Barack Obama’s greatest challenge, perhaps of his entire presidency, will be to get a handle on how to communicate complex economic solutions and principles while trying to solve the financial crisis. The challenges for the Obama Administration are that they must come up with policies that A. Benefit the economy as a whole, B. Help as many individuals as possible, C. Minimize taxpayer risk, D. Help to create smarter government intervention in the economy but not necessarily bigger government, E. Does not redistribute wealth from the middle class to the wealthy, and F. Appear Centrist and pro-capitalist.
Here are 10 specific messages and principles that would go a long way toward winning over the public to his plans:
1. No Wall Street Bonuses. Period. Bloomberg News and other sources are predicting a 40% reduction in Wall Street Bonuses for this year. Only 40%???!!! In a year when banks are losing billions of dollars by the day? The average taxpayer will be thinking “why should there be any bonus if their company lost money and I had to bail them out?” And that taxpayer would be correct. Imagine next March when the New York Times tracks down some snot –nosed 28 year old Goldman investment banker who is complaining that his $2 million bonus from last year shrunk to a measly $1.2 million this year. When taxpayers realize they are, in effect, paying for this bonus, there will be a bloodbath in the streets of New York, Washington and across America. Secretary Paulson stupidly believes his crony CEO buddies when they complain that have to continue giving massive bonuses in order to stay competitive and not lose talent. News Flash—nobody is hiring bankers! In fact, hundreds of thousands of them are being fired around the world. This bluff won’t work any longer.
2. No Bank dividends. It has been insane for banks to give dividends for quite some time. But it is doubly insane for tax payers to subsidize dumb investors. No financial institution that receives a single penny of government money should be able to pay a dividend until this crisis is over and every tax dollar has been paid back, with interest!
3. No Shareholders bailouts. The government has a vital interest in helping industries and the economy as a whole stay alive, but not in preventing harm to any particular set of investors. Shareholders should be completely wiped out before government steps in to take over, say, a car company.
4. Bondholders must lose all or most of their money. Same as above. The government has an interest in making sure millions of workers who directly or indirectly are a part of the automobile industry are not suddenly unemployed and applying for welfare. The government has no compelling interest to make sure bold holders don’t lose money.
5. Bailouts will only be given with a thousand strings attached. (See above). The days of Paulson and his “Liberal” giveaway programs with no strings attached must become a thing of the past.
6. Cut taxes—on payroll taxes. After 8 years of sermonizing from the Bush Administration on how cutting taxes is the solution to every problem, the Obama Administration should take this ball and run with it. Only this time, the first $5000 normally paid for by workers and their employers would be eliminated. The cap on payroll taxes could just be rolled upward $5000. Workers who currently make more than $80,000 would not see any net change in their social security taxes, but the majority of workers making less would receive a dramatic tax break. Better, employers would have an easier and less costly time hiring new workers. Would this throw a monkey wrench into the Social Security accounting in 20 or 30 years or so? Maybe, but so will the end of capitalism, if we don’t do something quickly.
7. Bailouts for anyone making less than $100,000. If we are going to have another massive $700 billion bailout, why not give it directly to taxpayers? Why not just send a $7000 check to the least wealthy 100 million Americans. For many, that would pay several over-due mortgage bills and the money would no doubt be spent right away. A Keynesian recovery is still a recovery.
8. Solve the housing crisis by letting anyone in the world have a US green card if they buy an existing house in the US. This would instantly cause a surge in housing sales as successful entrepreneurs from Mexico, China, India and Korea would surge into the US. Overnight, abandoned neighborhoods would become full. Housing prices would instantly stabilize and then perhaps enjoy moderate growth. Obama and his party would become overnight and permanent heroes to millions of immigrants. Non-white immigrants would coalesce disproportionately around Obama and the Democratic Party. The increasingly white Republican Party would be further marginalized by its likely opposition to this proposal.
9. The term “Free Markets” will be banished from all Administration members’ vocabulary. Four out of five billionaire hedge fund managers testified in front of Congress his week that they believe even hedge funds should receive more regulation. As long as there is a phony debate about “free markets” versus “big government” there will never be time for an intelligent, rational debate of what is the right amount of proper and smart regulation.
10. Return Eisenhower-era 90% marginal income tax rates to Joe the Plumber! Of course the legislation could be withdrawal after one day, but the message would be clear: now is no time for the national economic debate to be dominated by incredibly stupid, ill-informed people who say demagogic things about tax policy that are completely unsupported by facts.
“Dark Genius” is a new book out about the life and times of Roger Ailes, the longtime GOP political operative and Fox News Channel founder. The book isn’t great, but Ailes life is so fascinating, it almost doesn’t matter. If you are interested in media, politics, and communication, you really can’t go wrong learning more about Roger Ailes. The book earned its place at the pool this summer.
