University Place Wednesday Nite @ the Lab Tom Zinnen, "Discoveries from the National Science Foundation" 10/27/2010  UP 511   cc >> Tom Zinnen: Welcome, everybody, to Wednesday Nite at the Lab. I'm Tom Zinnen. I work here at the Biotechnology Center. I also work for UW-Extension, Cooperative Extension, and on behalf of our partners at the Wisconsin Alumni Association and Wisconsin Public Television, welcome to Wednesday Nite at the Lab. We do this every Wednesday night, 50 times a year. Tonight I'm delighted to introduce myself. (laughter) I won't screw up the introduction, which is really good, and I don't have to read it off anything. I was coerced, uh, persuaded into doing this by Beatrice, who is one of our longest running participants, and she said, "If you make all these other people give talks about their experiences, you ought to give one on yours." And I said, "No way." And then she said it again, and she eventually persuaded me. So I'm delighted to be here tonight. It's probably the windiest night in recent history, so thank you very much for leaning into the wind and coming here. 

I was born in Dixon, Illinois. Does everybody know what the watershed is in Dixon, Illinois? You throw your canoe in Lake Mendota and you paddle down the Yahara and you get to the Rock River, and you keep paddling south and you go by Dixon. I feel very good that I still live in my birth watershed. (laughter) Yes. I went to school at UW-Platteville and graduated in 1979 with a degree in biology. Studied at the University of Illinois for two years and graduated with a master's in plant pathology. Then I came here and got a PhD in plant pathology with an emphasis in plant virology. That was April of 1985. I went back to the state of Illinois for five years, but then I came back here on June 3 of 1991 and I've been working for the Biotech Center and the UW Cooperative Extension Family Living Program ever since. In 2000 and 2001 I was a Congressional Science Fellow, I worked on the House Committee on Agriculture staff. 

(sighs) And I just came back from...oh. (laughter) Sorry about that, I forgot that was still rolling. This is me at a young age, studying. I just came back from a 21-month sojourn to the National Science Foundation where I served as a speech writer. Let's see if I can get back to the slides.  (humming softly) View slideshow. Excellent. I just did the introduction. I'd like to say thanks to several people and I'll repeat this at the end. I think it's good to say thanks at the beginning. 

First of all, to the people at National Science Foundation who hosted me. They were splendid, and I'll list their names at the end, but particularly Patricia Garfinkel, who was my supervisor and leads the speech team there. And also the people here at UW-Madison and at UW Extension who let me go. And, by the way, they let me come back. (laughter) Next. Because I work for Cooperative Extension, we do things a little bit different. We ask for the questions at the beginning. So if you would like to ask any questions right now, I will try to answer them as I go through the talk. Yes. >> How did your entrance to the National Science Foundation begin? What brought that on? >> Zinnen: What brought it on? Why? I can do that. 

>> What is Cooperative Extension? What does the word "cooperative" mean? >> Zinnen: "Don't complain to me." Okay, she asked what Cooperative Extension means. All right. Other questions? Yes. Okay, go ahead. >> How many people did you write speeches for? >> Zinnen: Oh, how many bosses?  Nick. >> What are some of the things that you brought back to influence this campus and the community?  >> Zinnen: Okay, what did I bring back? Nicole. >> I'd love to hear about either your favorite or most important speech that you wrote. >> Zinnen: My favorite or most important speech? Okay. That will be easy. Yes. 

>> Please include a story, at least one, about your kids. (laughter) >> Zinnen: You're going to make me talk about my children? Okay. How's the gene pool? We're not sure who the paternal unit is. Yes. >> How big is the media and public outreach arm of NSF? >> Zinnen: How big is the media and public outreach arm of NSF? Yes. >> What is your favorite restaurant in Washington? (laughter) >> Zinnen: Favorite restaurant.  >> Why did you return? (laughter)  (Zinnen sighs) >> That's all right. >> What's the biggest thing you learned in the process of these two years? >> Zinnen: That'll be harder.  Other things? That's a good list, okay. Here we go. 

