Over Easter Monday, reports began to surface that M&S stores were experiencing issues with contactless payments, forcing customers at the checkouts to reach for chip and PIN or cash (remember that?). What might seem like a minor inconvenience in the bagging area has had big repercussions with over £700 million wiped off the retail giant’s stock market valuation.

The incident – which has all the hallmarks of a ransomware attack – is still unfolding but the scale is huge: online purchases have been paused since Friday, “pockets of limited availability” are being reported in stores across the country and there are reports of agency staff being asked not to come to work, while remote-working employees have been locked out of their IT systems. 

According to retail experts, the inability to process online orders alone could be costing Marks and Spencer a staggering £3.5 million per day. 

While M&S has vaguely referred to a “cyber incident” and the need to take some systems “temporarily offline” as part of their “proactive management,” they have declined to offer any timeframe for when normal services might resume, leaving customers and investors in the dark.

In an age of instant information and heightened awareness of cyber threats, the lack of transparency may prove to be a critical misstep. The continued silence is only fueling speculation and anxiety, especially for customers who are questioning whether their personal data has been compromised. 

This incident highlights two issues: getting the IT systems under control and back online and managing the reputational damage caused by the incident. 

Effective crisis media communication becomes essential to mitigate the damage, reassure stakeholders and demonstrate a commitment to resolving the issue. The fact that M&S hasn’t updated their holding statement in days points to a strategy of containment through silence, which is already beginning to backfire. 

At Babaco Media, we understand the critical importance of proactive crisis preparedness, particularly in the face of escalating cyber threats. While many businesses feel they are “too small for attackers to worry about”, the reality is that bad actors are using AI and automation tools to target vulnerabilities across businesses of all sizes. If you think your organisation will “fly under the radar”, you could be underestimating just how effective the cybercriminals’ radar is.  

For many companies, the first real test of their cyber security isn’t a technical audit but the moment the attack happens and the media spotlight turns their way. That’s why Babaco’s Crisis Media Communications Programme goes beyond simply reacting to events. We work with businesses to develop bespoke crisis communication plans, tailored to the specific risks they face. Our services include:

• Developing proactive communication strategies: Preparing key messages, identifying stakeholders and establishing clear communication protocols before a crisis hits.
• Conducting simulated crisis scenarios: Putting your team to the test in realistic, high-pressure environments to identify vulnerabilities and refine your response.
• Media coaching for key spokespeople: Equipping your team with the skills and confidence to communicate effectively and empathetically during a crisis.

At Babaco Media, we’ve seen first hand the power of preparation: As Founder and Media Director at Babaco, the team and I have extensive experience in creating and delivering realistic crisis media training and “what if” scenarios. As part of simulated cyber attack training days for large organisations, we draw on our background as journalists and communication specialists to play the role of ambush interviewers (otherwise known as “door-steeping media interviews), putting crisis response teams through their paces and highlighting the critical importance of clear, consistent communication under pressure. This real-world experience informs the Babaco approach and ensures our clients are truly ready to face the unexpected.

The M&S cyber attack serves as a stark reminder that in today’s digital landscape, cyber security is not just an IT issue – it’s a business continuity and reputational risk that demands a comprehensive and proactive approach. Silence is not a strategy; transparency, preparedness and effective communication are the cornerstones of resilience in the face of a cyber crisis.

Is your business prepared for the inevitable? Don’t wait for a cyber attack to test your communication strategy. Contact Babaco Media today to learn how our crisis media offering can help you build resilience, protect your reputation and navigate the complexities of a digital crisis.

The post What can we learn about how M&S handled their cyber attack? appeared first on Nadine Dereza is an award-winning broadcaster and journalist, conference chair, live events host, keynote speaker, and moderator..