Much has been written about the excellent James Surowiecki book Wisdom of the Crowds, a look at how markets, in various forms, are routinely better than experts. Zagat has built a whole publishing empire based on this single principle. Index funds routinely beat most mutual funds on Wall Street. And yet, very few people think to apply this principle when it comes to public speaking.
I contend that nearly every aspect of a presentation can and should be subjected to the wisdom of the audience—specifically the speaking audience. But how, as a practical matter, would this be done?
Let’s say you have to give a new sales presentation to 100 prospects on Thursday. Well, on Tuesday, round up five colleagues in your office and give them your presentation. By “give them” I mean stand up and deliver them; don’t give them the text. Afterward, ask questions.
1. What slides does your audience remember? Any slide your audience doesn’t remember, then listen to their wisdom. Your slide is worthless—throw it away.
2. What messages does your audience remember? These messages work, so move them up and expand them in your speech.
3. Did you audience enjoy and remember your introduction where you talked about how happy you were to be there and about the boring history of your company? If not, then get rid of it—the wisdom of the audience has spoken.
4. What details and factoids does the audience remember? Any details or factoids that were in your speech but not remembered need to be either presented in a new and better way, or they should be eliminated from the presentation.
5. Where did you bore your audience? Get rid of it.
6. Where did you confuse your audience? Go into more detail here.
7. What does your audience want more of? Add this.
8. What does your audience feel compelled to do after hearing your speech? If it’s not what you wanted them to do, then you have big trouble.
9. What information would they have needed to hear from you in order to make them take the actions you wanted them to take after hearing your speech? Then add this to the speech.
10. How can any aspect of this presentation be improved? Add accordingly.
In addition to having a small group of colleagues give you feedback on your presentation before you give your actual speech; there is nothing wrong with asking a select number of audience members from your actual speech to give you feedback on these questions too. That way, you can refine your speech to make it better and better, the more often you have to give it to different groups.
It constantly amazes me that large multi-national corporations will spend billions of dollars on marketing research based on questions asked of housewives in malls and unemployed people with nothing better to do than answer a telephone survey. And yet the most valuable form of marketing research is often right in front of an executive and is ready to present itself for free, just for the asking. Isn’t it time you tapped into the wisdom of your audience?
RSS, Podcasts, PowerPoint as a CD, slideshows, MP3…the list of high technology solutions for communicating seemingly grows every day. But none of these has replaced the impact of a big speech. All of these high tech solutions serve as ways to amplify the big speech. If you doubt me, just try going to Google news and type in “Bill Gates” + keynote or “Steve Jobs” + keynote. Thousands of web pages pop up, all within the last few days.
The more high tech the world become, the more people want to see newsmakers in the flesh. Bill Gates’ speech is often the highlight of the Consumer Electronics Show. Steve Jobs keynote is the highlight of MacWorld. The keynote speech at the national political conventions plus the acceptance speeches of the nominees get the lion’s share of media attention.
My point? Sure you must continue to learn new technologies, but for every hour you spend learning or using a new technology, you should spend just as much time (if not more) learning how to give a great speech.
Here is a great video used to introduce bill Gates before his last keynote speech at the Consumer Electronics Show. The video is funny and well done. But I feel it should come with a warning: Don’t try this at home kids! Why? Because it is extraordinarily time-consuming and expensive to put together a video like this. My advice? Most speakers are better off coming up with an interesting speech rather than getting lost in the details of editing a video. So if you have the resources of Microsoft behind you and you are good friends with international celebrities like Gates, then go for the fancy videos. If not, think twice before going to these lengths.
If you hold an interesting position in yhour industry or are high profile in any way, you must keep in mind that any audience you speak to these days may be filled with bloggers. And these bloggers may be commenting on your speech. So just because you don’t see TV cameras in the audience or people with “press” hats on, doesn’t mean that your comments are somehow off the record–they aren’t. Everything you say must be considered through this prisim: How do I feel if this is quoted on a web site that has a million ivsitiorslooking at it during the next two years?
How common is it for speeches to be blogged about today: Here’s just a partial list of people who blogged about Bill Gates’ Speech at the CES yesterday.