Well, why did I go? My wife. She got done with her PhD in the summer of 2008 and not only did she get done, she got a job offer in Washington, DC. The people who agreed to hire her said, "We will give you from July until January for your husband to find a job." (one audience member laughs) Thank you for laughing, that's really good. (laughter) The clock was ticking on me and I had to find a job. And not just any job, but a job that the university would let me go on leave for, because I'd done a sabbatical-type leave in 2000 and 2001. That was very important, because the leave that I took in 2000 and 2001 was with AAAS, the American Association for the Advancement of... >> (all): Science. >> And they produce the magazine or journal called "Science." And they have a thing called Congressional Science Fellows, that's what I was, and they've been doing this for 35 years. They have this wonderful list-serv that says, "Here are career options that are available to you." So throughout the month of July and August and into September, I was job hunting. Reading those emails every day. 

Yes, I was getting depressed. Not only that, what was happening in the economy in September of 2008? You hear that flushing sound? Yeah, September 15 of 2008, it was a Monday, I was there. Who filed for bankruptcy?  George Bush... (laughter) Okay, that's one joke. >> Lehman Brothers. >> Zinnen: Lehman Brothers. So keep that in mind. I ended up getting this, and I'll show you the email, on September 17 at about 11:00 in the morning. This email came across and I went, "Oh! That's the job that I want." When you ask, why did I go? It was because my wife had this opportunity to work in Washington DC after spending a large number of years getting her PhD here in sociology and demography. Plus, it was time for me to do another sabbatical type leave. 

So those are why I left. It was a very interesting time to be there. I just want to go through this real quick. I started on November 3, which was a Monday. What was on Tuesday? Oh, that election thing. And on the 5th, my second day at NSF, was also the first day for the transition team. So how long do the transition teams, whichever party wins, how long do they have? From election day to January 20. Not very long. Both campaigns have already ginned up their transition team. On Tuesday night, the one team finds out they've got to report to work on Wednesday and the other doesn't. 

That was very interesting, for my second day to be there, to watch the transition start happening. I've got "holiday parties" here because one of the great things about starting at that time of the year is, one of the fast ways to meet people is going to all these different holiday parties. And that includes at NSF. One of the people that I met at the holiday party at the Office of Integrated Affairs was Cora Marrett. Some of you know Cora because she's a Professor Emeritus of sociology here. She served as UW system vice president. She's had two significant periods of service at NSF. And my wife is in sociology, so it was like, "Hello, how's it going?" The next date on there is Friday, January 16, and that's significant because that's the last Friday before the Tuesday of the inauguration. Guess who has to resign on Tuesday at noon? >> All the political appointees. >> Zinnen: All the political appointees. 

How many political appointees of the type that have to resign are there at NSF? One. That's not bad. And that's the deputy director. The director serves a six-year term and does not have to resign upon inauguration of a new president. The deputy director resigned on January 16, a few days before, and who got appointed acting deputy director? Cora Marrett. So the two people that I ended up writing for were the director, Arden Bement, Jr. and Cora Marrett. Then the inauguration is a day off in federal workland in DC, so I got to stay home and watch the two children and watch the inauguration on the big screen TV. Oh, no, I didn't. No, my children watched cartoons on the big screen TV, and I watched the inauguration on this tiny little TV. 

(laughter) I had been to the inauguration in 2001. You remember that one. So Kristin wanted to go, so a bunch of her friends came in and they froze to death. It was really great. But a million people were still on the mall. The next big thing was the ARRA, which was signed February 17, and look at where it was signed. President Obama didn't sign it at the White House. Where did he go? To Denver. He went to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. Do you think he was sending a message? What did President Obama's mom do for a living? >> She was a scientist, wasn't she? >> Zinnen: She was a scientist, wasn't she? What was the last president whose mom was a professional scientist? Keep that in mind. 

