Unconventional Wisdom III: Requesting An Obama Re-Launch

By Mark Penn Name

More than the race speech, more than "dumb war," more than the 2004 convention breakout, this is the speech that Obama needs to be great. Expectations are mile high. He can meet them if he treats Denver not as a nomination or culmination, not as a moment in history that will live forever (though it will), but as a political re-launch. Be pragmatic and precise. Yes, lace the words with eloquence. Yes, stick to your winning themes. But up the ante, and avoid pitfalls.

• Choose your targets carefully. Since this might be the only speech of yours that some Americans see from start to finish, there will be intense pressure from your staff to check every last policy box. Resist it. Talk about three or four—maximum five—meat and potato policies. Iraq and the war on terrorism; energy and the economy; and health care. This will show that you have priorities in order and aren't bent on spending billions on everything under the sun.

• Wedge in just one big issue (national service?) that can communicate a larger point about the kind of cultural shift you want to bring about. Bush said, ad nauseum, he'd change the tone in Washington. Make clear that you can really make it happen.

• Nobody said a convention has to be devoid of fresh policy prescriptions. Surprise us with a new idea—preferably one that doesn't cost billions of dollars. If your remarks are 99% grandiloquent rhetoric about bringing American together and moving America forward, you'll miss an opportunity.

• Try to find a name for your governing philosophy. "Compassionate conservatism," however ultimately misleading, gave shape to Bush's ideology in 2000. Clinton, everyone knew, was a New Democrat. Reagan was a movement conservative. Where does liberalism end and post-partisan pragmatism begin? To prevent others from putting you in a box--which is easy to do given the thinness of your record--you need to take the opportunity to frame your ideology more precisely and proactively. "Change" isn't enough anymore. Claim a brand.

• Beware of King-sized overreach. Of course you'll reference "I Have a Dream." Of course you'll talk about how far we've come as a country, how far we have yet to go. But any parallels between your speech, which is essentially political, and the 1963 speech that catalyzed and encapsulated the most important social movement of the second half of the 20th century, should be delicately and humbly drawn. Yes, yours is a historically momentous achievement—but leave that to others to say. We've heard enough about race for a while. And as Hillary might remind you, you're trying to become JFK or LBJ—not MLK.

• Go easy on Bush. I know, this seems ridiculous. How can you pass up a 70 mph pitch down the middle of the plate? But you're a leader now. Leaders define themselves and their missions on their own terms, not in constant opposition to bogeymen. (Somebody needs to tell this to McCain.)

• Be aggressive in whacking McCain—especially on the economy. This should be your sharpest point of contrast. At the same time, cite a couple of places where you agree with the man. Lots of Americans are disappointed that the high-tone, new-look campaign we were promised has been replaced by round after round of petty, partisan wrangling. From the start, your "turn the page" appeal came across as a genuine commitment to transcend some of that crap. Prove that you're not just paying it lip service.

• Hillary Clinton is an impressive and effective politician, not an American hero. Be kind to her—but don't lay it on too thick. You're doing pretty well among white women already.

• Make clear that you're a pragmatist. Bush was dogged by dogma. McCain is, too; prove that you're nimble enough to care more about results than rigid ideology. America's ready for that kind of leader.

• Instead of simply retelling your thumbnail biography (which of course you'll have to do, in part), pull out a particularly telling moment. Too much of your personal history is told in broad brush. You're a storyteller. Get textured, specific and authentic.

• Be as plain spoken as possible. At times, be conversational. And watch the preacher-like rhythms, which have always sounded a little false (to me, anyway). This will be a real challenge in a football stadium. You will be tempted to speak up and out to the crowd. But if the presentation is too big, it won't play well on camera—and risks reinforcing the single most effective character knock they make on you, that you're more style than substance. Some very simple sentences will go a very long way.

• Take on the experience question directly. When John Kerry saluted and reported for duty it fell flat. It was an awkwardly staged photo-op transparently designed to cover over a perceived weakness. Don't pretend you are as experienced as McCain, don't pretend it doesn't matter. Tell Americans you understand their concerns and take them seriously. Then, explain why your life and work has prepared you for the challenge of leading the country through these times.

• Make a joke or two. When you get up on stage, with the crowd practically worshipping at your feet, you need to remind them you're human—and simply repeating that you're human isn't good enough. Humor does it best.

