Communicator of the Year acceptance speech: Hitchcock or Hogan?

At first I thought that the way to solve a problem that's been haunting me in the days before receiving the 'Communicator of the Year, 2011' award from Toastmasters International (UK & Ireland) on Saturday would be to emulate the model brevity of Alfred Hitchcock's two-word Oscar acceptance speech in 1967: "Thank you".

However, as I'll be using video clips in my lecture, an alternative would be to add this one from Paul Hogan's advice to Oscar winners on the "three Gs" - which, as the conference is taking place in Glasgow, might just do the job...

P.S. Problem solved

Thanks to a comment on the previous post from Julien, to whom many thanks, the solution is now obvious: "I think you should do a Keira Knightley but with PowerPoint slides showing (with bullet points) exactly who you're thanking and their relationship to you in a series of hard-to-read-on-screen diagrams."

Toastmasters International UK & Ireland: Communicator of the Year, 2011

A few months ago, I accepted an invitation to do a keynote lecture at the Toastmasters International conference in Glasgow this coming weekend.

Then I discovered that they had a surprise in store and were going to elevate me to Communicator of the Year, 2011 - "awarded by Toastmasters to individuals who have either helped promote public speaking/leadership or helped to develop understanding of the speaking and leadership worlds."

Speechlessness

To say that I was surprised to the point of speechlessness would be an understatement. But, having just posted a clip of Lyndon Johnson saying "I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your president", I'm pleased to say "I did not seek, but gratefully accept the nomination of Toastmasters for this award."

When writing hits the mark

From my point of view, what's particularly gratifying is that the award is apparently in recognition of the fact that quite a lot of members of Toastmasters have found my books on speech-making and presentation quite helpful.

As I've said to some who've written positively about them in the past, without such unsolicited comments, authors never quite know whether what they've written has hit the mark(s) they was aiming for. So to receive an award like this comes as both a welcome bonus and as an honour - for which I'm as surprised as I am grateful.

Downsides

The only trouble is that two sources of stress will now be haunting me for the rest of the week.

One is that the audience at the conference lecture on Saturday will no doubt be checking to see if my performance comes anywhere near to matching up to the title Communicator of the Year, 2011.

The other is that I might have to give a Toastmasters' equivalent of an Oscar acceptance speech - which, depending on how many people I decide to thank and whether or not I break down in tears, could take up longer than my allotted time...

LBJ elected on this day in 1964: underrated president & underrated speaker

Today is the anniversary of Lyndon B Johnson's victory over Barry Goldwater in the US presidential election of 1964.

Although presidents Kennedy, Reagan, Clinton and Obama have all been recognised as great communicators, LBJ was no mean performer either. I hadn't realised this until seeing a clip shown by David Murray, editor of Vital Speeches of The Day, in his presentation at this year's annual conference of the UK Speechwriters' Guild.

I haven't been able to find the actual one he showed on YouTube, but the ones above and below are both historically interesting and well worth watching.

Had LBJ not become bogged down in the Vietnam war, his domestic political achievements, especially on civil rights, would have arguably earned him a place among the greatest of all American presidents. And, although he may not have been in the same league as Reagan or Obama in the oratory stakes, he was better at it than most.