On April 27 of 2009, the president gave a very interesting speech to the National Academy of Sciences. Basically affirming his commitment and his administration's commitment to follow the data. No big deal. Except in contrast. And then this little thing came out at the same time called the swine flu. Swine flu, I think, was one of the first major challenges to the Obama administration to see, could they walk the talk? Were they going to whitewash this stuff, or were they going to take the hard stuff of doing the best they could to follow the data on the swine flu? Throughout the summer, they started doing health care insurance overhaul. In August, Senator Ted Kennedy died, and that was of interest to me, for living there, because I wanted to take my kids, not to the funeral, but when they drove around the city of Washington and over the bridge into Arlington to Arlington National Cemetery. Because I was in first grade when John Kennedy was killed, and I remember delivering newspapers when Robert Kennedy was killed. And I thought that would be a very good thing for my kids to see. I don't think my son will remember it, but I think my daughter will. 

It's an example of one of the things that's interesting about living in Washington. It's a ceremonial city where history is made, the kind that you read about in your history books. Then the autumn appropriations cycle started and they started a new budget cycle, which is important because in late January of this year, our director at the time, Dr. Bement, announced that he was going to retire. Well, he had all the way up until about now on his term. This caught everybody by surprise. Right after that, we had this little thing called "Snowmaggedon." We had about 12, 15 inches of snow the Friday before Christmas. It's very interesting watching Washington people prepare for snow. (laughter) They know what they're doing. Because they get a lot more snow than we do. When was the last time Madison got 15 inches of snow? Last time I can name, in a single fall, was in December of 1990, because I was supposed to come up here for the job interview. 

We don't get really big snowfalls all at once, and they do because they have all that warm, moist air come up off the Atlantic. If you can find an edible thing in a supermarket a day before the snow is due to arrive, it's amazing. I took pictures. I should show them to you. It looked like the Soviet Union in 1980. It was amazing. That was just the first snowfall. The Snowmaggedon was actually in February, and it started on a Friday. That was the first day that we got off. And it fell 24 inches, breathlessly. 

It came down like this and it all piled up, and I had never seen 24 inches of snow before. Then on Tuesday, another 12 inches fell and we were shut down from Friday through Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. The whole city was shut down. I almost ate my children. (laughter) It goes to show durability and how people look ahead. Because they're going to do things a little bit differently, but it was an amazing time to be there. Everybody thought I was a genius at snow removal. It was like, "36 inches? I've never seen 36 inches of snow." Then our director retired at the end of May, and the NSF had to wait. They had to wait to find out who the president was going to nominate. Then we had to wait to find out whether the senate was going to approve of him. 

I left by that time, the new director was just sworn in on the 18th. Then the next big challenge on science was the BP oil spill. When I headed home on August 13, and on August 19 I came back here to the Biotech Center. As I say, "The Return of the Non-Native to the Land Flowing in Milk and Lager." This is what the email looked like. "My office is looking for a speechwriter," cool, "to spend a year or two." Whoa. That's a nice option. "Office of Legislative and Public Affairs." I'm a Cooperative Extension specialist. I do this stuff for a living. Cooperative Extension is the arm of the College of Agriculture in most states. Here it's part of the UW Cooperative Extension that does outreach in agriculture, community, natural resources development, 4-H and youth development, family living, and other areas. 

I'm qualified because I work for an academic or nonprofit institution, and I could be an IPA rotator. That's my rotation. And that meant I didn't go on leave, I went on loan. What's the difference? If I went on leave, I'd take temporary leave of my appointment here and my boss and my pay would not come from UW-Madison. On loan, NSF sends money to UW-Madison. Who continues to pay me? UW-Madison. Where do I continue to collect my time for retirement and pension? UW-Madison. (whistles) Very sweet. It was nice. Then the most critical thing, "This person does not need to be an experienced speechwriter," which is good, because I hadn't. 