• Remember Kennedy. The American people may be down on their luck, but they don't want someone who'll tell them government can solve every problem. Call on all Americans to be part of something bigger, and don't gloss over sacrifice. You've become increasingly good at this over the course of your campaign. Drive it home.

• Rephrase some of your old standbys. I know you're convinced that lots of people will be meeting you for the first time. Maybe so. But this campaign has been going on so long, and the candidates have been so exhaustively covered, that to a critical mass of people, "Yes We Can" and other mantras are, well, mantras. Boilerplate now feels like boilerplate, both to you and to the voters.

• Don't go too long. If you pause for every applause break, say two words when one is all you need, waste 20 minutes patting backs and paying tribute to King—and if your intro and conclusions are nearly as long as your substance. Before you know it, you might wind up on stage for an hour and the story becomes: self-indulgent speechifier yearns to make history.
  

Penn Name is a former Capitol Hill speechwriter

Unconventional Wisdom II: First Step, Aim Low

By Robin Masters

Go to any speechwriter’s office and look at the bookshelf. What will you see? Possibly a copy of Strunk & White. Almost certainly Bartlett’s Popular Quotations. And, more likely than not, volumes full of collected speeches, with names like History’s Greatest Oratory and Words We Remember.

Speechwriters turn to those cherished tools often, whether for that elusive spark of inspiration, or—more likely—in moments of sheer desperation. They see them as representing the pinnacle of their craft, speeches that roll off the tongue, remain in the memory, and—in some cases—change the world.

They’re informative, reassuring, even fun to read. They’re also dangerous.

Right now the speechwriters for Senators John McCain and Barack Obama are working away at their convention speeches. They are writing for the biggest stages of their lives. If they’re like most speechwriters, they are being tempted by hundreds of pages of collected rhetoric sitting at their fingertips, waiting to be plumbed. But it’s a temptation they should avoid.

In fact, if they open those books, the first thing they might notice is that very few convention acceptance speeches are to be found. Maybe John. F Kennedy in 1960 laying out his vision of a New Frontier that “sums up not what I intend of offer the American people, but what I intend to ask of them.” Possibly Barry Goldwater in 1964 asserting that “extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice.” Perhaps George H.W. Bush asking us in 1988 to read his lips: “No new taxes.”

But as a rule, acceptance speeches are relatively unlikely to enter the annals of oratorical immortality. Of course, in some ways it is an unfair exercise. The convention acceptance speech is a relatively recent innovation. Abraham Lincoln, our nation’s greatest speaker—and speechwriter—lived at a time when it was considered untoward for a nominee to accept his party’s nomination in person. Had he done so, it is hard to believe that his words would not have been memorable. As it was, it was not until 1932 that Franklin Roosevelt broke from what he called the “absurd traditions” of the past and spoke in his own favor, changing—as he did in so many other ways—the American political landscape forever.

So the universe of acceptance speeches is relatively small. Nevertheless, it is difficult to deny that the last 76 years of American political history—the years since that first 1932 acceptance speech—have offered up more than their share of moments of tremendous rhetorical power. We know them well. FDR exhorting us that the “only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” JFK inspiring us to “ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.” Ronald Reagan mourning with us for seven astronauts who “slipped the surly bonds of earth to touch the face of God.” Three of a multitude of powerful moments … but none from a convention speech.

Is there a lesson to be learned here for the McCain and Obama writing teams? Only that they need to consider exactly what an acceptance speech is supposed to be, and what it should accomplish. They may be tempted to shoot for the moon, but sometimes the moon just isn’t the right target. History-making oratory rarely makes an appearance in acceptance speeches, and success for Obama and McCain—and their writers—will not be defined as being listed in some future collection of great speeches.

So does that mean that these speeches—speeches that will no doubt be promoted and analyzed to within an inch of their lives—don’t in fact matter at all? Can the speechwriters for the McCain and Obama campaigns throw together a few canned clichés and knock off for a late-August vacation?

Unfortunately for them, they cannot. Acceptance speeches may not tend to offer history-defining moments, but they occupy a unique and important place in the modern American political tradition ... and they are not easy to write. They must be campaign speeches designed to invigorate like-minded supporters and introductions that must appeal to the wider electorate. They must encompass both political attacks and positive images of the future. They must be about policy and about votes. They are mishmashes and tightropes, and the pitfalls are as real as the opportunities.