It’s amazing what you find in the depths of your hard drive. In the middle of a recent conversation with my friend and colleague Ian Hawkins about Apple’s impact on the world as we were both writing a keynote speech for an upcoming event, he reminded me that I’d interviewed Apple’s co-founder Steve Wozniak. I went looking for the footage and once I’d picked myself up off the ground to discover it was filmed some 16 years or so ago, I gave it a rewatch and thought “this is too good not to share”. 

CLICK HERE TO WATCH

Just to give some background on the interview, I had dinner with Steve the night before this recording. The dinner was an opportunity to get to know each other, and I think you can tell from the get-go that he was in a relaxed and playful mood, ready to talk. 

With a big name, you want to strike a balance of talking about the things they’ve probably been asked about thousands of times before (but which the audience will expect again) along with fresh insights on familiar themes and questions they perhaps haven’t been asked before. 

I think we struck the right balance here, and if memory serves me right, this was one of the first fireside chats he had undertaken in public because he was by his own admission quite shy. Of course, we talked about the early days of one of the world’s most iconic companies and Steve shared fascinating stories about the birth of the Apple II, the challenges of raising funds and the pivotal role of Steve Jobs, the other co-founder.

It’s interesting to see what themes are still relevant today: the importance of innovation, the power of simplicity and how ever-more powerful personal computing is shaping the world around us. I particularly enjoyed Steve’s insights into the design process and the early days of the Homebrew Computer Club. It all built a unique perspective on the history of technology.

Later in the interview, we talked about the future, which is now the past of course: the potential of cloud computing features heavily. It’s a reminder that storing data remotely was initially met with skepticism before we took it for granted. It’s just one of a number of paradigm shifts we’ve seen in our lifetimes. 

Steve’s passion for education shines through in his experience as a teacher. He highlighted the importance of practical, hands-on learning and the need to bridge the gap between academia and industry – yet another theme that hasn’t gone out of date. By providing students with real-world experiences and opportunities to explore technology, we can inspire the next generation of innovators.

A Personal Note

It was truly an honour to sit down with Steve Wozniak. Watching this again years later, I’m struck by his passion for the power of technology to support rather than replace innovation, creativity and human connection. What I’ll be taking away is a reminder of the power of human ingenuity and the importance of pursuing one’s passions. I hope you’ll watch the video yourself and find things for yourself that inspire and connect.

This article appears on Babaco Media’s website, as well as on Nadine Dereza’s website.

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In this episode, Andrew and Nadine shine a spotlight on the BBC’s coverage of Glastonbury with BBC Studios, Executive Producer Alison Howe. As well as talking about the evolution of music on television, delving into its electrifying history and how it has transformed over the years with Harvey Goldsmith, legendary concert promoter and producer.

Nadine Dereza expressed her enthusiasm, stating, “The Television Podcast has become a must-listen for anyone interested in television, providing unparalleled insights and analysis from some of the industry’s biggest names. Brilliant to be working alongside Andrew Eborn and Phil Barnes, who both bring a great sense of fun and professionalism to the podcasts, so the audience can expect to be entertained, informed, and engaged.”

Andrew Eborn highlighted, “Every month, we review some of the biggest television events and news stories with the help of influential contributors and journalists, including television titans, media moguls, and industry giants who possess an unwavering passion for television. I am thrilled to collaborate with RTS London, as well as the brilliant Nadine Dereza and Phil Barnes.

Phil Barnes, Chair of RTS London and Executive Producer, added, “Nadine and Andrew make an exceptional presenting duo, and I look forward to The Television Podcast from RTS London becoming a go-to podcast for everyone.”

The second episode of The Television Podcast was released on all major podcast platforms at 11:11 on May 31, 2023.

