Postcards
The best commencement speakers are...
June 3, 2013: 7:57 AM ETWhat makes a great speech? Persuasion.
This is what the experts at Quantified Impressions, a firm that analyzes communications skills, report is most critical to connect with a crowd--when the crowd is college grads, at least.
Examining 31 college commencement speeches cited in the press as compelling and memorable, the firm evaluated these talks against a database of ordinary speeches and everyday conversation. The analysis included 80 different metrics. Persuasion turned out to be the metric, or variable, that the 31 speeches had most in common.
And based on that, Quantified Impressions came up with a list of 10 best speeches.
"These speeches are the best because the speakers persuade the audience to be emotionally moved," says Noah Zandan, Quantified Impressions' president.
Turns out, the best speakers persuade by doing three key things. They explain their relevance ("I was just like you"). They give insight ("Here's what life will be like"). And they use inclusive words: you, we, us, with, along.
It's no surprise who comes out on top. Oprah Winfrey's speech at Stanford five years ago actually beats her talk to Harvard grads last week.
The speech ranked No. 3 below is particularly historic this week: It's 50 years ago this month that John F. Kennedy, in the midst of the Cold War and on the heels of the Cuban Missile Crisis, startled the Soviets by offering unilateral nuclear restraint.
1. Oprah Winfrey - 2008, Stanford
2. David Foster Wallace - 2005, Kenyon
3. John F. Kennedy - 1963, American University
4. Maya Angelou - 1977, University of California, Riverside
5. Winston Churchill - 1941, Harrow School
6. Arianna Huffington - 2013, Smith
7. Oprah Winfrey - 2013, Harvard
8. Aaron Sorkin - 2012, Syracuse
9. Former Yahoo (YHOO) CEO Carol Bartz - 2012, University of Wisconsin - Madison
![Quantified Impressions - Top Commencement Speeches Graphic - ORIGINAL[1]](http://fortunepostcards.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/quantified-impressions-top-commencement-speeches-graphic-original1.jpg?w=300&h=225)
10. Amazon.com (AMZN) CEO Jeff Bezos - 2010, Princeton
Where is Steve Jobs--his famous 2005 speech at Stanford--in the Quantified Impressions rankings? No. 20.
For more on this year's best commencement speeches, see Mary Civiello's Guest Post.
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Will Oprah disown OWN?
If she wrote a book about OWN, Oprah Winfrey said on CBS This Morning yesterday, she could call it 101 Mistakes.
Oprah's No. 1 error? Launching her cable TV network "when we really weren't ready to launch," she confessed to best friend Gayle King and her co-host, Charlie Rose.
About her 15-month-old joint venture with Discovery Communications (DISCA), Oprah added: "Had I known it was this difficult, I might have done something else."
With MORE
Patricia Sellers - Apr 3, 2012 12:36 PM ET -
Getting a grip on power: 10 tips for a successful career
Ever since Fortune, in 1998, started ranking the top women in business (yes, we were first), I've been asking the stars of the Most Powerful Women list how they reached the top and how they stay there. One month away from revealing our 2011 MPW rankings, now seems a good time to share some of their best career tips. Here is my Top 10:
1. Don't plan your career. Most of MORE
Patricia Sellers - Aug 30, 2011 10:48 AM ET -
Oprah owns her power, takes the CEO job
Last fall, in Oprah's Next Act, Oprah Winfrey talked about how she has learned to embrace her power.
Well, she did that today, by naming herself CEO of OWN, her new cable network that's been struggling to find its audience.
So much for the life of leisure Oprah once imagined she might have after her daytime talk show ended. ("La-di-da, I'll do a show and then I'll go have lunch with my MORE
Patricia Sellers - Jul 13, 2011 5:05 PM ET -
Fortune's Most Powerful Women and Yahoo: Keys to success
Fortune and Yahoo (YHOO) are teaming up to present weekly content -- stories and videos -- about Most Powerful Women. This is the first in a series of Postcards that will appear on Yahoo and Fortune.com.
It's the start of Most Powerful Women season at Fortune Magazine.
