PACIFIC RIM TALK : Eloquent--and interesting--seminar speakers are hard to come by.

Taking advantage of growing American interest in the Pacific Rim, more organizations are sponsoring seminars on business opportunities in Asia. The economies of the Pacific Rim are growing--as a subject for conferences.

With the growth in conferencing comes a spate of speakers-for-hire, a growing number of “Pac Rimmers” ready and willing to tell companies how to ride the Asian economic tide. Some come with interesting and helpful presentations, and others come with dull speeches and hidden agendas.

As the ranks of traveling Pac Rim “experts” swell, conference organizers--faced with more and more competition for seminar dollars--are beginning to cast a more critical eye at podium candidates as part of an effort to identify entertaining and informative speakers.

Conference organizers and leading speakers say the quality of presentations can vary widely because the ranks of the eligible range from executives with weak public speaking skills to university professors with little or no understanding of the business world.

“Speakers can make or break a conference,” said Jack Lewis, who organizes Pacific Rim conferences for USC’s International Business Education and Research program. “An instructor must have content and good delivery skills. It doesn’t do anyone any good if a speaker is knowledgeable but doesn’t know how to keep the participants interested.”

IBEAR, which has a tradition of preparing seminars, has produced conferences on the Asian economies since 1985. However, many other organizations--for example, some management consultants, accounting firms, business chambers, trade groups and foundations--have only recently begun to sponsor Pac Rim conferences. Some of the newer sponsors sometimes have difficulty getting desired speakers, according to Richard Drobnick, an economist and director of IBEAR.

An Invitation a Week

“It’s a big growth industry . . . and many conferences are lousy,” Drobnick said. “Often, important people are put in a position where they don’t want to speak. They don’t want to say anything controversial. That situation produces a lot of yawns.”

Drobnick, among the nation’s most popular Pacific Rim speakers, said he gets about one invitation per week.

“The demand (for speakers) has really taken off in the last couple of years,” Drobnick said. “Sponsors want to get someone who knows something about business in that region. That may sound silly, but it’s not unusual for a conference to present someone who doesn’t know very much. In those situations, the (speaker’s) staff writes a speech.”

IBEAR tries to ensure quality by having seminar participants grade their conference instructors on a scale of 1 to 7--7 being the top grade. Participants rate the speakers on clarity, knowledge, organization and other elements.

IBEAR administrators say participants rank most instructors in the 5-to-7 range. In most cases, IBEAR relays those grades to the speakers. However, a small number are given low grades and are not invited to speak at subsequent seminars, IBEAR administrators said. They said ratings are not relayed to speakers in those cases.

Among those getting kudos from IBEAR and other conference organizers are two China scholars--William A. Fischer of the University of North Carolina and Denis F. Simon of Tufts. Thomas Gold of the University of California-Berkeley is rated among the best speakers on Taiwan. Yu Sang Chang of Boston University, a specialist on Korea, also makes the “best-address” list of some sponsors.

The list of so-called stars has lengthened as more and more management consultants and corporate executives join academicians on the circuit. One of the most respected speakers in this “business world” group--Berkeley-based consultant Tom Lifson--condemns those who use conferences for personal ax-grinding.

Awkward Situation

“These people,” Lifson said, “are not so interested in enlightening the audience. They have ulterior motives. I’ve seen speakers who provide a professional service, try to highlight the need for their service--try to sell their service. That’s uncomfortable for the audience and embarrassing to fellow members of the panel.”

On the other hand, some academicians irritate their audience by presenting theory without a practical context, according to Christopher Engholm, a San Diego business consultant who has frequently attended conferences. Engholm, who has business experience in China, said he sometimes chafes when a professor focuses on studies in a narrow academic discipline, a field that only remotely relates to business.

“One conference presented two graduate students who actually read their dissertation,” Engholm recalled. “After listening to a dynamic speaker, having someone read to you can be pretty anticlimactic. Later, someone asked them a business-related question and they couldn’t give an answer.

“Sometimes,” Engholm continued, “you get a muddle-headed academic who studies surveys and reads the Harvard Business Review, but has very little hands-on experience. I’ve seen audiences get pretty frustrated with that.”

While conferees, conference organizers and leading seminar speakers sometimes differ over the most redeeming qualities of a conference speaker, they all subscribe to one philosophy: Know the audience.

“The best speakers have a feel for the needs of the audience,” explained Diana Rowland, author of “Japanese Business Etiquette” and a speaker. “Some make a mistake by not speaking on the same level as the audience. You need to be knowledgeable, but you also need to provide the information in an interesting way.”

Robert Sharp, a Los Angeles-based vice president at Manufacturers Hanover, said he uses humor to get his audience to relax and be more receptive.

“I often tell them that the first 38 years in the (Asian) market are the hardest,” said Sharp, formerly president of Manufacturers Hanover Trust Bank Ltd. in Tokyo. “It’s important to have a touch of lightness and humor because financial information can be boring.”

While eloquence and wit are important to some conferees, others are more interested in a speaker’s business contacts, according to Natasha Wolniansky, director of international programs for the New York-based American Management Association.

“The smart executives come for the networking,” she said. “That’s the biggest selling point for the conferences--the opportunity to network with people who have done business in Asia.”

Wolniansky said she prefers to present executives from firms based in the Pacific Basin as speakers because U.S. executives are very interested in the views of their Asian counterparts.

However, Hiro Saito, a Los Angeles-based senior vice president and general manager at Mitsui & Co., said he accepts fewer speaking invitations to Pacific Rim conferences. He said he has been losing interest because many concentrate on broad topics--dealing with cultural differences, for example--instead of nuts-and-bolts topics such as business opportunities.

Saito said he has seen a change in the approach of Japanese speakers at conference gatherings.

“Japanese people generally are not outspoken . . . and have not been provocative,” Saito observed. “Now, the Japanese are becoming more outspoken at these conferences.”