Public Address the Ceo of Verizon Communications

¶ … Public Address

the ceo of verizon communications recently had the great opportunity to attend the Progress and Freedom Foundation Forum in Houston with the keynote speaker being Mr. Ivan Seidenberg, Chief Executive Officer for Verizon Communications. Mr. Seidenberg's presentation before an audience made up of company executives and other interested parties was to say the least the most professional speech I have ever heard. His opening comments provided much inspiration and showed how important my position with Verizon is to the overall success of the company: "As one of America's premier telecom network operators, Verizon is a key player in the technology sector, and therefore in the economy as a whole. We invest more capital, deploy more technology, and serve more customers than virtually anyone else in the country. We've established a record of real investment, real competition, and real innovation. And we've worked hard to put ourselves in a position to control our own destiny."

As all experienced speakers can relate to, one of the most difficult audiences to influence and manipulate is a group of company executives listening to their own CEO. One example of this difficulty is knowing when to laugh at something said by the speaker. Mr. Seidenberg related several humorous anecdotes during his opening comments and I could sense much tension in the room. But then an executive burst out laughing which eased the tension; everyone quickly followed by laughing along with him and for the remainder of the speech the audience was quite at ease and laughed spontaneously.

The setting for this presentation by Mr. Seidenberg was quite formal and the room itself had been set up for optimum viewing of the speaker. The lights were kept soft but bright for most of the speech unless Mr. Seidenberg was using a visual aid to illustrate a key point and then the lights were dimmed with a soft spotlight on him. Everyone was seated in a very large semi-circle with Mr. Seidenberg front and center. Two screens were set up on each end of the semi-circle so that the audience could view a number of slides, graphs and other charts.

Mr. Seidenberg made good use of a number of props devised to better relate his message to the audience. One of these props was very large flipchart placed strategically near the lectern which Mr. Seidenberg utilized on a number of occasions. This visual aid helped greatly with keeping the audience focused on what was being talked about, not to mention that it added interest and variety to the speech and made the entire lecture much more memorable. The flipchart could easily be seen from all parts of the room and Mr. Seidenberg made certain that his focus was kept on the audience while using the flipchart. Some main points featured by the use of the flipchart included high-speed wireless Internet access, downloadable applications, short messaging services, extending Verizon's broadband reach and bringing all of this together for the customers.

In addition, prior to the beginning of the speech, various handouts were given to the members of the audience. These handouts were filled with pertinent information, such as important phone numbers and website addresses, and aided the audience by relating what was to be discussed during the lecture, much like a concert program with a list of songs and stage breaks. Also, a copy of the complete speech was given to every participant.

The body of Mr. Seidenberg's lecture was aimed at discussing the potential of the next generation of technology to create growth and how the services of Verizon Communications could be most profitably delivered to potential and current customers. He also stressed that his vision of the industry must be based on a specific paradigm, one centered around competition, investment and innovation in order to expand the market and benefit everyone involved.

By far, Mr. Seidenberg's closing comments illustrated his talent for providing a very powerful lecture. He obviously put a great amount of time and thought into what he was going to say at the conclusion of his speech, for it was very motivationally directed, challenging and well developed. It also strongly influenced the audience, for I remember hearing many people talk about it as they were getting ready to leave the lecture. Once again, the highlight of Mr. Seidenberg's closing was his use of humor which left the audience laughing and applauding.

This obviously helped to give everyone in attendance an extremely positive impression about Mr. Seidenberg and allowed every member of the lecture to leave feeling upbeat and confident about themselves: "The decisions that all employees of Verizon make this year about how we service our customers will influence the flow of billions of dollars' worth of capital, the security of thousands of jobs, the speed of the economic recovery, and the legacy of Verizon's technological leadership." The closing was appropriately followed by an hour's worth of questions from a very inquisitive audience. Mr. Seidenberg made it a point to limit one's question to no more than thirty seconds or so in order for everyone to have a chance.