Audio Podcast: https://thetelevisionpodcastfromrtslondon.buzzsprout.com

Video Podcast: https://youtu.be/j9rVbNjD2m0

Joining Nadine Dereza and Andrew Eborn in the second episode of The Television Podcast are esteemed guests:

• Glastonbury
  • Alison Howe, Executive Producer, BBC Glastonbury, BBC Studios

• LIVE AID & Beyond
  • Harvey Goldsmith, Legendary Producer, Promoter, and Impresario

• Look Ahead – TV Highlights for June
  • Frances Taylor, TV Previews Editor, Radio Times

                                 – ENDS –

For further details and photos please contact:

Nadine Dereza info@nadinedereza.com

Andrew Eborn  AE@OctopusTV.com +44 7854 078564

RTS London, Phil Barnes rtslondonchair@rts.org.uk

Footnotes

 About RTS London – The RTS London Centre, chaired by Phil Barnes, is run by volunteer members of the Royal Television Society, each with extensive experience in the creative industries, and who organise activities in and around the capital for anyone who works or is interested in television.

London is at the very heart of British television and is home to the headquarters of national broadcasters, international news bureaux, and over 200 independent production companies. Broadcasters and production companies are also supported by a growing number of facilities houses, as well as legal and consultancy firms that ensure that creativity can reach the screens reliably now and in the future.

RTS London taps into the city’s vibrant broadcasting industry, with a programme of regular public events, usually held fortnightly during spring and autumn. Most events are free and cover key issues in television’s creativity, technology, and business.

The RTS has 15 lively centres based across the UK and Ireland including RTS London.

About The Royal Television Society – From glamorous award ceremonies to lively debates, the RTS embraces all aspects of television, and is open to anyone with an interest in the medium. As an educational charity, we encourage and celebrate work in television and its related fields, from finding out how the nation’s favourite shows are made in our Anatomy of a Hit series, to celebrating burgeoning talent at our annual Student Awards. The industry’s most talented individuals give us an insight into the work that goes into making cutting edge contemporary TV.

From Government ministers and CEOs to workshops with great runners, our events look at every part of the business. Our annual Television Journalism, Programme, Craft and Design, and Student Awards celebrate achievements across the broadcasting industry. Each year, we offer Television Production and Technology bursaries to help those from less affluent backgrounds get a foothold in the industry, and Masterclass sessions bring together students, academics and industry heads. Global television leaders gather to discuss what the future holds for television at our London Conference or the RTS Cambridge Convention.

About Nadine Dereza – Nadine Dereza is an awarding-winning international broadcaster, journalist, keynote speaker, conference host and co-founder of Babaco Media.

Nadine recently presented for the world’s number one business and financial news network CNBC, hosting their technology programme, IoT: Powering the Digital Economy. She has also presented for Associated Press, BBC, CNN, SABC, Simply Money, Sky TV and Summit TV.

Nadine is a judge for the International Broadcasting Convention’s ‘Accelerators Media Innovation Programme’ which explores solutions to industry-recognised challenges in media and entertainment. She is co-author of the 5-star rated best seller Insider Secrets of Public Speaking.

@NadineDereza

https://www.nadinedereza.com

https://babaco.media

https://www.linkedin.com/in/nadinedereza/

About Andrew Eborn – Andrew Eborn, President Octopus TV Ltd, is a renowned international lawyer, strategic business adviser, broadcaster, author and futurist.

For many years Andrew has empowered companies to face the challenges of changing markets, maximise the return on their rights as well as assisting with the strategic development of their businesses.

Andrew appears regularly on various major channels around the world as a presenter / contributor on a wide range of topics as well as a speaker / host / moderator at live events including major festivals.

@AndrewEborn @OctopusTV

https://www.octopus.tv/news-blog/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/andreweborn/                                                                                                 

About BBC Glastonbury 2023 – For 2023, the BBC will present more Glastonbury coverage than ever before, both live and on-demand with programmes presented by Clara Amfo, Lauren Laverne, Jack Saunders and Jo Whiley. There will be over 40 hours of programming across the BBC’s television channels as well as over 85 hours of live broadcasts on the BBC’s pop radio networks, launching with Lauren Laverne’s 6 Music breakfast show live from the Glastonbury gates as they open to excited festival-goers (Wednesday 21 June, 7.30am-10.30am).