They asked me to send some examples. I said I couldn't. I'd never written a speech for somebody else. "The ideal candidate doesn't have to have a science background, just an interest in writing about science and engineering for a lay audience." (whistles) So I called that number right there and talked to one of my colleagues. Melissa Summers, at the time, was a AAAS Science Fellow, working in the executive branch. The following Friday, I interviewed. The Friday after that, I got a job offer. >> Did you go for the interview? >> Zinnen: Did I go for the interview? Yes, I did. They beckoned, I said, yes. On September 26. 

On October 4, I got the job offer and they wanted me to start by Halloween. I said, "Halloween? How about the Monday afterwards?" Can I negotiate, or what? This is important to me, because when I was growing up, my mom still had a set of 78s. The big 78s that spin around really fast. It was the set called "I Can Hear it Now," and it was compilations by Edward R. Murrow of great broadcasts from the '30s and '40s. Unbelievable. So as a young kid, I heard things like the Hindenberg disaster in New Jersey, where the guy ends up saying, "The humanity! The humanity!" >> Was that in New Jersey? >> Zinnen: I believe so. There were speeches by Churchill. There were speeches by MacArthur. One I remember particularly well was Arthur Godfrey's coverage of FDR's caisson going down Pennsylvania Avenue. This is my earliest example of getting a big, big idea that speeches are written, but the big thing is, speeches are spoken. 

I got this job as an IPA person. I got to be a speechwriter and I got to play with words. Things like "speechwriter." Because you actually make a speech for somebody else to deliver. Now I want to give you an overview of the National Science Foundation. This will give you an idea of some of the questions here. Here we go. How big is the federal budget? It's going to be about $3.8 trillion. How much of that is non-defense discretionary? $600 million. Not a big chunk. Where does NSF find? As part of that $71 million there in non-defense R&D. 

Where does the federal government spend its research and development investment? Well, it's at almost $148 billion, and it does basic and applied, and development and equipment, and all that good stuff, but you can get an idea. We're talking about $150 billion, as in "B", dollars a year. How has it been growing or not growing? Remember, this is in constant dollars. When it goes up, it's going up adjusted for inflation. This big spike here in 2009, 2010 is because of ARRA, the Recovery Act. It gives you an idea of where all this good stuff goes. These are the trends by agencies, and you're going to start to see who the competition is. It's a friendly competition. It's a competition for money. You have USDA, National Science Foundation, National Aeronautic and Space Administration, the Department of Energy, National Institutes of Health, and the Department of Defense. 

Here's where the big question is. How is your agency doing this year? I would say this coming year NSF is at the top of the second tier. You can see NOAA and NIST and NASA are up there, 18% to 22% increases. NSF is at 9.4%.  Claire? You've got to go around there. Okay, thank you. And so NSF is doing pretty darn good. This gives you an idea of how big it is, compared to the other agencies. NSF's total budget is around $7 billion. Its research budget is about $5.5, R&D. 

You can see the biggest one is Department of Defense, then NIH, then Department of Energy, then NASA. We are not the biggest people on the block. Here's how we're looking. The key thing is, it's been going up. We had a huge bolus of money. Keep in mind, our NSF budget is about $6.5 to $7 billion. How much additional money did they get from Congress and the president, from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act? $3 billion. (whistles) That's, like, a 50% increase without any extra people. And there was extra reporting responsibilities for that. This is the website for NSF. 

Hope you go through here sometime. One of the things you'll see is, this is what they liked to say. "Where discoveries begin." That's what NSF uses as their mantra. You can see they also appreciate breakthroughs. To address the question of how many bosses, I had two bosses. One was the director and the other was the deputy director of the NSF. That's all that the speechwriting team at NSF writes for. The other people there, the board for the National Science Foundation is the National Science Board. You're going to have to get her. (inaudible) >> Zinnen: Thank you, Claire. 