In fact, by comparison, a high-minded speech—like an inaugural address—is a far easier one to write. A new president striding forward amid celebration, pomp, and circumstance and speaking for the first time to a nation that is usually willing, at least for a little while, to set aside its differences, is a speechwriter’s dream. Inaugurals are tailor-made for the soaring rhetoric that every writer puts to page with a smile on his face and the anticipation of reading fawning reviews in the days to follow.

But to get there, that speechwriter needs the convention speech first. And ultimately, he will not know if he was successful until Election Day. The analysts will have their say. The polls will move up and down. But the acceptance speech does not exist in isolation. It is like a late-season baseball game against a division rival. It alone cannot guarantee a championship weeks or months down the road. But a victory can add to or change a team’s momentum, give a pitcher or a batter crucial confidence, or even provide that one extra win that makes the difference in a tight race to make the postseason.

That is the approach the McCain and Obama speechwriters should be taking. They need momentum and confidence and a little extra edge. They need an enthusiastic base and a willing-to-listen middle. They need clear lines of attack against their opponents and policy pronouncements that sound like promises but aren’t. Most of all, they need to set aside the greatest speech compilations. The time for poetry is January 20. The time for a careful, grind-it-out, measure-every-word juggling act is now.

Masters is a former Bush Administration speechwriter

Gotham BloGG Launches Series Previewing Presidential Convention Speeches With Top Political Speechwriters

“Unconventional Wisdom” kicks off with advice for Obama from author and former Clinton Administration scribe Michael Cohen

With the Democratic and Republican party conventions right around the corner, we are launching a new series on the Gotham BloGG today called “Unconventional Wisdom,” which will provide rare inside insights from seasoned speechwriters from both sides of the aisle into what the candidates should and will say in their high-stakes acceptance speeches.

The series kicks off with a preview of Democratic nominee Barack Obama’s historic address in Denver in two weeks from Gotham team member Michael Cohen. A former Clinton Administration scribe, Cohen is the author of Live From the Campaign Trail: The Greatest Presidential Campaign Speeches of the Twentieth Century and How They Shaped Modern America, which was released in July.

Gotham President Dan Gerstein, a veteran political speechwriter and commentator, said the inspiration for the blog series came in part from Obama’s ongoing call for change.

“Much as we do every four years, we will soon be treated to growing piles of punditry about what the two presidential candidates need to say and accomplish with their acceptance speeches. And as usual, almost all of this authoritative-sounding analysis will likely come from commentators and strategists who have never written a political speech,” Gerstein explained.

“We thought it might be refreshing to hear from a group of highly articulate people who have some meaningful experience and expertise in this area — and who are thus uniquely positioned to inform the public debate and enlighten viewers about the defining speeches Barack Obama and John McCain will be delivering in a few weeks.”

With that in mind, Gerstein said, the Gotham BloGG will temporarily be turned into a platform for top Democratic and Republic speechwriters to preview and predict what’s to come in the big addresses in Denver and the Twin Cities.

The Unconventional Wisdom series will include bylined commentaries from Gotham team members and other political speechwriters, as well a few unsigned posts from scribes who wish to remain anonymous for professional reasons, and run through the end of the Republican convention on September 4th.

“We hope that people who are interested in the campaign and the conventions can benefit a little from our accumulated knowledge and experience,” Gerstein said. “And who knows, maybe a few pundits will see the writing on our wall and be the wiser for it.”

Gotham Ghostwriters is New York City's only world-class, full-service writing firm. We specialize in the cultivation and amplification of thought leadership for clients who aspire to stand out and spur change.

Unconventional Wisdom I: For Obama, it’s about change you are comfortable with

By Michael Cohen

In his rather short political career Barack Obama has given a career’s worth of high pressure speeches; the keynote address at the 2004 Democratic Convention, the Jefferson-Jackson dinner in Des Moines, Iowa, his “race speech” in Philadelphia. But those were relative child’s play compared to the address Obama will be delivering two weeks from today at Invesco Field in Denver.

Since Franklin Roosevelt became the first presidential candidate to accept his party’s nomination in person at a national convention, acceptance speeches have taken on extraordinary significance in presidential campaigns. They have become the single most effective tool for candidates to get their key campaign themes across to the American people and provide a positive personal image for the electorate. At the very least, it is the most viewed, read and heard campaign speech of an entire modern presidential campaign.

But for Obama the stakes for his speech may be higher than any convention address since Bill Clinton accepted the Democratic nomination in 1992 or when Ronald Reagan accepted his party’s nod in 1980.

