By: John Mallen
For eons, one of PR’s fundamental missions has been speeches – writing or helping to write good ones, rehearsing and training people to give them and assisting with the staging of the speech.
JMC, like many, many other PR consultants, includes speech prep in the basket of offerings. And like many others, we frequently are informed that such support is not needed. “I do this all the time. I don’t need any help!”
Ah, we smile as we’re ordered to cram more bullet points into a gawdawful, boring PowerPoint deck that any audience member should be paid to sit through. Consider the refreshing review by Alissa Walker of “the most horrifically devastating keynote presentation in SXSW history” in yesterday’s Fast Company blog.
The speech’s content was the announcement of Twitter’s new @anywhere app. The story was about the dismal presentation. “If only they could have reduced the time I spent at the Twitter keynote. Love the app, guys, but I would rather have heard about it @Anywhere but there.”
Ms. Walker is a talented writer, gelato-eater and walker in L.A. as well as, I might add, an experienced speaker.
Ironically, I just received a call myself, inviting me to keynote an event.