Has anybody got any duct tape? (laughter) Super glue, oh my God, that's child abuse! (laughter) The National Science Board is the overall board for NSF, but I did not work directly for them, I worked for the director. This is how big NSF is. There's only about 2100 people, and they work at two buildings. Do we run any labs? We're not like NIH. The NSF does not run any labs. All NSF does is? Functions as? (inaudible) >> Zinnen: It functions as a foundation. It gives awards to researchers and educators in science and engineering. I was among the 200 scientists from research institutions on temporary duty. There were also a lot of contract workers, but 2100 people committing $7 billion a year, the stewardship required for that, and about 10,000 grants a year. It's divided into these directorates. 

There's seven of them, you can read those. Each is run by an assistant director. Then, the office of directors also does these four cross-divisional programs and we wrote a lot of speeches about these folks, so I got to know them particularly well. That's something to keep in mind as you're trying to do multidisciplinary research and education in science and engineering. There's other sections at NSF to manage the money, to award the grants, to do the legal affairs, and to take care of legislative and public affairs, and that's who I worked for. You're going to have to get her. Hey, Claire, can you go to the lab?  Thank you. Then for those of you who have worked in... The lab's that way. For those of you that worked in Washington, there's this thing called the Office of the Inspector General, which is new to me. 

I don't think we have anything comparable to that in state government, but every federal agency has an independent inspector general that watches over and guides and makes sure everything is done the way it's supposed to be. Here's the big numbers. 40,000 grant proposals, funds about 10,000 and it supports about 200,000 scientists, engineers, educators, and students at universities, research field sites in the US and around the world. Now I'd like to talk about entering speechwriting. Apprenticeship comes from the French word "apprendre," which means "to learn." It's related to "comprehend" or "grasp." The team is composed of just four or five people. It fluctuated while I was there. The bosses are two. That's the director and the deputy director. The audiences tended to be scientifically savvy groups that had invited the director or the deputy director. They would go to various places around the United States or around the world and give talks, give speeches. 

Or they would give welcoming speeches to people who had come to Washington, either for meetings or conferences or special occasions, and so that would be a local speech. The messages. The messages are primarily, "This is what we're about." We always have to be reminding people, "this is what we're about." NSF is where discoveries begin. We fund research and education in science and engineering. Real basic messages that need to be put forth clearly, and yet with some eloquence and grace. Some surprises that I ran into. I was surprised that almost all speeches are written by one person and are not a collaboration and not vetted with a team. I thought you would collaborate, since there was a speechwriting team, but what you actually do is, you bid for a job, you get this job and you write that speech. Testimony to congress is a special category, especially if it's going to be under oath, because it has to be widely vetted ahead of time, both within NSF and then vetted with the Office of Management and Budget and then revised again. Why? You saw how big, in dollar terms, the federal executive branch is. 

Who is in charge of making sure all these different federal heads of agencies are saying the same thing? OMB. So if you're drifting from the agenda of the president, who's going to hound dog you and bird dog you? OMB. Why? Because that's their job. Speeches are shorter than the academic 40 or 45 minute presentation. (someone laughs) Which is really a relief. I wrote one 40 minute speech. Most of them are ten minutes, some are fifteen, but most are no more than ten. And speeches don't generally include PowerPoints, especially if your boss doesn't want them. Many speeches are written without access to the boss. That means you don't get to talk to the boss ahead of time, necessarily. 

What I did find is, nothing is better than access to the boss. They are extraordinarily bright people. They are seasoned, they are savvy, they know their audiences, and if you can get 15 minutes with them, both the people that I worked for could sit and do almost Jack Kerouac stream-of-consciousness. They could write the speech faster than I could write it down. I almost wish I had, like my mom, had some shorthand skills. >> Did you do have to do your own research or did you have help with that? >> Zinnen: Did I do my own research or did I have help with that? I look at the job as similar to what I imagine a reporter to be. And that is, I've got to go find people who can tell me the answers. I've got to check it and make sure that what one person was telling me is consistent with what other people might be telling me. Rule number one, two, and three is, don't make your boss look bad. One way to make your boss look bad is writing something into a speech that's stupid or wrong. 