As many commentators have noted, the 2008 race for the White House is increasingly shaping up to be an election about Barack Obama. This is not to suggest that John McCain is a sideshow; but in a year when Democrats have huge structural advantages, when the desire for change among the American people is overwhelming and yet the party’s standard bearer remains relatively unknown to a large segment of the population, Obama’s ability to convince skeptical Americans that he can be trusted with the nation’s highest job will be critical. For Obama’s campaign, it’s as much as about change you are comfortable with as it is change you can believe in.

Of course, based on his rhetorical reputation, the pressure and the expectations could not be higher for Obama – many voters who have never seen him speak will be expecting Martin Luther King, Jr., Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy all rolled into one oratorical rock star. Throw in the fact that Obama will be speaking before 70,000 partisans in an outdoor football stadium on the 45th anniversary of MLK’s “I Have a Dream” speech . . . well let’s just say, I don’t envy Obama’s speechwriter.

So what should Obama do in his acceptance speech? Well, as the old saying goes, “you gotta dance with the girl who brung you.” Obama should stick with many of the same campaign themes that won him the Democratic primary over Hillary Clinton. He needs to stay away from the minutiae of ten-point policy plans and stick, instead to his vision for America; providing the American people with a clear sense of what an Obama presidency will entail.

But above all, Obama needs to inspire and energize voters, in much the same way he did back in Iowa, New Hampshire, and other primary and caucus states. Obama’s rise to power did not come from the fact that the opposed the Iraq War or he had a better health care plan than his Democratic opponents; it came from his call for political change and the aspirational nature of his candidacy.

Just as JFK did nearly 50 years ago with his New Frontier, Obama must cast the 2008 election as one between the forces of change and those that represent the status quo. With 80 percent of the country believing America is on the wrong track, this should be the easiest part of Obama’s speech.

But beyond change, a key element of Obama’s appeal is hope; and the sense that his election represents not only a new style of politics, but also a return to treasured American values after the wayward drift of the Bush years. This is a theme that needs to front and center and Obama would be wise look back not to a past Democratic candidate for inspiration, but instead a past Republican President: Ronald Reagan and his call in 1980 to “renew the American spirit and sense of purpose.”

That was the message that Barack Obama was getting at in January after he won the Iowa Democratic caucus as he sought to his cast victory in seminal terms:

Years from now, you'll look back and you'll say that this was the moment, this was the place where America remembered what it means to hope.

. . . Hope is that thing inside us that insists, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us if we have the courage to reach for it and to work for it and to fight for it.

Hope is what led a band of colonists to rise up against an empire. What led the greatest of generations to free a continent and heal a nation. What led young women and young men to sit at lunch counters and brave fire hoses and march through Selma and Montgomery for freedom's cause.

Hope is the bedrock of this nation. The belief that our destiny will not be written for us, but by us, by all those men and women who are not content to settle for the world as it is, who have the courage to remake the world as it should be.

. . . We are not a collection of red states and blue states. We are the United States of America. And in this moment, in this election, we are ready to believe again.

Just as Ronald Reagan in 1980 called for a national crusade that would “make America great again,” Obama must sound a clarion call for “America to believe again;” belief in the potential of America to again do great things, whether it’s ending the war in Iraq, fixing the economy or dealing with the challenge of climate change. Obama would be wise to wrap his political agenda in this sort of affirmative vision of change. While some might consider such themes Pollyannaish, it is indeed this sort of rhetorical approach that has come to define the most memorable and effective campaign addresses.

It’s a tall order for any speech, but considering Obama’s rhetorical efforts to date, we know that he certainly has it in him. His success at meeting this challenge in Denver will go a long way toward determining whether he will be America’s 44th President.

Cohen, a former Clinton Administration speechwriter, is the author of Live From the Campaign Trail: The Greatest Presidential Campaign Speeches of the Twentieth Century and How They Shaped Modern America

Motivation for Writing?

By Jim Moore

Those of us who write, either for income or pleasure, are constantly asked about where we get our motivation or discipline. Writing, of course, is a discipline that requires an output of product on a regular basis to achieve a final vision. William Styron was quoted more than a few times claiming that he wrote only a paragraph a day because it was the only technique he knew for perfecting his work. This explains, perhaps, why it took him ten years to complete The Confessions of Nat Turner.

