Jane Genova: Speechwriter - Ghostwriter

What does a comeback take?

Is a comeback put together differently in television than it is in politics?  Maybe. 

For all her wealth and people resources, Oprah can't see to return to being a force on the small screen.  NEW YORK MAGAZINE reports that her second act on OWN is only bringing in an average of 135,000 viewers and only one-third of them that prized 25 to 54 female demographic.

Yet, despite all the predictions that he was finished, Barack Obama is back.  Conservatives now have to admit he will be a formidable opponent in 2012.  Both Clintons - Hillary and Bill - rock.  Remember how they had been jokes?  Who knows, even Nancy Pelosi will regain power also.

Perhaps the erratic nature of politics affords more opportunities to the clever and nimble to get back their groove.  On the other hand, the rigidly controlled world of the small screen, with all its timid executives, provides little or no window for recovery. 

It used to be acting, now it's writing

"If I say too much about the glut of writers and all those unpaid bloggers at HuffingtonPost.com, my son will shut down.  So, Jane, how do I steer him in a more marketable direction?'

Readers who are parents keep contacting me with that question.  Ten years ago what would have worried them was if their child was determined to try acting.  Now, in their way of assessing the marketplace, writing is equally a path to unemployment and eventual heartache.

 

The good news is that, unlike acting, the situation isn't binary: write or not write.  A writer can do all those creative gigs like blogging for Gawker or getting a piece published in NEW YORK MAGAZINE and still be producing the kinds of writing which earn decent money.

Those kinds include anything to do with financial services.  The hourly for that usually starts about $60.  A few years ago I earned $100 an hour from an alternate investment firm.  Another lucrative field is pharmaceutical.  That area is broad.  You can be doing copywriting for the consumer or detail the movement of the developing drug through the regulatory process.  Another solid field is IT, be it cloud computing or comparing software packets. 

Since the situation isn't either/or, youth is less likely to balk when you suggest they take a few seminars on the equity markets, pharmaceutical development, and the common areas in IT.  It will help if you don't rant about your children's eagerness to work for free in the more glam niches in writing.  The trick is for them to do both - the freebies and building the credentials in what does pay.

Of course, we all recognize the flood of underemployed writers into an already crowded marketplace. 

They range from over-50 and pushed out to the ones who will be assessed as redundant at AOL.  Had most of us writers, even those of us making a good living, returned to choose a career from scratch, it's unlikely it would not be in the field of communications. 

Me?  I would have learned the deli trade from my Italian immigrant aunt and uncle in the Italian section of Jersey City. They retired in their early 50s - and that was decades ago.

Lonely: They often make superior orators

 Robert Ivanov - Dreamstime

Scratch the surface of an oustanding speaker, and you find a rather lonely person.  Most of the greats I wrote speeches, scripts, and PowerPoint presentations for could simulate the attributes of the gregarious but essentially they were on the introspective side - and plenty lonely.  Incidentally, soaring oratory is part of 12-step meetings and most got into "the rooms" because they attempted to deal with their aloneness with booze and other substances.

Perhaps in their apartness from the group, the lonely take advantage of studying other people and therefore figuring out what kind of tone and content will transport them.  In her recent book "Lonely: Learning to Live with Solitude," Emily White takes us on a journey into what it's like to be looking in instead of being inside.  White is awfully analytical.  In fact her first career was law.

Given the stigma still surrounding being lonely, few successful people likely even contemplate if they suffer from this affliction.  White reports that some scientists do classify it as a disease.  Therefore, not many top speakers are going to step forward and out themselves as lonely sorts.

However, when helping our clients through through rhetorical exercises, we might look for that lonely spot in them.  That's where we can extract the best speech-giving.

 

 

Being back with the people: Speeches having renaissance

The novelty about offline has passed.  Smart leaders and marketers are back talking in person with the people. 

People want to check out who you are, shadow side and all.

 
It matters  less who you are than that you have gone that extra mile to leave the comfort zone of cyberspace and return to being in front of a live audience.

Here are some tips for the return to delivering speeches in the flesh:

Be real.  If you're old and boring, that trumps attempting to be otherwise.  We loved Ronald Reagan who most of the time was old and boring.  He embraced who he was and so did we.

