by Rob Cottingham | Apr 15, 2016 | Speechwriting
I’d love to tell you that every speech I’ve written has been a roaring success, that every word was purest gold and that I never once face-planted into the metaphorical pavement. Or that yeah, I did screw up, but it was only once. Or only twice. But the truth is, I’ve... 
by Rob Cottingham | Apr 7, 2016 | Speaking, Speechwriting
Wil Wheaton recently posted something to Medium, and it’s well worth reading on its own merits. But one passage jumped out at me in particular, and it’s one crucial key to speechwriting: Please note that I wrote this to be spoken/performed, and it may not... 
by Rob Cottingham | Apr 6, 2016 | Politics, Speechwriting, Technology
Last night, I joined hundreds of other Vancouverites at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre for an evening with Edward Snowden. For more than an hour, the intelligence-contractor-turned-whistleblower spoke to us via videoconference. He was articulate, quietly passionate and... 
by Rob Cottingham | Apr 4, 2016 | Speechwriting
A few months before the GOP convention, the leading contender for the party’s presidential nomination is Donald Trump: a man who draws huge, rapturous crowds… yet delivers long, rambling speeches that are apparently entirely off the cuff. Now, let’s... 
by Rob Cottingham | Mar 16, 2016 | How to..., Speechwriting
One of your most important skills as a speechwriter is listening to your client when they give you feedback. That often means hearing past their words, to what they’re actually saying… and it almost always means probing more deeply for the real issue behind a comment... by Rob Cottingham | Mar 15, 2016 | Speechwriting
You’ve probably heard speeches you’d swear were content-free. Here’s one that actually is — and it’s a TEDx talk. Beneath that hollow exterior lurks actual content: a pretty devastating critique of how a thin speech can inflate its apparent substance using the...
