Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Learning to Tell Stories from Michelle Obama

Effective communication involves have good stories and being able to put them across well.

We often learn best to communicate by watching great models. We are yet to see how well the speechmakers perform but it can be instructive (positively and negatively) by tuning into the US political conventions.

Make your own assessment and then listen to the analysts do their post-mortems.

Two US presidential speechwriters present their analysis of Michelle Obama’s speech on the opening night of the Democratic National convention. They also have some thoughts on the rest of the night.

The article is at this link:

Listening In: Speechwriters on Michelle Obama’s Speech, Newsweek, 26 August 2008.

See Michelle Obama in action at this link:
Michelle Obama’s Democratic Convention Speech, Huffington Post, 26 August 2008.

Dr Geoff Pound

Image: Michelle Obama and two up and coming speechmakers. (Courtesy of the Independent)