This is the time we begin hunting in earnest for the most successful women in business around the world. Fortune launched Most Powerful Women (MPW) in MORE
Patricia Sellers - Jun 29, 2011 9:30 AM ET -
The queens of media are falling fast
I was on stage with Jennifer Siebel Newsom, the producer and director of Miss Representation, on Friday just after the news broke that Christina Norman was out as CEO of Oprah Winfrey's new TV network, OWN.
What an odd coincidence, since Newsom's documentary explores the dearth of women in "clout positions" in the mainstream media. Newsom says that this number is 3%.
Clearly, it is getting worse.
The day before Norman, a former president MORE
Patricia Sellers - May 9, 2011 2:54 PM ET -
Can Oprah lift OWN's low ratings?
by Patricia Sellers
Will Oprah Winfrey's OWN be a top 10 cable network?
"Technically, I don't think in terms of being in the top 10," Oprah told me in September, before the 1/1/11 launch of her new cable network. "But do I think we will be? Yes."
Fortune's recent cover story, "Oprah's Next Act," detailed her big hopes and just-as-big fears about her new venture. Now it appears that OWN's road to the MORE
Patricia Sellers - Feb 28, 2011 3:56 PM ETPosted in: David Zaslav, Discovery Communications, entertainment, media, OPrah Winfrey, OWN, Postcards -
Lady Gaga, Oprah, and Cathie Black: Reinvent!
by Patricia Sellers
Did you hear that Lady Gaga was the magazine world's No. 1 hit-maker in 2010? So says the Audit Bureau of Circulations, which found that the provocative performer sold more magazine covers last year than any other celebrity.
That got me thinking...Lady Gaga shares a trait with two other powerful women who are making news this week: Oprah Winfrey and Cathie Black, the new chancellor of New York City's MORE
Patricia Sellers - Jan 5, 2011 11:42 AM ET -
Oprah's OWN moment: Stedman's note inspired the dream
by Patricia Sellers
Oprah Winfrey arrived on cable this weekend at long last. And I do mean long.
When I interviewed Oprah in her Chicago office a few months ago, she pulled a piece of paper out of her desk drawer. It was a note, scrawled in pencil, that Stedman Graham, her boyfriend, wrote to her when they were on vacation together in April 1992. Oprah had never shared the note with MORE
Patricia Sellers - Jan 3, 2011 12:48 PM ET -
TIME's take on Powerful Women
by Patricia Sellers
This week, TIME Magazine presents the 25 Most Powerful Women of the Past Century.
Interesting that TIME, Fortune's sister magazine at Time Inc. (TWX), includes just two businesswomen on its list. Both -- Martha Stewart and Oprah Winfrey -- are entrepreneurs. Since her company, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia (MSO), is struggling these days, Martha didn't make this year's Fortune Most Powerful Women list. Oprah, whose power keeps expanding and MORE
Patricia Sellers - Nov 22, 2010 12:12 PM ET
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Fortune senior editor at large Pattie Sellers has written some of Fortune's most talked-about cover stories, including "Marissa Mayer: Ready to Rumble at Yahoo," "Oprah's Next Act," "Can Meg Whitman Save California?" "The $100 Billion Woman" (Melinda Gates), and "Remodeling Martha" (Martha Stewart). She has helped oversee Fortune's "Most Powerful Women in Business" package every year since its launch in 1998. Pattie is Executive Director of the Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit, the preeminent gathering of women leaders in business and beyond. She oversees MPW programs that enable women leaders to extend their influence and empower the next generation—such as Fortune MPW Entrepreneurs and the Fortune-U.S. State Department Global Women Leaders Mentoring Partnership. Beyond her Fortune duties, she is also developing Live Content across Time Inc. Pattie grew up in Allentown, PA, graduated from the University of Virginia, and started at Fortune in 1984. Her blog, Postcards, is about how power players lead, manage others, and navigate their careers.
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The Fortune/U.S. State Department Global Women Leaders Mentoring Partnership brings rising-star women from countries around the world to the U.S. for three-week mentorships with participants of the annual Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit - among them Ursula Burns of Xerox, Laura Lang of Time Inc., Marissa Mayer of Yahoo, and Tory Burch.
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