This video has gone viral within the last few hours, and is a confrontation between a Baltimore Police Officer and a 14 year old skateboarder.

Technology has ensured that virtually any time you speak in public there is the opportunity that your words, your presentation, and your message will follow you, either in a positive way or a negative way.

This is just another reminder that all speaking is public speaking!

Last night, CNN hosted the final Republican debate at the Reagan Library, and it was truly debating 101, and why having a message and sticking to it is so critical.  It was always an example of why repeating your opponents charges against you is a losing strategy every time.

Governor Romney was upset about Senator McCain’s characterization of his stance on a timetable in Iraq, and felt it was an underhanded tactic and referred to it as "the type of dirty tricks that Ronald Reagan would have found reprehensible."

Maybe a valid point, maybe not.  One major problem — the issue on which Senator McCain is viewed as being the stronger candidate — national security.  The issue on which Governor Romney has been campaigning fervently for the past week as being his key strength – revitalizing the economy.

Instead, the vast majority of this debate was spent as a running dialogue between the Senator and the Governor on what the Governor did or did not say with regard to Iraq withdrawal. 

To make matters worse for the Governor, his second biggest strength has been leadership, and his biggest weakness has been flip-flopping. While continually going back to the timetable issue, the Senator was able to pull out a quote the Governor used at the time of discussing the surge — "I can’t weigh in, I’m a Governor."  Not exactly a decisive comment and the Governor’s response was "That is a separate issue."

When debating, it is crucial to drive your message and spend the vast amount of time doing just that.  The last thing you want to do is spend all of your time repeating a charge that your opponent has made (which lends more credence to it) fighting the intricacies of it, and spending very little time on your strongest issues. 

It is often called "getting lost in the weeds" and forgetting that the idea is not to win the argument, the idea is to drive your message through, especially when this is the last debate forum to do so. This was a classic game of continually setting the trap, and the Governor fell for it last evening.

This post is going to be a little different from the norm as A) There is no video clip and B) I usually will not post twice in a week; however this is a necessary exception. Here is the text released by the Federal Reserve regarding the rate cut earlier this week, as reported by the Associated Press:

The Federal Reserve’s interest rate statement released Tuesday: The Federal Open Market Committee has decided to lower its target for the federal funds rate 75 basis points to 3-1/2 percent. The Committee took this action in view of a weakening of the economic outlook and increasing downside risks to growth.

While strains in short-term funding markets have eased somewhat, broader financial market conditions have continued to deteriorate and credit has tightened further for some businesses and households. Moreover, incoming information indicates a deepening of the housing contraction as well as some softening in labor markets.

The Committee expects inflation to moderate in coming quarters, but it will be necessary to continue to monitor inflation developments carefully. Appreciable downside risks to growth remain. The Committee will continue to assess the effects of financial and other developments on economic prospects and will act in a timely manner as needed to address those risks.

Voting for the FOMC monetary policy action were: Ben S. Bernanke, Chairman; Timothy F. Geithner, Vice Chairman; Charles L. Evans; Thomas M. Hoenig; Donald L. Kohn; Randall S. Kroszner; Eric S. Rosengren; and Kevin M. Warsh. Voting against was William Poole, who did not believe that current conditions justified policy action before the regularly scheduled, meeting next week. Absent and not voting was Frederic S. Mishkin. In a related action, the Board of Governors approved a 75-basis-point decrease in the discount rate to 4 percent.

In taking this action, the Board approved the requests submitted by the Boards of Directors of the Federal Reserve Banks of Chicago and Minneapolis.

I am not a financial wizard, and Dr. Bernanke has forgotten more about financial markets than most of us will ever know. However, the actions of the Federal Reserve Board lead to one question that, so far, no one has answered — What is the message that the Board wants to communicate?  If it was to re-assure the markets it did not work, and there is nothing in the statement to drive anyone toward re-assurance.