Gates delivers his final CES keynote address
San Jose Mercury News - CA, USA
By Troy Wolverton Microsoft chairman Bill Gates speaks at keynote address at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Sunday, Jan. 6, 2008 . …
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CES 2008: Bill Gates Keynote
G4 TV - Los Angeles,CA,USA
Keep your eyes glued to this exciting blog post as it will be updated with the meat and pataters of Bill Gates’ Keynote Address as it happens in a few hours …
See all stories on this topic
Bill Gates Looks Ahead at ‘Next Digital Decade’
FOX News - USA
In his 11th CES opening keynote address, Gates looked at the sweeping changes since 2001 that have created the first true Digital Decade, including the …
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Google Blogs Alert for: “keynote address”
CES 2008; Bill Gates Keynote Address Commentary
By webmaster@windowsobserver.com (Richard Hay)
Bill Gates CES 2008 Keynote Address. 9:23 PM - Well they are scrolling some event info on the streaming feed now. 9:24 PM - One of the slides asks everyone to turn their phones off or put them to vibrate. I can only imagine the number …
Windows Observer - http://www.windowsobserver.com
Bill Gates Makes His Last CES Keynote Address
By GreasyGuide
Today in Las Vegas at the CES 2008 founder and CEO of Microsoft made his final keynote to the public. Bill Gates has changed the world and has help to usher in the digital age. During 2008 he will fully step down from his full time …
GreasyGuide.com - http://greasyguide.com
Gadgetell’s Live Blog of Bill Gates’ final CES keynote
By pj@gamertell.com(pj@gamertell.com)
Gadgetell is live at what may be Bill Gates’ final CES keynote address. Will he talk about the Xbox game systems or the future of videogames? Check out the live coverage going on right now! Oh, and keep smacking that REFRESH button at …
Gamertell - http://www.gamertell.com
Blogging at the CES
By Rob
Product Expert bloggers will be profiling all the cool new products being unveiled at the show and they’ll be live-blogging the opening keynote address by Bill Gates. Sounds almost as good as being there.
Techvibes Blog - http://techvibesblog.com
Watch Gates’ Keynote, 100 million retail Vista copies sold
By Emil Protalinski
The pre-show 2008 International CES keynote address will come at 6:30 pm PST Sunday, January 6. I’ll be updating this newspost with information as it comes in! Video: 750k | 300k | 100k Link: Microsoft @ CES 2008 (Silverlight Required) …
Neowin.net / Main - http://www.neowin.net
Google Web Alert for: “keynote address”
Every day I receive a Google alert for the phrase “call for speakers.” Daily, organizations around the world are looking for speakers to present at their conferences. Most of the time, these speaking gigs are unpaid, but are excellent opportunities for executives, consultants, authors and others to showcase their organizations and expertise. So how do you get to present at the trade association conventions you attend every year?
Follow these steps:
1. Call your association 6 months before the convention and find out who is in charge of picking speakers.
2. Get the email address and mailing address for this person.
3. Write to the conference coordinator with a one page memo that contains the following:
a. Your topic
b. What your audience will learn
c. 3 benefits your audience will receive
d. 3 other interesting elements people will get
e. 3 important credentials to position you as a speaker
f. 3 quotes form people in your industry saying you are an expert
4. Attach a video of you speaking, even if it is just video shot on a cell phone. Any video of you speaking beats no video. (Don’t wait for a perfect demo video to be produced).
5. Attach a nice head shot photo.
6. Follow up.
Bill Gates is giving his last keynote address to the Consumer Electronics Show tomorrow. Here’s where you can watch it live.
Gates is due to start his departing speech at 6.30pm US Pacific Standard Time, so start streaming early to avoid missing out. Here are your streaming options.
Let’s face it; you are an enabler—and so am I. When you and I sit through someone’s awful, boring, bullet-point filled PowerPoint Presentation and pretend to pay attention and listen, we are enabling another lousy speaker—and we are encouraging him or her to do the same thing again and again.
This has got to stop!
It’s time to take the 120-90-60 PowerPoint Pledge. Here it is:
If in the first 120 second (2 minutes) of a speech
A presenter shows slides that are 90% text based or more
And looks at his/her slides 60% of the time or more,
Then I walk out the door.
By my own accounting, this would put more than half of the business speakers in the world in front of an empty room—every time. The message would start to sink in.
For the record, I am pro-PowerPoint. I use PowerPoint 3-5 times a week in my presentations and trainings. But the way to use PowerPoint effectively is for the speaker to focus exclusively on audience members, use the slides to show visuals and not text, and to focus on one idea at a time in each slide.
Of course it’s not practical to walk out on your boss’s presentation, your weekly staff meeting, or a presentation from an important partner or client. But let’s face it; we all have opportunities to walk out on certain presentations. For example:
1. Large conferences where there are numerous presenters speaking in different rooms at the same time. Walk out on the ones who break the 120-90-60 PowerPoint Rule.
2. Vendors who are taking up your valuable time. If a vendor breaks the 120-90-60 PowerPoint rule in front of me, I simply stand up and say “thanks, I have an emergency. I would be happy to read any written materials you can leave behind.” And in fact there is an emergency; I want to stop my impulse to strangle the vendor for wasting my time with a boring PowerPoint presentation.
All of us, as frequent audience members, have the power to shape the greater business culture’s ways of speaking. If you don’t take a stand (and walk out the door) you will have nobody to blame but yourself when you become bored out of your mind when listening to future PowerPoint speeches.
If you are ready to sign the 120-90-60 PowerPoint Pledge, then please leave just your name in the comment button below.
