Summary
As an Anglo-Saxon, it was very trying, but I loved every minute. (A friend said that was exactly her experience of living in Paris for the last four years.)
1) One Body
We all like to think we’re unique, but speechwriters of all nationalities are the same: gentle, gregarious and solitary.
We often have to work in environments with conventional and insensitive people, and that can be hard for us.
2) Could AI be BS?
A speaker explained that to use AI for speechwriting you have to give it a brief – that’s a role, an action, a context and certain conditions like the mood of the speech.
I also woke up to the fact that AI, unlike internet searches, is not going to be free.
In fact it’s going to be very expensive. (The speaker said that internet providers were looking to buy nuclear power stations).
Like other Silicon Valley services, it’ll start off cheap, and then they’ll gouge you for all you’ve got.
Do you know what? It’ll probably end up being cheaper to employ a human being.
3) Standards
There needs to be a European Union directive on the length of presentations.
The guys at TED know what they’re doing. They say a presentation should last a maximum of 20 minutes.
The French hosted one-hour conversations (which is actually against what we stand for – we don’t believe in unscripted communication)
You had to admire the French capacity for suffering.
4) Cut the Tech Support
Digital conference support software lowers the quality of a conference.
They offered a system by which you could make comments through your phone that appeared in real time on screen. You could do polls. You could ask anonymous questions.
This removed the tension of asking live questions.
It meant presentations went over time. It gave people a pretext for staring at their phones rather than listening to what was being said.
It lowered the quality of all interactions. It was forgotten about by lunchtime.
5) Innovation
The conference was held at the Maison de la Conversation.
A place dedicated to holding ‘live’ conversations in our atomised and divided world.
The founder Xavier Cazard welcomed us.
Here was a dynamic and imaginative new concept that needs to be studied by other European countries.
6) Le point d’un conférence des plumes
There’s a format for these conferences: speechwriters talk to speechwriters about speechwriting.
It’s not journalist talks to speechwriters about climate change. Or novelist talks to speechwriters about his novel.
There was a speechwriter in the audience who had worked for Sarkozy. There was a speechwriter who had worked for the Olympics.
There were speechwriters who were making a success of being freelance.
I wanted to see them at the podium.
7) The Déjeuner
As always in France, the best bit was the lunch.
We had to walk through the Porte de Clignancourt. It’s a huge outdoor souk with thousands of people milling around.
Walking together, eating together, meeting fellow speechwriters, that’s what we were there for.
8) New Markets
A delegate who was not a speechwriter gave me a tip for an untapped market.
She said people want someone to write a eulogy for their pets.
Brian Jenner is the organiser of the European Speechwriter Network conference that takes place in Exeter College, Oxford from 26-28 March 2025.