Not that I would ever do that. Another surprise. You don't get to coach your boss in person on how to deliver the words, on pace or volume or cadence or pauses. At best, you get to write them into the text. That's a little tough. I came up with a little line called "be a lion, put more pause in your clause." (laughter) I know, isn't that horrible? And I always thought that drafts should be sent in two forms. As text, which is what we did, but also as an mp3 file of the writer speaking the speech so that the boss could hear how the writer had it in mind. Not that the boss had to take it verbatim that way, but it would give them an idea back to that, "I can hear it now," of what you have bouncing around in your head as a speechwriter. Another thing that surprised me is that humor is the hardest thing to write, especially to write well. Luckily I was never asked to write humor. 

One poor, misguided soul thought I should, and they thought I should, because I'm an intelligent donkey in back-and-forth talking to people, but I don't think I could successfully write humor into a speech. And that includes just telling standard canned jokes. Then there's attribution and the speechwriter's code. I'd heard this, but I was surprised that it's still there. As a speechwriter, you draft the speech and that's it. You don't have ownership, it's not your speech. The boss gives it and the boss is the author, and that's the rules. Those are the rules I played by. I thought they were very straightforward, fair rules. That's why you will see, speechwriters will generally not acknowledge anything that they wrote. 

>> Is that equivalent to ghostwriting? >> Zinnen: Is that equivalent to ghostwriting? Ghostwriting, as far as I know, is something done in writing books and not in writing speeches. So I don't think it's equivalent to that. The process of getting a speech assignment basically went like this. Every Wednesday at 10:30 we got together and we had a calendar. Each week there was a sheet, and it included all the speeches that were assigned, and it included any new speeches that came in and you just said-- we looked to see, of the three speechwriters, who was already booked up, or who was busy, who had time, who had interest, and who had background. We'd have a conversation and you'd basically say, "I'd like to write this one," or "I'll go ahead and write this one," and you got assigned it. It was pretty straightforward. From posting the invitation to posting the as-delivered version took a while. Here's some speechwriting chores that took up an inordinate amount of time. You had to confirm the time, place and room. 

You had to talk with the organizers inside and outside NSF, because you had to find out who those people were. You had to talk with them. You had to negotiate the length. "We'd like the director to give a 40-minute presentation." Well, the director would be happy to talk for ten minutes and then take questions. I was impressed by that, because that's basically saying, "You negotiate to the strength of your boss." The strength of most agency heads is not to give long, academic speeches. It's to give short speeches with their core messages and then get to what they really do well, fielding questions and providing answers. With and without PowerPoint. I think I did three speeches with PowerPoint, so it's much simpler to do a speech without PowerPoint. Then you had to decide whether you're going to accept or demure on their advice. One of the most difficult things is getting the pronunciation of the names of the people that are going to be mentioned in the text of the speech. 

Who knew? Finally, there's the protocol of introduction. When you're writing speeches where the president, or the president's science advisor, or members of the cabinet, or ambassadors, or other very high-ranking people are there,  you have to find out what's the order of mentioning people as you acknowledge them in the introduction of the speech. Then comes the draft. I think the first thing that was important to me was the whole idea of tone. I don't mean sound tone yet, I mean, what position do you place the speaker in. Usually, for most of the things that I wrote, it was an attitude of gratitude. Appreciation that people came to Washington. Thanks for being invited to a speech far away. There were only one or two where we knew it was going to be loggerheads and you still have to express a tone of gratitude to start things out. I've always been impressed by English, that they have these two words, "oral" and "aural." I don't know, do you pronounce them the same? I think they're homonyms. 

One has to do with the mouth, the first "oral," and the second has to do with the ear. That's the second "aural." You have to think about how things are going to feel in the mouth and sound in the ear, and then reverberate in the heart. The major messages are mission themes. We are where discovery begins. We do research and education in science and engineering. That foursome came back over and over again, because that's a major theme. What sets us apart from other federal agencies that provide funding for research? We are investigator-initiated. We have the gold standard for peer review, and our grants are awarded competitively. The two criteria are intellectual merit and broader impacts. We always have to remind people that this is one of the things, and this is how we function as a federal funding agency. 