My favorite story about motivation for writing comes from a little cafeteria at the foot of the Franklin Mountains in the desert of West Texas. Cormac McCarthy (who should need no introduction to this group) moved to El Paso from Tennessee to concentrate his work on the American West. In the UK, he was already widely known as a man of great talent for his books like Blood Meridian, Child of God, The Orchard Keeper, and others but in the U.S. his work sold only to a core group of readers who appreciated his ornate prose and vivid descriptions. Then, however, he won the National Book Award for All the Pretty Horses.

Famous for being reclusive, McCarthy never spoke with journalists. The fact that he was finally ascendant in his native country, however, prompted an editor of a London newspaper to dispatch a reporter to Texas to seek an interview and do a profile of the author. I’d had a slightly less ambitious goal for many years as a fan of his books. Blood Meridian had changed my romantic view of U.S. western history and I devoured every word McCarthy had ever committed to narrative. As a TV news correspondent, I was frequently assigned to do reports in El Paso and had heard McCarthy hung out at a particular pool hall at the end of his writing day and always took his lunch alone at the Luby’s Cafeteria on Mesa Avenue. As hard as it was for me to see him sitting at a table for one eating square fish or the LuAnn Platter, I still stuck my head into Luby’s whenever I got a chance hoping to see the great man in physical form. I never did and I considered that chasing him down at his neighborhood pool hall was a bit too much of an invasion.

The British reporter, who apparently hung out at Luby’s long enough to see McCarthy, is said to have walked up to the author’s table to request an interview. Although the reporter was polite and sought forgiveness for the interruption, McCarthy was non-responsive. The reporter, as reporters will, persisted until McCarthy told him, “I don’t do interviews.” Undaunted, the reporter explained how he had traveled across an ocean and spent thousands of dollars to try to find McCarthy and that his editor was pressuring him to deliver. The author was unmoved and did not speak. Hell, I can see him there scooping up his peas and moving forkfuls of his square fish into the pile of tartar on his plate, acting as if the reporter were not even alive, much less standing next to his table.

The reporter was silent until he came up with a new idea. Perhaps, he assumed, McCarthy would at least offer some advice on the topic of writing. According to the story I was told by a friend of McCarthy’s, the reporter begged for words of wisdom on the craft.

“Mr. McCarthy,” he pleaded, “can’t you at least just give me some advice on writing? People would love to hear anything you have to say about it.”

McCarthy was silent but had made a decision to speak, though he didn’t put down his fork or stop eating. His insight, though, ought to be hanging over the desk of every wannabe author or columnist.

“As far as writing goes,” McCarthy said without looking up, “If you don’t have to write, then don’t.”

Nobody has ever said anything more illuminating about writing. You know if you have to write. If you don’t, go find something to do that is more lucrative, and that’s a pretty long list of endeavors.

And now, if I may be so bold, I’d like to offer Mr. McCarthy some advice. You, sir, are horrible in interviews. You were right not to answer questions about your art. Don’t do it ever again.

And for god’s sake, stay off of Oprah.

The First Trap a Speaker Must Avoid

by Bill Dunne

NOTE: This is the first in a series of featured posts from Gotham team members and friends offering tips and thoughts on the craft of writing. We hope you will find them enlightening and useful.

Bet you thought Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg address.

Of course, Lincoln did speak at the great Civil War battleground. But it was someone else entirely, a certain Edward Everett, who gave the formal “oration”, that is, the principal address. Lincoln’s role, which the event organizers had conceived almost as an afterthought, was simply to follow Everett with a few “dedicatory remarks”.

The selection of Everett to give the main address made sense. He was an ordained minister, so who better to memorialize the dead. He was also a past president of Harvard. But of at least equal importance for that somber day in 1863, Everett was regarded as one of the nation’s great orators.

So why doesn’t Everett’s Gettysburg Address ring through the ages? Could it be because the speech dragged on for two hours?

Here’s the point: The first step in preparing a successful speech should not involve putting pen to paper or thinking great thoughts. The first step should be to bring the allotted speaking time within bounds, to avoid death by droning.

Too often that is not what happens. Consider the typical run-up to many speaking events for business executives:

Weeks or months before the speech date, the CEO is in a routine staff meeting. Several matters are discussed before the subject of the upcoming speech is raised. Finally the speaking engagement comes up and gets kicked around, and at some point the CEO asks, “By the way, how long do they want me to talk?”

“An hour”, someone replies, looking at some notes. “Sixty minutes.”

