Jane Genova: Speechwriter - Ghostwriter

Mirror Neurons: Why man the social animal is returning from virtual

In the presence of each other, a number of species, including us human kind, affect each other cell by cell. Some of us always knew this.  For example, our moms told us to stay clear of "bad companions." The transmission process happens across the species. My dog Molly Mittens could pick up that I was depressed before I did. The vet, part Dr. Phil, told me she had been hanging on despite her bad heart trying to keep me together.  

But how we resonate off each other was confirmed by researchers such as Marco Iacoboni on mirror neurons in Italy. He made all that science user-friendly in his book "Mirroring People: The New Science of How We Connect with Others.  Last night at the New Haven Zen Center in Connecticut we discussed why meditating together in-person can center us so quickly.  As a guiding teacher noted, we feed off each other's strength.  The same principle operates in 12-step programs such as Alcoholics Anonymous.

No surprise, we are returning to in-person speeches, meetups, chats by the water cooler, author presentations at bookstores, and church services. Virtual social networks were fun but they left us, well, unconnected.

For the past four months, although I was doing my time virtually on Facebook and LinkedIn, I would get attacks of extreme alienation. They were brutal enough to dry up the creative processes as I tried to write.  When I packed up the laptop and went to the public library in North Haven, CT, the juices started flowing again.  Clients raved about what I had created there.  Blog posts done there went viral. The help-wanted I answered there brought in good assignments.

We need other human beings around us. They don't have to even actively interact with us. For this very reason, we speechwriters have been busy preparing what speakers are delivering in the flesh, not on webinars. Social networks have proved to be unable to transmit from mirror neurons.

Angelina Jolie: Breast-cancer awareness takes giant step beyond pink

Public relations case studies will be written about how Angelina Jolie's preventative double mastectomy singlehandedly moved forward breast-cancer awareness.  It takes a celebrity.

Scrap the pink campaign.  Stick with Jolie's branding of the mission to save women's lives. 

My sister Camille Genova Klinga died of breast cancer in 2001.  In 2012, I had two biopsies for breast cancer.

Benghazi: Leaning-in Hillary Clinton gets leaned-against by more confident GOP

Benghazi could be the GOP tipping point, where conservatives parachute out of failure and self-doubt into political confidence. 

As POLITICO chronicles, they are leaning against former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the investigation of what could have prevented the death of ambassador Chris Stevens. No longer protected by an official government identity, Clinton can be as much a target as any other ambitious political figure.  The interrogation is getting plenty of media attention.

Should Clinton blink, the GOP can build on that high-profile vulnerability.  Her leadership style is being tested as it never has been previously.

Chris Christie Jersey Boy: But what exactly does that negative mean?

Chris Christie's unique branding embodies being a totally Jersey Boy. 

And, contends Jonathan Chait in NEW YORK Magazine, that's a negative so big and bad that it could block him from getting to the White House.  After all, Hillary Clinton is a nice girl from the midwest.

Nationally, explains Chait, Americans associate New Jersey with the likes of Tony Soprano.  But, since Chicago is associated with the likes of Al Capone, I don't agree.  What turns people off on those of us born and bred in the Garden State and don't manage to "overcome" that early programming is more complex. 

What's wrong with us from NJ is that we have all the supposed faults of those from New York but without the status.  Among them are the distinct accent, along with the blunt use of language.  It made news when Christie announced, before a hurricane, for everyone "to get the hell off the beach." Another deficit is what others view as intrusive and we just consider our right to know.  For example, our neighbor is home during normal work hours, so we think nothing of asking him if he got fired.  A third is high aggressiveness.  Like all who feel innately inferior we become grabbers.  Incidentally, because of that a lot of us do make it big. 

Depending on how politically ambitious Christie is, he may or may not try to re-brand himself as less NJ.  What could emerge would be a White Bread politico.

Buddy Cianci: Ultimate role model for coming back big

Former mayor of Providence, Rhode Island and ex-con, Buddy Cianci has been voted "Best Radio Personality" by THE PROVIDENCE PHOENIX. The reason why, explains PHOENIX, is "personality."

Now  voice on630WPRO.com, Buddy puts that personality on everything he comments on. We who followed his trajectory up and down knew that he would roar back.  He's there in an era when human beings of all demographics struggle to connect.

Being there is the model others needing a comeback should follow.  It's the universal law of attraction.

"The Second Coming" - Thought leaders slouch towards Bethlehem to provide solutions

The recent tragedies ranging from Newtown to Boston, disruptive change, and ongoing income inequality have created brisk business for ghostwriters.  The mood of the nation has come to mirror W.B. Yeats "Second Coming," in which:

"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world." 

In response, thought leaders in every discipline are

"Slouching towards Bethlehem to be born." 

Communally through foundations such as Bill Clinton's and individually such as speakers at TED they are providing solutions for what is and visions for what could be. Think pieces are back in. But the complexity of the problems means that they seek our input in ways they haven't, at least not since John F. Kennedy sought the kind of information and rhetorical guidance from his brain trust, before and after the election.  As a leader, Kennedy was humble in recognizing what he didn't know and couldn't put together.

This might be a new golden age in executive communications, both for contract writers and for in-house scribes.  Regarding the latter, the status of IBM's executive communications staff might have taken the great leap forward after Chief Executive Officer Ginny Rometty chastised employees for missing Wall Street earnings target.