Then this big theme, broadening participation. To get more people from more groups, which are currently underrepresented, in specific areas of science or in science broadly. These are themes that we hit over and over again. Yes? >> Were you ever aware that some phrase you used in a speech might be taken out of context and completely changed in the media? >> Zinnen: The question was, was I ever aware that a phrase I used in a draft might be spoken by the director or the deputy and then taken out of context in the media? Yeah, you have to be very careful of that, and that's part of the editing process. People who worked there far longer than I have had a better ear for landmines, and so that's what you're looking for.  NSF covers the full range of science, including the social sciences and the history of science. Hospitality and gratitude always are something, to hit those themes. Then there were tailored themes for the audience and to the occasion. Let's see, here we go. Then for me, the keys and the things that were the hardest were coming up with an introduction, finding a metaphor, and then crafting the benediction. 

Crafting a memorable metaphor. It should be short and sweet. It should be an infectious confection, easy to enjoy, and easy to spread. The peroration is the wind-up toward the end of the benediction, which is the end. Coming up with those, what people tend to remember are how you start out and how you end up. So you have to spend more time on those three or four paragraphs than the rest of the body of your speech. Then, it's helpful to find a gracious invitation to the question and answer, because if one of your strengths is, you want them to do the Q&A, you want to have on the text, "And now I'd be delighted to respond to any of your questions," so that people know that you're there to take their questions. Re-drafting is something that the writer does, and this involves self-editing, but then you get to go to the editor, and in my case that was Patricia Garfinkel. Then if you're lucky, you get feedback from the boss, who is the director or the deputy director. One of the great things about this is, month by month, you get better at self-editing. 

Then there's this great line from Tennessee Williams who had Blanche DuBois say, "I have always depended on the kindness of strangers" in "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof"? >> "Streetcar Named Desire." >> Zinnen: "Streetcar Named Desire," thank you. I had a 50/50 chance and I blew it. And I think Tennessee Williams wouldn't mind if I said, "Speechwriters have always depended on the kindness of editors." Some of the challenges. Writing for two different people. I know they're two different people. They have two different voices, two different personalities, and two very different sets of expectations. One liked it when you provided the text, bing, bing, bing, this is what I will say. The other, give me some broad outlines, I will use it as a springboard. That also means your feedback is much different. The editing nuts and bolts. 

How to go from your draft mess to a message. How to massage the metaphor so that it doesn't ring hollow or can't be taken out of context or has some twisted potential meaning that you hadn't thought of. For clarity, elegance and correction. These are all things that having a second set of eyeballs on a speech is essential. Then this idea of dodging landmines and dodging embarrassment. You've got to omit things, cut out things that you might have included that could be embarrassing, or you might have forgotten to include something that would be equally embarrassing because it wasn't in there. This is where having an editor who has worked in Washington for 20 or 25 years, both on the hill and on the executive branch, really helps. Then you have to ensure that the themes and messages reflect the NSF as a whole. Because, remember, you're going to go talk to people at these directorates, and they have their own agendas. You have to make sure that the themes that they give you are aligned with the overarching themes that the director and the deputy director need to be able to give out. 

 It's a very interesting thing to get to write speeches in a city where you can go particularly to the Lincoln Memorial, because the Lincoln Memorial has three major reasons to go. The statue, and then on the left as you face the statue, the Gettysburg Address, and on the right as you face the statue, what I think is probably the finest piece of American English, the second inaugural address. It just gives you a powerful sense of the written word when spoken well. It's a great thing to aspire to, just like anybody who ever plays football in their backyard aspires to think about how great football players play. I was an apprentice speechwriter, but it was a great place to go and give speeches where so many great speeches have been delivered. With both Lincoln and Churchill, both were not noted for their voices. Lincoln's was high and tinny. Churchill had a lisp, and when you listen to it, you think, wow, this is not the deep, robust voice I thought it was going to be, which doesn't mean he didn't have a great delivery, but he wasn't James Earl Jones, either. Again, redoing the speech for the sound, being sonorous, and then the worst thing of all, the Sonoran Desert, which is where great speeches poorly delivered go to die. (laughter) Because you have wonderful lines and every now and then, they just don't get delivered the way you were hoping them to. 