There will be more sets on BBC One than ever before, with BBC Two, BBC Three and BBC Four also dedicating the weekend to the festival, bringing viewers a diverse range of artists from the Pyramid, Other, West Holts, Woodsies and Park stages. Artists whose sets will be featured across BBC TV include: Arctic Monkeys, Guns N’ Roses, Elton John, Lizzo, Blondie, Fatboy Slim, Fred Again, Kelis, Lewis Capaldi, Måneskin, Raye, Yusuf / Cat Stevens, Wizkid and many more to be announced.

New podcasts, collections and playlists will be available on BBC Sounds and BBC iPlayer will present an expanded, twelve-day celebration of the festival, on BBC iPlayer’s Glastonbury Channel, in addition to numerous streams and classic Glastonbury performances.

Glastonbury on television will begin the weekend before the festival, as BBC Two readies viewers for the main event with We Love Glastonbury, Glastonbury Anthems and a newly re-versioned edition of Glastonbury: 50 Years and Counting.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/events/ec59hn

About Harvey Goldsmith CBE – Harvey Goldsmith is an iconic and visionary producer and promoter of concerts, charity events, and television broadcasts. Working with most of the world’s major artists including The Rolling Stones, The Who, Pink Floyd, Bruce Springsteen and Luciano Pavarotti, Harvey has successfully managed, produced, and promoted shows that have shaped the music industry and revolutionised television coverage of events.

Among his extraordinary achievements, Harvey orchestrated two of the most monumental, televised music events ever held: Live Aid and Live 8 leveraging the power of music to unite and inspire global audiences.

http://www.harveygoldsmith.com/

About Radio Times – Radio Times is the magazine at the heart of British broadcasting, delivering the best television, streaming, radio, podcast and film coverage and guidance every week. Each issue includes exclusive interviews and photoshoots with the biggest names in broadcasting, expert recommendations, incisive previews and reviews, behind-the-scenes insights, and the most comprehensive TV and radio listings in the business.

Radio Times was the world’s first broadcast listings magazine and was owned and published by the BBC until 2011. It is now published by Immediate Media and remains the UK’s biggest-selling quality magazine.

RadioTimes.com was founded in 1997, and offers trusted guidance, exclusive news, features and interviews for television and entertainment fans globally. The site has a team of journalists and editors who produce content seven days a week as well as carrying the latest terrestrial, satellite and streaming TV guide, radio listings and film reviews.

About Barb Audiences – Barb is the industry’s standard for understanding what people watch. Their hybrid approach integrates people-based panel data with census-level online viewing data. Their methodology enables them to deliver inclusive measurement of total identified viewing across all broadcast, VOD and video-sharing platforms, delivered onto and consumed via multiple platforms and devices.

As the past, present and future of total viewing measurement, Barb is uniquely placed to empower transformation of the UK TV and advertising ecosystem, through integrated audience data and actionable insights. These data and insights fulfil three purposes:

• To support decisions that are made in the making and distribution of great programmes.
• To support the planning and buying of ad campaigns and informing on brand and sales outcomes.
• To inform how broadcasters and other media services operate in the public interest.

https://www.barb.co.uk/

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The Television Podcast’s panel will be made up of different contributors and journalists including titans of television, media moguls and industry giants who live and breathe TV. Expect to hear from some of the biggest names in the industry, sharing their thoughts, insights and expertise.

The first episode of The Television Podcast will shine a spotlight on two global TV events taking place in May 2023 in the UK. The Eurovision Song Contest and The Coronation of His Majesty The King and Her Majesty The Queen Consort will provide a fantastic opportunity to shine a global spotlight on the UK, its rich history and unparalleled pageantry and its technical and creative excellence. Andrew Eborn and Nadine Dereza and their all-star panel will provide in-depth analysis and commentary, offering a unique perspective on these highly anticipated events.