Bad answer. What the staffer should have said was: “They want an hour but we’ll get them down to a more reasonable time.” The reason that should be the answer is because many, if not most, speaking opportunities for executives actually do come attached to time slots of one hour. Or, what’s not much better, 45 minutes.

What are the planners of these speaking events thinking?

They’re thinking they have a job to do, and “they”, typically, are the venue producer and staff — the venue being, say, an industry conference or trade show. Their job is to plan, develop, and stage an attractive, varied, and complex program of meetings and presentations, each tailored to the interests of certain audiences. The void of time that must be filled is formidable — two days, three days, or more. So the venue planner is thinking, “If I can fill out the program in nice big round blocks of time, that’s good”.

Signing up

Then there’s the other side of the equation. That’s you, the would-be speaker, or your communications staff. Along comes a message informing you of a speaking opportunity, a great chance to tell your organization’s story. Quickly you sign up before the slot goes to a competitor.

Okay, so you’ve hastily made your bed. But does that mean you really have to sleep in it? This is where a little negotiating can go a long way. And most times, you do have leverage.

Beware, though. The CEO can sometimes be his or her own worst enemy. He’s tough and indefatigable. You’ve seen him slog through grueling talk-fests before, and he comes through fine. You know if you express concern over a 60-minute script he might say, perhaps with a touch of bravado, “I can do that.”

What then? Should you push it? Damn right. The last thing a speech should be is a speaker’s personal test of stamina. The only important factor is the audience. Rub them the wrong way and you might as well not have bothered.

The central problem is this: a large span of time practically forces the speaker into talking about everything. And when you try to say too many things, the main point, if there is one, is lost. Voltaire put it this way: “The best way to be boring is to leave nothing out.”

Rule of thumb

In the matter of that classic speech occasion — the Sunday sermon — one senior prelate of a major Protestant denomination had a simple instruction for every new class of seminarians. “If you don’t strike oil in twenty minutes,” he said, “stop boring.” In the same vein, Mark Twain said that “no sinner was ever saved after the first 20 minutes of a sermon”.

Twain, the nation’s best-paid public speaker in an age of prized oratory, knew what he was talking about. That said, the 20-minute rule of thumb is only a rule of thumb. Different venues and different circumstances must have their due. Audiences differ. Topics differ. Goals differ. Twain himself routinely spoke for an hour or more. But then he was a practiced entertainer and well able to pull it off. For most executive presentations, the 20-minute limit is about right. It means the speaker doesn’t exhaust himself (or herself) talking, and the audience members aren’t tuning him out long before he’s done.

Two sheets

Now back to Gettysburg. Lincoln’s assigned role, as we said, was to follow Everett with a few “dedicatory remarks”. That he did. He pulled two sheets of paper from his pocket and read off 272 words. Next day, Edward Everett wrote the following to Lincoln: "I should be glad if I could flatter myself that I came as near the central idea of the occasion in two hours as you did in two minutes."

So let’s say you’ve persuaded the CEO that he probably doesn’t want to go longer than 20 minutes. Now what? Well, now you have a heart-to-heart talk with the venue managers.

Be bold. You’re in a position of strength. The last thing a venue manager wants to do is rustle up another speaker after he’s had one in hand. If he seems to recoil from the notion of “only” 20 minutes, it usually works to offer a post-speech Q&A, bringing the presentation to, say, a more ample-sounding 30 minutes. Once in that neighborhood, event organizers are usually glad to adjust.

And you — freed from clock slavery — can now concentrate on the real goal: a winning speech.

© Copyright 2008 by Bill Dunne

GG Featured in Business Week

Our firm received a nice plug in a story in the May 22 edition of Business Week that looks at the growing appeal of “Anti-Wall Street” jobs to this year’s college graduates.

Some employers are adjusting to meet the expectations of the new workforce. Dan Gerstein, founder and CEO of Gotham Ghostwriters, a New York speechwriting company, hopes to attract the next generation of talent by offering flexible hours and the opportunity to work freelance. According to Gerstein, a speechwriter working for a prominent client can make upward of $10,000 per speech, and he predicts that good writing, and especially good blogging, will be increasingly in demand.

"I had three people call me last week and ask me to find someone who can do blog writing," Gerstein says. "With older people who didn't grow up with blogs, there's a certain kind of [Web] illiteracy. A lot of companies and even PR firms don't have people on staff that can do this."

You can find the full story here.