July 29, 2008
On Obama's Speech from Berlin, Germany
I wanted to briefly cover Barack Obama's latest speech for those of you looking for examples on public speaking technique.
His smile in response to the crowd reaction when he tells about his father herding goats in Kenya is charming and shows warmth, humanity and flexible responsiveness.
He needs to work on his teleprompter skills. Notice that he keep looking from side to side. This blog post from Bert Decker has some good suggestions (“five focal points”) on how to break up this windshield wiper pattern.
He stumbles at least 3 times. One example is on the word “responsibility”. After hearing that he could “fall asleep on his feet”, exhaustion from his travel schedule is clearly a contributor. To his credit, he gives no indication that he is concerned by the stumble. Instead, he soldiers on. This is exactly what I coach clients to do.
“Walls” is a clear central theme. In fact, he makes a reference to Reagan’s famous line from his speech in Berlin , “Tear down this wall.” It’s a big crowd. Much bigger than the 20K or so that saw Reagan speak at the Brandenberg Gate.
He demonstrates nice use of the Rule of 3:
“… to work with Russia when we can"
"to stand up for our values when we must"
"to seek a partnership that extends across this entire continent.”
He refers again to his father; this is a classic technique, referring to an opening remark as a signal that the conclusion is coming.
What are others saying about Obama's speech? The Huffington Post
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