Nadine Dereza said: “The Television Podcast puts a spotlight on the most talked about TV events and productions, lifting the bonnet on the creativity and craft behind the programmes. It’s fantastic that RTS London has attracted contributors from BBC, ITN, Financial Times and Radio Times in our first ever episode, and we see this podcast going from strength to strength as word gets out about it.”

Andrew Eborn pointed out: “I am thrilled to be working with RTS London and the brilliant Nadine Dereza & Phil Barnes. The Television Podcast is set to become a must for anyone with an interest in television, providing unparalleled insight and analysis from some of the biggest names in the industry. Expect to be entertained, informed, and engaged.”

Phil Barnes, RTS London Chair and Executive Producer added: “Nadine and Andrew are the dream team of presenters and I look forward to The Television Podcast from RTS London becoming one of everyone’s go-to podcasts.”

The first episode of The Television Podcast will be available on all major podcast platforms from 28th April 2023… https://thetelevisionpodcastfromrtslondon.buzzsprout.com/

Joining Nadine Dereza & Andrew Eborn in the first episode of The Television Podcast:

Eurovision

• Paddy O’Connell, Eurovision Song Contest Aficionado and Presenter, BBC Radio
• Daniel Rosney, BBC News’ dedicated Eurovision reporter and co-host, of BBC’s Eurovisioncast

The Coronation of The King and The Queen Consort

• Tami Hoffman, Head of News Productions & Archive, ITN Productions

The Big Media Stories Review 

• Janine Gibson, Editor, FT Weekend
• Roger Bolton, Former BBC executive and independent producer now presenting Roger Bolton’s Beebwatch

Television Viewing Figures

• Matt Laycock, Audience Director, Barb Audiences

Look Ahead – TV Highlights for May

• Frances Taylor, TV Previews Editor, Radio Times

Footnotes

 About RTS London

The RTS London Centre, chaired by Phil Barnes, is run by volunteer members of the Royal Television Society, each with extensive experience in the creative industries, and who organise activities in and around the capital for anyone who works or is interested in television.

London is at the very heart of British television and is home to the headquarters of national broadcasters, international news bureaux, and over 200 independent production companies. Broadcasters and production companies are also supported by a growing number of facilities houses, as well as legal and consultancy firms that ensure that creativity can reach the screens reliably now and in the future.

RTS London taps into the city’s vibrant broadcasting industry, with a programme of regular public events, usually held fortnightly during spring and autumn. Most events are free and cover key issues in television’s creativity, technology, and business.

The RTS has 15 lively centres based across the UK and Ireland including RTS London.

About The Royal Television Society

From glamorous award ceremonies to lively debates, the RTS embraces all aspects of television, and is open to anyone with an interest in the medium. As an educational charity, we encourage and celebrate work in television and its related fields, from finding out how the nation’s favourite shows are made in our Anatomy of a Hit series, to celebrating burgeoning talent at our annual Student Awards. The industry’s most talented individuals give us an insight into the work that goes into making cutting edge contemporary TV.

From Government ministers and CEOs to workshops with great runners, our events look at every part of the business. Our annual Television Journalism, Programme, Craft and Design, and Student Awards celebrate achievements across the broadcasting industry. Each year, we offer Television Production and Technology bursaries to help those from less affluent backgrounds get a foothold in the industry, and Masterclass sessions bring together students, academics and industry heads. Global television leaders gather to discuss what the future holds for television at our London Conference or the RTS Cambridge Convention.

About Nadine Dereza

Nadine Dereza is an awarding-winning international broadcaster, journalist, keynote speaker, conference host and co-founder of Babaco Media.

Nadine recently presented for the world’s number one business and financial news network CNBC, hosting their technology programme, IoT: Powering the Digital Economy. She has also presented for Associated Press, BBC, CNN, SABC, Simply Money, Sky TV and Summit TV.