Dr. Bernanke has allowed everyone to play a guessing game as to the Board’s motives, which has led to what appears to be an undermining of the obvious purpose, which would be to calm the markets. This was the largest rate reduction in nearly 25 years, and happened outside of the confines of a regularly scheduled meeting — PS - there is a meeting scheduled last week. So what could have been done differently?

The Board is made up of brilliant individuals.  There must be reasons why the cut had to happen yesterday, why the Fed did not wait, and what the Fed thinks. None of those questions are answered in the press release above.  Where was the public press conference? Where was the re-assuring voice, the leadership, when the market needed it most?  Where was the media tour yesterday not only defending the cut but explaining it? Where were the surrogate messengers? What was the one clearly defined message? What was the justification of why the cut had to happen yesterday, and who was doing the justifying for you?

This is a perfect example why a messaging and communications strategy is essential for every business, whether your sales are $1 million or $100 billion. There is only one thing worse than delivering no information, and that is delivering mixed or conflicting information. It is imperative to spend as much time planning how you are going to communicate a decision as you do making the decision.

Today we celebrate the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr., a leader, a visionary and a hero.

He was also one of the greatest communicators of the past century. Dr. King was always, relentlessly, on message, and always spoke with passion and energy.

This clip is important for a number of reasons. It is the conclusion of his final speech, given at Mason Temple in Memphis on April 3rd — he was assassinated the next day.

He was speaking in support of the striking sanitation workers in Memphis, however as was often the case when Dr. King spoke, his message was consistent regardless of who he was addressing, and he was always on message.

The sheer energy that this clip contains is unbelievable. One can feel the power through the small clip on a computer — imagine the energy that must have been in the room that day in Memphis!

Dr. King’s use of tempo, inflection and pause during this speech are masterful. It is not possible to sleep through this speech. It was not possible to drift away into another thought if you were watching. It is not possible to walk away indifferent after hearing this speech.

How many times have you witnessed presenters or speakers fail to make eye contact, speak in a monotone or rush through each thought? How often have you walked away from a presentation unable to remember hours later what the speaker said? How many times have you witnessed a speaker that had absolutely no energy or passion, and seemed to be going through the motions?

The notion that it is better to say something than to say nothing is just false. If you don’t believe in what you are saying, you are better off saying nothing. If you think that you can fool an audience, guess again.

Yesterday marked the 2008 MacWorld Keynote Address, an annual event that is one of the biggest technology events of the year, and is usually viewed with much anticipation or derision, depending on your viewpoint on Apple.

Disclosure #1 - I am not a Mac user, nor am I an Apple aficionado. Disclosure #2 - While I have always been impressed by Steve’s ability to succinctly develop a message, I have not necessarily been as impressed with his ability to deliver that message. Disclosure #3 - I really expected to be bored to tears watching this, as in the past Steve has had a tendency to depend on a lot of "verbal noise" — umm, ahh, uhh.

Steve used his secret weapon. Not only was Steve on message throughout — no surprise, his delivery has improved significantly over past years. I planned on critiquing this performance with a play-by-play, but Steve’s use of a (not-so-secret) weapon was critical to his success today — Passion. The guy loves his products, loves his customers, and loves what he is doing. It’s as simple as that. His body language, facial expressions, tone and intonation all tell the same story.

Steve is not what I would consider a natural in terms of public speaking. Once again, his message is always great, but his delivery is often lacking. The commencement speech he gave at Stanford University is still one of my all time favorites in terms of message; however the delivery, lack of eye contact and lack of movement really took something away from the performance. I can see how Steve’s passion has really allowed him to come into his own as a public speaker, and has allowed him to become more and more comfortable every time out.

There is still room for improvement — he does not pause enough, he has a tendency to speed up when he gets excited (very normal), and the PowerPoint slides tend to be a little too wordy. That being said, his passion and frankness (When referring to Apple TV — "We’ve all missed…we’ve learned..") came through loud and clear. Whether you are an Apple fan or not, take a gander.

The secret weapon is out of the bag and everyone can use it – there is no greater key to public speaking success than caring about what it is you are talking about. Passion = Success.