Sunday, June 21, 2009

A thought about speeches

In the course of attending a lifetime of speech days I have finally realised you can tell a good speaker from a mediocre one without actually hearing a word of what they're saying. The poor speaker looks at their notes. The good speaker looks at their audience. The poor one thinks you're listening to hear what they're going to say. The good one knows you're listening to them because they're interesting to listen to.

2 comments:

  1. Great precis of the great art.
    John Hodgman proves this at the Washington Radio & TV Correspondents Ball for Obama recently.
    http://www.poetv.com/video.php?vid=61577

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  2. Wish I'd read that before giving a best man speech on Saturday.

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