Nadine is a judge for the International Broadcasting Convention’s ‘Accelerators Media Innovation Programme’ which explores solutions to industry-recognised challenges in media and entertainment. She is co-author of the 5-star rated best seller Insider Secrets of Public Speaking.

@NadineDereza

https://www.nadinedereza.com  https://babaco.media https://www.linkedin.com/in/nadinedereza/

 About Andrew Eborn

Andrew Eborn, President Octopus TV Ltd, is a renowned international lawyer, strategic business adviser, broadcaster, author and futurist.

For many years Andrew has empowered companies to face the challenges of changing markets, maximise the return on their rights as well as assisting with the strategic development of their businesses.

Andrew appears regularly on various major channels around the world as a presenter / contributor on a wide range of topics as well as a speaker / host / moderator at live events including major festivals.

@AndrewEborn @OctopusTV

https://www.octopus.tv/news-blog/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/andreweborn

About BBC

The BBC is hosting the 2023 Eurovision Song Contest on behalf of last year’s winners Ukraine. Both the Semi-Finals and the Grand Final will broadcast live on BBC One and BBC iPlayer for the first time ever. The BBC will also deliver wall to wall entertainment for new and existing fans with a raft of additional programming across TV, BBC iPlayer, radio, BBC Sounds and online to celebrate the world’s biggest music show.

Highlights include The One Show and BBC Breakfast broadcasting live from Liverpool all week; Radio 2 will become the home of Eurovision on BBC Radio and BBC Sounds with programmes building excitement throughout the week. Scott Mills and Rylan bring their sharp-witted commentary to the network for the Grand Final with Paddy O’ Connell on duty for the Semi-Finals as Radio 2 broadcast these all important qualifiers for the first time ever. There will be a legendary Eurovision figure making an appearance in Albert Square; scouse commentary courtesy of BBC Radio Merseyside and BBC Three takes’ audiences back to last year’s nail-biting Grand Final in Turin.

 About BBC Eurovisioncast

Eurovisioncast on BBC Sounds is the official backstage pass to the Eurovision Song Contest 2023. The BBC’s Eurovision podcast is hosted by Daniel Rosney (BBC News Eurovision Reporter), Nina Warhurst (BBC Breakfast Presenter), Ngunan Adamu (BBC Radio Merseyside Presenter) and Måns Zermerlöw (Swedish singer, TV host, and former Eurovision winner) with contributions from former contestants, music artists taking part this year and celebrity fans.

The weekly podcast has been available on BBC Sounds since February 2023, and is broadcast on BBC Radio 5 live and BBC Radio Merseyside.

 About ITN

ITN will deliver an extravaganza of coverage for audiences in the UK and overseas, across a range of platforms, on 6 May 2023 to mark the Coronation of His Majesty The King and Her Majesty The Queen Consort.

ITN is an independent production company with over 67 years’ experience in public service broadcasting and is renowned for being able to deliver journalism of highest standard across all output. ITN’s business is made up of seven distinct divisions – Business, Education, Newsrooms (ITV News, Channel 4 News and 5 News), News Production, Productions, Post Production, and Sport – with output ranging from award-winning factual content for major brands, digital platforms and global streamers including Netflix and Amazon and international broadcasters; a vast live sport operation; award-winning news programmes for ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5; respected live debate programmes; education programming; short form content and hybrid events for charities and businesses; while ITN’s 60-edit suite facility supports every facet of video and audio post-production. In addition, the ITN Archive features more than a million video clips of iconic news footage from ITN’s first broadcasts in 1955 to the present day.

About Financial Times

The Financial Times is one of the world’s leading news organisations, recognised internationally for its authority, integrity and accuracy.

The FT has a record paying readership of 1.2 million, more than one million of which are digital subscriptions. It is part of Nikkei Inc., which provides a broad range of information, news and services for the global business community.

