Love it or hate it, speech writing is often one of a public relations practitioner’s most challenging responsibilities. Recently a friend of mine, a talented PR guy in his mid-twenties, was griping about the difficulties of speech writing: not enough access to the executives he writes for, flow-killing changes the lawyers want made, tight deadlines, lack of appreciation for his work.

Speech writing, he concluded, is hard work!

My colleagues used to voice the same complaints over 30 years ago when I started. Some would quote famed author, Edna Ferber, who described writing as a “combination of ditch-digging, mountain climbing, treadmill and childbirth.”

Others quoted Gene Fowler: “Writing is easy. All you do is stare at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead.”

What’s changed? It used to be worse!

So for those of you of the younger generations, I provide this brief description of the frustrations I had to endure when I began speech writing in the 1970s. Frustrations you no longer have to deal with. (And yes, I did have to walk 10 miles to school through 4 feet of snow up hill both ways.)

Cutting edge technology was the IBM Selectric typewriter with an ORATORS typeface ball.

Spell check was in your head, aided by an in-arms-reach dictionary.

Delete was a bottle of witeout.

Cut and paste really was cut and paste – or more often, cut and scotch tape – or completely retype.

Research consisted of phoning sources at their home or office, praying they would be there (no cell phones)…or going to the library, using the card catalog and Reader’s Guide to Periodical Literature, then going to the stacks only to discover the magazine issue or book you most wanted was missing.

At least now with the aid of word processing, emails, cell phones, and online research, we can spend most of our time creating content, not laboring with production mechanics.

This is one area of life where the “good old days” clearly weren’t.

And for more thoughts on speech writing and executive communication, I invite you to visit http://www.speaktolead.com

From – Lou Hampton, The QuoteAbility Coach and Reputation Czar

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