Make audience members the total focus.  Relationships are flat, that is, horizontal.  Everyone feels important.  You may be Chief Executive Officer of GM and so what.  Your speaking job is recognizing the worth of each person in the audience.

Inspire.  From 2008 until recently, we Americans have been through a nightmare.  Yet there you are to tell the tale.  Lift the audience to their best selves.  Yes, share your own dark nights of the soul.  My e-book "GeezerGuts" has had more than one million downloads Download Geezerguts.  People still call me to confide how reading it had saved their lives. 

 

AOL: Who will be left standing?

Only a true Buddhist could sit through a re-sizing post-merger with detachment.  The non true Buddhists will likely suffer some kind of emotional game-changer as they await to hear if they are a keep or throw back.

 

The cuts and promotions have started at AOL, following its purchase of HuffingtonPost.com.  AOL Media President David Eun announced he's going.  He had worked at Google so probably has a deep bench of contacts. Others will not have that kind of choice.

The media landscape is shrinking again as the industry consolidates.  Startups will have a harder time surviving long enough to have a shot at anything big.  And the small are already telling me that they are searching for a port in the storm.

I don't have high hopes for AOL Jobs, the group I did contract blogging for.  HuffingtonPost.com already dominiates the jobs/career area.  In fact Arianna Huffington had already published a powerful book on the employment picture in America being analogous to that of a third-world economy. 

Also, as I experienced the plays and the players of AOL Jobs for 13 weeks, it seemed to lack the strategic insight of those who wind up, over and over again, to be keeps.  There seeemed to be too much focus on just-in-time and not enough on building a brand and loyal fans. The day usually brought frantic requests to do a write-up on the grandmother suing Hooters or the former director of a nonprofit, who carries a large set, suing for harassment.  Inside I blushed about being a part of this.  Father, forgive me for this sin against violating my own principles of communicaiton.

Also, they were a chummy bunch, much like back from high school.  Obviously I wasn't in the in crowd.  The photos of a number of the writers with cute little blurbs would be posted on the AOL site.  Mine wasn't among them.  Speak up?  Wasn't worth it.  An old soul, I sensed I was on short time.  I was going to quit, be canned, or the department was going to be killed.

Lesson learned: In this Darwinian marketplace, only take assignments and jobs in which we can augment our skills and make the right contacts.

Charlie Sheen: So much fun being a nuisance

Those stunned by Charlie Sheen's public antics don't have a drunk in the family.  What goes with that territory is complete delight in being a nuisance, which always steals the show.  Sheen is likely deriving more emotional satisfaction from this display than from his work as a paid actor.

However, others suffer.  Since "Two and a Half Men" is being cut, lots of folks will be out of work.

"Criminal Minds" - Small Dream Turns Fatal Nightmare

A fisherman in the region blighted by the oil spill has a small dream.  He only wants to take care of his family.  But, as with most of the other residents, that dream gets derailed.  The others suck it up.  He gives in to desperation.  He takes a wife and husband hostage for ransom.  That too doesn't go smoothly.  The father attempts to defend his family, including his autistic son.  He gets shot and will die from the wound.

In way over his head the fisherman tries to exort the $40K he needs to get his house out of hock and his children back.  The autistic son provides the trail of breadcrumb clues.  Cornered by the police, the fisherman forces the wife to shoot him so that his family will receive his insurance.

This, of course, is a contemporary morality tale of what some desperate people will do that they would never even consider under less stressed-out circumstances.

Meanwhile, Doyle, a bad guy from Emily's past, reenters her life.  His objective is to take her life because she put him away.  Will she let her FBI unit help her in this?  Or will she rely on her team from her days before the FBI elite unit?

Sarah, Bristol Palin & Other Over-Exposed Brands

The Tea Party is still faring well.  Last night it was a product placement on the popular "The Good Wife."  However, one of its prominent members - Sarah Palin, along with her hustler daughter Bristol - may not be. 

According to a recent poll by POLITICO, 49 percent of us indicated "I am all Paline-ed out."  The poll was taken in relation to the tell-all, which really doesn't tell much, about her by a former aide who can't find a publisher.  With the exception of classics and truly iconic brands like Coke, most brands risk over-exposure if not managed strategically.  Political brands are especially vulnerable to the downright boredom generated by being around too much.