About Radio Times

Radio Times is the magazine at the heart of British broadcasting, delivering the best television, streaming, radio, podcast and film coverage and guidance every week. Each issue includes exclusive interviews and photoshoots with the biggest names in broadcasting, expert recommendations, incisive previews and reviews, behind-the-scenes insights, and the most comprehensive TV and radio listings in the business.

Radio Times was the world’s first broadcast listings magazine and was owned and published by the BBC until 2011. It is now published by Immediate Media and remains the UK’s biggest-selling quality magazine.

RadioTimes.com was founded in 1997, and offers trusted guidance, exclusive news, features and interviews for television and entertainment fans globally. The site has a team of journalists and editors who produce content seven days a week as well as carrying the latest terrestrial, satellite and streaming TV guide, radio listings and film reviews.

About Barb Audiences

Barb is the industry’s standard for understanding what people watch. Their hybrid approach integrates people-based panel data with census-level online viewing data. Their methodology enables them to deliver inclusive measurement of total identified viewing across all broadcast, VOD and video-sharing platforms, delivered onto and consumed via multiple platforms and devices.

As the past, present and future of total viewing measurement, Barb is uniquely placed to empower transformation of the UK TV and advertising ecosystem, through integrated audience data and actionable insights.

These data and insights fulfil three purposes:

• To support decisions that are made in the making and distribution of great programmes.
• To support the planning and buying of ad campaigns and informing on brand and sales outcomes.
• To inform how broadcasters and other media services operate in the public interest.

https://www.barb.co.uk/

About Roger Bolton

Roger Bolton is a former BBC editor and executive and presenter of Radio 4’s Feedback. He presents the podcast Roger Bolton’s Beebwatch casting an independent eye on the public service broadcaster.

Roger has over 50 years’ experience in broadcasting and has worked on television as an editor of Tonight in 1978, Panorama in 1979 and Nationwide in 1981. After Nationwide’s run ended in 1983, he became Head of Network Production for the BBC at its Manchester studios. After nearly two decades at the BBC, he joined Thames as editor of This Week from 1986. In the 1990s, he also fronted the series Right to Reply for Channel Four the last six years of its run. As a radio presenter on BBC Radio 4, he is chiefly known for his work on Feedback, which he presented for 23 years, and Sunday which he regularly presented from 1998 until January 2010.

https://www.rogerboltonsbeebwatch.com/

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At Babaco Media we focus on verbal communications, mostly for those who have to appear on stage or in front of the camera as part of their job. Written communications can be drafted and go through an approval process, while verbal communications are more immediate, which gives them power.

Why do verbal communication skills in front of an audience add so much value to you as an employee, leader or entrepreneur? And why are people so scared to do it? 

We answered these questions in our book, Insider Secrets of Public Speaking, as we’re aligned with Buffett on this: speaking well in front of others is an essential skill, and while not every leader is adept at this, being able to communicate well is a short cut to inspiring others – be they employees, investors, customers or colleagues – to buy into your ideas.

Authority certainly comes into play here. When you are standing in front of others, commanding their attention, it is an act of leadership. People will not follow a leader who doubts their own authority – even if that authority is only for a short space of time as you present some figures at a meeting. 

Humans are naturally hierarchical creatures. We are also very sociable, and can be flexible with those hierarchies when the occasion fits: when Warren Buffett’s doctor tells him to take a paracetamol, Buffett doesn’t say, “No, I’m a billionaire, I demand you take out my appendix!” 

Exactly the same when you’re in front of an audience: you may not be the smartest or richest person in the room, but while the floor is yours, you’re in charge. 

If you can handle the temporary authority of speaking in front of others, you can handle more authority in other areas too. For an employee that might mean promotion. For a boss, that might mean more employee engagement. For an entrepreneur, that could mean investment. 

There is also the illusion of intentionality: audiences will assume that what you’re doing is intentional, even if it isn’t. If you tell the audience that you’re nervous, or not used to being on stage, or haven’t prepared, they will assume that you’ve chosen all those things. If you go out and deliver what you have to say without excuses, the audience will be impressed.

