The Pope is a head of state (Vatican City), and an industry giant – his “business” is 2000 years old and has 1.1 billion members worldwide.

He runs a great humanitarian operation. The Catholic Church operates the world’s largest non-governmental school system, as well as transnational relief organizations around the globe. It runs more than 600,000 parishes and missions, hospitals, orphanages, and homes for the elderly and handicapped.

Popes are pacifists. Pope Paul VI spoke to a crowd of 150,000 people in St. Peter’s Square on Oct. 4, 1966, calling for an end to the Vietnam War. Both Pope Benedict XVI and his predecessor, John Paul II, opposed the war in Iraq and have offered humanitarian aid for its victims in that country.   

The Pope is a protector of human rights, including those of immigrants. He constantly preaches the sanctity of human life from natural inception to natural death. And popes have long supported the rights of laborers, from working to end child labor to providing sustenance to Poland’s Solidarity movement.

While popes have always urged Roman Catholics to take care of the earth, according to the April 17, 2008 issue of Newsweek, “The Vatican is actually the world’s only sovereign state that can lay claim to being carbon neutral.

“That’s because all the greenhouse gases from the Holy See are offset through renewable energies and carbon credits. Last summer, the city-state’s ancient buildings were outfitted with solar panels intended to be a key source of electricity, and an eco-restoration firm donated enough trees in a Hungarian national park to nullify all carbon emitted from the Vatican, which takes up one-fifth of a square mile,” the article continued.

I’m a good Italian Catholic (my maiden name is DiTallo) with all the skills necessary to be a perfect papal speechwriter.  But instead of moving to Italy, perhaps the Pope would let me be his “virtual” speechwriter, with a trip to Rome every quarter or so to touch base with His Holiness.

The Pontiff might go for this, considering he’s pretty tech savvy himself. He’s up on e-mail, has a YouTube page and a FaceBook account called Pope2You. Just yesterday, he urged his priests to use all technologies at their disposal – including blogs and social networks —to reach the faithful…and, perhaps, a few unfaithful. 

My Italian is a little rusty, and I don’t know all the languages in which the Pope might deliver his speeches, but I suspect there are Vatican translators who help his speechwriters with this sort of thing.

Best of all, I recently read the Pope employs a “Theologian of the Papal Household” – Fr. Wojciech Giertych, O.P., by name – who “reviews the drafts” of papal speeches written by “the staff of Vatican speechwriters.” Fr. Giertych’s role is to “examine theological content and look for phrases that could be misunderstood.” Just what I’d need.  

As I see it, the only roadblock to my becoming the Pope’s speechwriter is that His Holiness doesn’t know me from Adam (Eve)? However, God has known me for a long time: “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; before you were born I consecrated you.” (Jeremiah 1: 4-5). 

In my cover letter, do you think I might offer His name as a reference?

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Hope is the thing with feathers
that perches in the soul,
and sings the tune without the words,
and never stops at all.
                                               Emily Dickinson

In the midst of earthquakes in Haiti, still climbing U.S. home foreclosure and unemployment rates, politicians who break their promises and our hearts, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Qaida cells in Yemen and Pakistan, and terrorists again attempting to blow up our airlines, it’s understandable that Americans feel fear, dismay and skepticism at the start of another year.

However, I recently read a wonderful piece by James Fallows in the January/February 2010 issue of the Atlantic called “How America Can Rise Again,” that gives me lots of hope.  

Fallows, returning to the United States after three years in China, talks about what he has observed and why he believes America will thrive again. In terms of public speaking, I’ve been thinking this is the kind of rhetoric leaders in business, government and education – and their speechwriters – may want to infuse into their talks. 

Read what Fallows has to say:

“Here is the sort of thing you notice anew after being in India or China, the two rising powers of the day: there is still so much nature, and so much space, available for each person on American soil. Room on the streets and sidewalks, big lawns around the houses, trees to walk under, wildflowers at the edge of town – yes, despite the sprawl and overbuilding. A few days after moving from our apartment in Beijing, I awoke to find a mother deer and two fawns in the front yard of our house in Washington, barely three miles from the White House. I know that deer are a modern pest, but the contrast with blighted urban China, in which even pigeons are scarce, was difficult to ignore.”

He continues, “And the people! The typical American I see in an office building or shopping mall, stout or slim, gives off countless unconscious signals – hair, skin, teeth, height – of having grown up in a society of taken-for-granted sanitation, vaccination, ample protein, and overall public health. I have learned not to bore people with my expressions of amazement at the array of food in ordinary grocery stores, the size and newness of cars on the street, the splendor of the physical plant for universities, museums, sports stadiums. And honestly, by now I’ve almost stopped noticing. But if this is “decline,” it is from a level that most of the world still envies.”

Fallows sees hope in American’s historical cycles of crisis and renewal, in our university system, in our receptiveness to immigration and in our culture of innovation.

I think these thoughts should drive our executives’ speeches in the New Year – that we have come back in the past and we shall in the future. That the American workforce works harder – more hours, more days — than any other. That since the inception of the Nobel Prize in 1901, America has produced the most Nobel laureates in the world. That America registers more patents than any other country. That Americans are the first ones on the ground providing help in Haiti or when tsunamis strike in the South Pacific. That it’s the American Red Cross that goes into prison camps and hospitals around the globe to ensure the well-being of people – regardless of their affiliation – involved in war or terrorism.

I could go on, and so could you – citing reasons to be proud of and hopeful about America.

Fallows writes, “Yes, the problems are intellectually and politically complicated: energy use, medical costs, the right educational and occupational mix to rebuild a robust middle class. But they are no worse than others the nation has faced in more than 200 years, and today no other country comes close to the United States in having the surplus money, technology and attention to apply to the tasks.”

Fallows is no Pollyanna. He has one significant and overriding concern about America. And it is this: that the American people are superior to the government in place to serve them. “American culture is better than our government,” he writes.

“Every system strives toward durability,” he continues, “but as with human aging, longevity has a cost.” He cites Mancur Olson, author of the 1982 book, The Rise and Decline of Nations, who said, “year by year, special interest groups inevitably take bite after tiny bite out of the total national wealth. They do so through tax breaks, special appropriations, what we now call legislative ‘earmarks,’ and other favors that are all easier to initiate than to cut off. No single nibble is that dramatic or burdensome, but over the decades they threaten to convert any stable democracy into a big, inefficient, favor-ridden state.”

Like a hardening of the arteries, Fallows suggests, which builds up stealthily over many years.

The answer? Fallows mentions several – from “an enlightened military coup” to a “new constitutional convention.” But one of his ideas stands out as possibly the most challenging…and yet most hopeful.

That is “to make decisions as if we knew we would wake up the next day and it would be 75 years later.”

Challenging? You bet. Fallows writes, “Politicians will inevitably not look 75 years into the future but one election cycle ahead… Corporations live by the quarter; cable-news outlets by the minute. But we can at least introduce this concept into public discussion…” That’s the key – introducing the concept into the public square.

Fallows closes by citing those in America’s past who have made decisions with the long-term in mind, including Frederick Law Olmsted who designed Central Park for generations to come; Theodore Roosevelt who set aside millions of acres for the National Park System; and Dwight Eisenhower who created the Pentagon Advanced Research Projects Agency, which eventually gave us the Internet.

Hope, dear readers, hope. That is the way we should live in 2010 and beyond. And that is what we should inject into the speeches we write and that our executives give. 

Emily Dickinson’s poem on that little bird called “hope” continues,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

Amen, say I.

This post is part of Angela Definis’ blog carnival at  http://www.definiscommunications.com/blog/public-speaking-and-the-new-year/

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