Conference speeches

Prepare for a speech by producing an outline of what you want to say on a single sheet of paper. Then sketch out a conceptual framework to convey that message. Then throw the piece of paper away and write down every joke you’ve ever heard. Humour is a very useful way to help establish a rapport with the audience and what better way to announce a major programme of redundancies than with a string of dirty jokes.  A speech should last about the same time as a middle manager takes to make love. So about three bullet points should do it, followed by seven sides of closely typed apologies. Audio-visual support is a must in longer presentations. Really great speeches start with a joke, go straight into half an hour of completely gratuitous video clips of sporting moments, and then end with instructions of how to get to the bar.Never speak from a lectern taller than you are otherwise you’ll be remembered forever as the mysterious talking lectern. Also make sure you have a witty put-down for hecklers such as “You’re fired”. Speeches are written to be heard rather than read, so it’s fine to use more colloquial phrases such as “Wake up, you bastards”. Finally, the golden rule of speechmaking is tell your audience what you’re going to say, say it, and then run off the stage to a waiting car.  If you’re worried about large audiences, you can take comfort from the fact that you won’t be able to see them because when you get on stage the lights will burn your retinas into the back of your head. The only area of the stage that has no light whatsoever is your notes, which are in complete darkness on the lectern. It’s at about this time you realise you’ve left your reading glasses in your briefcase. Having prepared the speech for eight weeks, you now have to improvise a forty-minute speech based on the few words of your notes you can actually see.  Once you’re up on stage you can then expect the technical faults to kick in. First your graphics won’t work. If you’re pushing a button, you’ll accidentally push the wrong button and exit the programme altogether. If a professional’s doing it for you, they will show the wrong graphic at the wrong time and skip over a couple just for the hell of it. If you’re lucky, the lights will fail at this time only to come back on when you’re tip-toeing off the stage with your arms flailing in front of you. To be fair, the technical back-up may be immaculate.  This allows you to  mess up the presentation yourself. It’s important to start well, which is why you inevitably choke on the first couple of words. When you can’t say “Good morning, ladies and gentlemen” without provoking some kind of coughing spasm, it’s unlikely you’re going to dazzle and enthral for the full hour. Don’t forget you can lose your voice at any time during a presentation.  If you have a joke with a punchline this is normally when your voice says adios.

To fight nerves it’s a good idea to grip the lectern with  both hands but not too tightly because they’re only temporary structures and often collapse beneath you. The really brave can leave the lectern completely and walk around the stage pretending to be natural. Just be aware that you have in fact walked into complete darkness, your microphone is about to give you more feedback than a year’s worth of appraisals and, at the furthest point away from your notes, you will forget your name, your job and everything you’ve ever wanted to say about anything.  Remember that the only thing keeping your audience from slipping into a permanent vegetative state is the prospect of coffee. It doesn’t matter if you’re the first speech of the day and you’ve only been talking for three minutes; no one is ever going to complain if you manage to choke out, “That’s it from me, let’s break for coffee.”