But not very often. Then, the look of the speech on the paper. It was very interesting to me. We were to put it in 14-point Arial. It was to be bold, it was to be double-spaced, and there were to be two-inch margins. (whistles) That's not very many words. Why? >> Easy to see. >> Zinnen: Easy to see. How many people get teleprompters? Not many, and certainly not my bosses. Why else? >> Editing? >> Zinnen: Editing. 

If you want to edit and you've got two-inch margins, can you write copious marginal notes? Yes. And if you've got double space, can you cross out things and add things in between? Yes. It had to be stapled and it had to be paginated, because you never know when the staple's going to break, and they do the shuffle and you've got to be able to put them back together in the right order. This again was some of the mechanics of this. I thought it was interesting because I'd read enough of the biographies of Churchill to know that he had developed and used a "psalm style," what he called a "psalm style." This is his famous speech after Dunkirk. I couldn't find an exact picture of this, but I wanted to write this is in the way that I've seen some of his speeches. This is the psalm style, and it's written so that, and he always had his speeches in hand, so that he could get the cadence and the roll going based on what the text looked like. We did not do that, but I always thought it was pretty amazing. This is just an admission. It's a pretty amazing thing to get your first "atta-boy" even when you're 52. 

Finally, Washington is a town where wordplay is swordplay, and the swordplay is for keeps. I learned that when I worked on the hill. I learned it again this past 21 months. Laws and budgets, rules and regulations, negotiations and decisions, they're all made with words. Ambiguous, not-always-clear words. People that know how to use words get ahead. I think this is one reason why lawyers predominate in governance, especially politics. Lincoln said, "a lawyer's time and his advice are his stock and trade." That was in response to somebody saying to Lincoln, "this is just words." He was pointing out, words are everything when you're in law and in some other areas, also. I'm going to skip this part. These are two extracts from speeches that Dr. Bement gave. 

If you wanted to know why I liked it, this is why. And these are two of my favorite speeches that he gave that I had something to with. >> Who gave them? >> Zinnen: Dr. Bement, the director. >> Oh, the director. >> Zinnen: Yeah. >> And who wrote that speech? >> Zinnen: I can't say. (laughter) The director gave it. >> I see. >> Zinnen: Thank you. Jeez! First you make me get up here and then you ask me these tough questions!  One of the things I learned from Ken Smith starting in 1991 is the power of being able to find words that people can remember and that are infectious. 

Sometimes it's a metaphor, sometimes it's a passage. Then here's another one from the National Medal of Science from a year ago. This should be October 6, 2009. To be able to hear your boss say, "to go and to explore and to find out, to create and to doubt and to figure out, to put the minds in the hands and the hands of humanity to work in creating a better world for all," that's why I was delighted to be a speechwriter. These are the people I'd like to thank. Patricia Garfinkel, who was my boss and mentor. Linda Boutchyard, who is, as I wrote to her in a little thank-you note that I left her, when you look up the word "gracious" in the dictionary, there's a picture of Linda there. Peter West, Malaika Nji, Amber Jones, and Jan Stout were all speechwriters. Malaika was the PA, the program assistant. And here at Wisconsin, Laurie Boyce is my Extension boss at Cooperative Extension Family Living. 

Mike Sussman is the director here. Chuck Konsitzke is the assistant director who did all the work on the paper to first let me go away and then let me come back. Cheryl Redman is my colleague here at biotech. Cathy Vrentas was my back-up the first year I was gone, and Nadia Dominguez was my back-up the second year. Cassie Immel and Melissa Breunig are the two other people that work as hourlies at biotech. I think I will stop there, and take more questions if you would like. (applause)