When I was at university, I had a great drama lecturer called David Ritchie. Unlike many of my other professors who arrived in the lecture theatre with an armful of books and a clipboard, David would turn up, slightly late and begin his oratory....


As he spoke, it was like he was casting a net around us all, slowing his speech when necessary to have us rush to follow his breaths, then leaping forward on a new topic or idea to leave us gasping. It was not just a lecture but a performance.

Later, when I worked at IBM, I was fascinated by the speeches that Lou Gerstener would send to all employees. They were so well-crafted that I printed them and kept copies in my filing cabinet. I was interested in the way that he (or his speech writers) would put together ideas, tease out their implications and push through to a particular call to action. The work put into the speech, its articulation, its timing and even its relevance to day-to-day IBM-life was also a unique performance.

The great speech, however, seems to be a thing of the past ... or so I thought, until I read this comment from Diana.
Diana kindly led me to this great speech by Dan Wieden over here and it made me realize the link between speechwriting and blogging. You all may have noticed this long ago ... but for me this comes as a form of revelation. It is like I have been reading and writing blogs without realizing that I am not using the right reading glasses -- I have been looking through old polaroids when really I needed some of these 3D types.

Does familiarity breed comtempt? Maybe not, but sometimes being too close means you see the dots, but not the big picture. More revelations to come as I try to relook at my everyday world. Anyone know where to get some of those red and blue glasses?