Talk: Never underestimate power of the human voice

My colleagues in executive communications came up with a radical idea: We were going to get out there and talk, in person, with people again.  There has been a surging demand for speeches and ghostwritten thought pieces and we knew that we had to be at the top of our game.

Late last week I called, not emailed, a college classmate Pat Serra I had known for a half a century but had lost touch with.  We chewed the fat for almost two hours.  Her voice and the memories of times it had soothed me over the years when I had been in such pain made me wonder why I had followed the herd into emailing and texting.

On Saturday morning I went in person to the New Haven Zen Center in Connecticut.  After silently meditating, we talked.  That conversation did more for my frazzled wiring than reading a batch of articles on neuroplasticity. 

Then it was off to the Atlantic Ocean at Westerly, Rhode Island. There I met photographer Spencer Worthley who wanted to take my photo with a 1940s camera his boss lent him from the weekend.

After that it was an hour at a 12-step meeting in Hamden, CT.  Voices, voices, voices.

Next morning, it was a return to the Zen Center, where a lecture followed the meditation.  We talked about the points made afterward. 

Text, we as a society have discovered, can't replace talk.  No, I don't want to talk at length with the residents of the 1,400 units where I live.  But I will no longer rule out how useful those conversations on the elevators could be to me, including for the creative aspects of writing speeches and ghostwriting articles.

TED Talks: How to make yours resonate

The incentive to pull out all stops to succeed in giving a TED Talk is huge. Just being invited to deliver a presentation is a breakthrough experience.  In the public-speaking game, doing a TED is likely more significant than presenting anything at the World Economic Forum in Davos.  And every public speaker demands speechwriters put together the kind of talk that "they give at TED."

Well, future TED presenters are in luck. In its 20th Anniversary edition, WIRED lists seven things which people tend to assume is important for a TED talk.  Actually only three matter, WIRED writer Jason Kehe tells us. 

Those three are, in descending order:

Being contrarian. If everyone is saying the GOP is dead, argue how pervasive remains its influence in X, Y, and Z key institutions in America.  This isn't new but its impact never goes out of date.  The problem is that few speakers have the guts to take on controversy.

Share failure.  This has almost become a cliche but it's still in demand to own up to a devastating reversal of fortune.

Rhetorical takeaway.  Everyone wants to be cool so everyone requires the freshest meme.  The speaker has to provide that.  One wonders what Hillary Clinton will come up with if she runs for president, via a stop-off at TED.

The four which don't really count all that much are:

Gee-whiz visuals.

Beginning joke.

Going off-script.

Claim of certainty.

Speechwriters As Communications Strategists: Leaders out there talking again

In keynote speeches to 1,000 attendees and in small meetups in Silicon Valley with innovators, leaders are out there talking. 

After a fall-off in demand for speechwriters which lasted almost a decade, there are plenty of searches going on for those with proven skills, including strategy, in executive communications.  For example, David Murray's Vital Speeches of the Day site carries these help-wanted from MetLife, New York University, DaVita Pharmacies, and the American Chemical Society.

Much of the demand is for full-timers.  However, for those of us who know how to market, opportunities have been opening up in contract work.  The challenge I faced was repositioning myself as an expert in executive communications versus one in social media.  The paradigm shift, within myself and externally in promotional materials, took about eight months.

One of the most effective moves was overhauling my LinkedIn profile to focus only on executive communications.  During a period of about six weeks, which entailed myriad revisions, I kept adding details such as publication credits and background information about full-time experience in the Fortune 100.  Even before prospective clients "google" us, they will go to LinkedIn, I have found. Currently, it is our most important credential.

Another tactic which has been on the  money was sending out unsolicited pitches.  Back in the 1970s, Richard Bolles explained in the book "What Color Is Your Parachute?" that most work comes in through contacting employers cold.  Don't wait for a job ad to appear.  That is still true.  Those who might need our services save those emails from us.  Ten weeks after my last marketing campaign a boutique public relations contacted with plum speechwriting assignments.

To be of use in strategy, what I have found necessary is viewing the many videos which feature public speaking.  At the top of the list are those who have been presented at TED.  Speakers want to be in the ballpark of that kind of tone and provocative material.

Jane Fonda: Sweet Jesus, save us from any more apologies

Perhaps with no more reinventions up her sleeve, Jane Fonda has sunk to the common attention-getter of providing an apology.  In this case it's for posing in 1972 with North Vietnamese soldiers aboard a tank in Hanoi.

We wish Jane would have spared us the apology.  After all, we are burdened with so many of them these days, the worst of the batches accompanied by tears.

Sweet Jesus, apologies have always been attention-getting nuisances.  Those making them are usually so self-centered that they don't realize that society just wants them to go away and stay away.

Since the 1930s when Alcoholics Anonymous had been founded there is a non-stop group of folks making their amends, usually to those who, as expected, don't want to even hear from them.  There's a rush of some kind that goes with amend-making and, I have a hunch, it's an addictive process in itself.  Therefore, like Jane, members of 12-step programs will reach deep into their past to find situations to apologize for.

In the public interest, the best and brightest in public relations can create a campaign to call a moratorium on apologies for 10 years.  In itself it could prevent some disturbed people from screwing up just so that they have a platform for an apology.

Anyone intending apologizing to me will have to encounter a moat stocked with alligators and the drawbridge drawn down.