So I had to sit and think about what speakers I connect with. Finally I came up with an answer. There is a source of people that meet every one of the five cannons of rhetoric and they do this with a masterful mix of ethos, pathos, and logos. These people are comedians. And, of the vast number of good comedians available to choose from, my mind went to two: Chris Rock and Lewis Black.

                The reason I chose these two is because they both have the ability to draw the crowd in from the first word of their presentation and can keep the crowd engaged, shocked, and entertained until their last word. Their power to persuade comes from their personal character (for both, anger and observation are great), their great ability to arouse emotions on a dime (they know what the key points to their discussions are and what the crowd is going to do when that point is stated), and their ability to take the audience on a logical journey through their observations while having the crowd understand the message in the end. Every one of their talks is inventive, has great style, is arranged in a manner that makes sense, is well informed and memorized, and is delivered with precision.

                To be an effective communicator today a person must be able grab the attention of the listening party and keep hold of that attention. Our brains are used to stimuli constantly pounding away at our minds and when we do not have a well developed presentation to look at while the speaker is talking or the speaker is not constantly sending us on an emotional roller coaster we will get bored. And once we are bored we are gone; are you still with me?