 
One reason former candidate for the U.S. Senate here in Connecticut Linda McMahon might have lost is that there was simply too much of her via television commercials.  That itself made her vulnerable to over-exposure.  But there was also the reality that the candidate was spending so much - her own money - on political advertising when so many others in the state were financially suffering.

How to keep a brand from being out there too much and in the wrong ways?  Common communications sense tells us to protect it as we would any other key asset, be it our laptop when we take the commuter train from Connecticut to Manhattan or our skin when we're out in the sun.  Brands, one might say, are living breathing entities.  They are either being enhanced or being damaged.

 

"The Good Wife" - Diane turns back on marriage with Marlboro Man

At its core, "The Good Wife" is about relationships.  So, tonight's developments were a stunner.  Diane becomes even more smitten than before with the Marlboro Man, who comes to her as a client.  She even violates the rules and allows romantic encounters, although she is representing him.  Likely she won the case for him.  No bow is tied on the plot but we assume that it will be tossed.  At the end of all that, Marlboro Man proposes.  He wants them to go away and start their own lives together. 

Diane is very very very tempted.  But she says no.  She says that she has to be there at the firm for "the fight."  Derek wants her out.  Will and she are supposedly aligned together to oppose Derek.  But you never know.  Snake Will could turn on her.  In the coming attractions, Derek asked for a vote of dismissal against Diane.  If she's out in a very bad marketplace for lawyers she may never find another job practicing law.  She is well connnected enough to find a job with some liberal cause but she is not enough of a brandname to be grabbed up as a lateral by another firm.  Will she regret turning down the Marlboro Man.

Meanwhile, Alicia has a sense of self. Finally.  She recognizes that she is good at what she does and that seems  to hold her together, without the need to have romantic fantasies about cad Will.  However, if Derek wins the law firm battle, she could be without a job.  She's not built a special relationship with him.  Could Peter, if he wins the election, find her another job practicing law?  That could happen.  Let's hope that Alicia doesn't regress because she loses the position through which she found herself.

Her daughter Grace is beginning to rebel.  That generation is doing it through religion.  Grace has found Jesus, the first rebel.  Alicia is walking through this with firmness, understanding and common sense.

Gold, Peter's campaign manager, is as pragmatic as we believed he would be.  Although he connects with the illegal immigrant who was Peter's opponent's nanny, he still uses that information.  The girl will be deported.  The opponent is finished.  Gold has done his job well and that's why people like Peter hire people like Gold.

Like Grace, Gold's own daughter is going through a rebellion.  She wants to live on the commune in Israel.  Gold sees that as too dangerous.  It looks like she will get her way.

Kalinda has the upper hand in the Blake situation.  He's still laid up from the blow she landed on him with a baseball bat.  And, for some reason - could it be sex - she is able to continue to get Cary to help her with her work.  Kalinda may outfox everyone, including Alicia, Will, Diane, and Derek.

Book Stores: No Business for the Ambitious

Of course, we expected more woe in the book store category after Borders Group filed for bankruptcy.  And it came sooner than later.

 

MONEYNEWS.COM reports:

"Barnes & Noble Inc. suspended its dividend to preserve its shrinking cash reserves and reported disappointing holiday quarter results as its e-books strategy continued to dent profitability, sending its shares down nearly more than 9 percent."

Barnes & Noble had been more adept and quicker in digital than Borders but we still sensed it was going to have a struggle surviving.  Book stores simply aren't where people buy the books they will eventually purchase.  The best deals are online and Barnes & Noble does not have the killer-discount reputation which Amazon.com does.

Then there is the whole issue of what is a book store for commercially if not for selling books.  Borders had introduced in Ann Arbor, Michigan the concept of the book store as the experience economy.  That was before Starbucks brought the experience economy mainstream.

But unless the book store figures out how it can be a profitable "third place" or hang out in society, it can't go on.  Maybe it can sell beer and wine by the glass or expensive exotic desserts. 

In a sense, the public library is going through the same identity crisis.  Within about five years, a few librarians have told me, the traditional role will be over.  It could become a "third place" for the community to have special events and children to do their homework.  The challenge is: Will taxpayers fund that third place?