If a young Warren Buffett were to step into the Babaco Media office and tell us about his stage fright, this would be our first pivot: is what you’re saying really important? If it is, then it’s more important than your nerves. This is the first step in getting to grips with managing your nerves rather than letting your nerves manage you.

Nerves (if managed well with diaphragmatic breathing techniques) are not necessarily a bad thing – they are just energy. If you direct this energy, they add pep to your performance. If you don’t, this energy fires off in all directions which isn’t helpful. 

So let’s focus on delivering that message really well and put the nerves in the background. 

This is where we really get to Buffett’s point: as a speaker, you need to deliver value. The message has to be relevant to your audience. You are the carrier of the message, and you lead the audience to it. As a speaker, it’s your job to connect an audience with an idea. You are, in many ways, the least important person in the room, even while you’re spotlit and amplified. It’s the needs of the audience that are more important here. 

You’re determined, then, to improve your speaking skills. What’s the best way to do that? Simple…

Watch yourself speaking

Reviewing footage is something that many people don’t like, but you cannot beat it for speed and effectiveness of improving as a speaker. You don’t like your voice or seeing yourself on camera? Welcome to the club. Remember: what you say and connecting the audience to an idea is more important than how you feel. 

Reviewing footage will help your delivery, highlighting aspects (both spoken and in body language) which impact your effectiveness and authority. If you’re one of the many people who would like to be better at speaking, but aren’t sure of what needs to change, a video recording helps you single out strengths and barriers to communicating.  

The following exercises will see your speaking improve quickly. What you need to do is film yourself speaking in front of an audience (even if that audience just means two people, and you can use your phone to record). Up to five minutes of your recorded speech is enough for this exercise.

Here are five ways to use that footage:

1. Don’t watch, listen

Turn up the sound, turn your back on the screen and listen to what you say. Are you using the right words? Are you getting muddled up? Is your voice flat or lively? Do the tone and tempo match the subject? 

2. Watch it with the sound off

This is great if you don’t like your voice, who does! This approach allows you to forget about what you say and focus on other things such as your body language, how you move, where you’re looking and what you do with your hands. 

3. Sound off, double speed

This is interesting: you double the speed and you’ll pick up on even more things you could do differently: common ones are playing with long hair, pushing glasses up your nose and one arm hanging by your side while the other moves around. Doubling the speed of the playback amplifies these ticks, many of which have a simple fix (tie your hair back, get your glasses adjusted, consciously use both hands).

4. Get the script

For a pound or two, an AI bot will transcribe your speech to a text document (we use www.rev.com which charges US$0.25 per minute of footage. There are other options that cost more but there are reasons why we use this bot as you’ll see). Their transcription services of exactly what you’re saying, down to the um and er, is incredibly useful. 

First, you’ll see how accurately the computer can transcribe. Assuming it’s a decent quality recording and you’re not using a lot of jargon or proper nouns. Mistakes by the computer could mean you’re not speaking clearly enough: if the robot doesn’t understand you, it’s likely a human listener will have similar problems.  

You’ll also be able to see how many filler words and sounds you use. While a couple of fillers will make your speech sound natural, generally, the fewer the better and you’ll sound more self assured and confident without them. Don’t give yourself a hard time over them, but don’t let them be a distraction. 

5. Direct the script

Look at the script of your speech. Would you give this to yourself as a script to deliver? If not, what would you change? The individual words? The structure? Finally, think about how you would direct it: where would you put pauses? Where would you adjust the tone of voice?

Does your script have sensory words, metaphors, or something else to add ‘richness” to your speaking? Speaking about colours, sounds, turns of phrase, smells and similes can lift your speech and make it memorable. So too can dropping the flowery language and speaking in the palinest possible language. Think about contrasting with other speakers, meeting the mood and as ever, think about what that audience needs to hear.

Finally…

If you carry out these five exercises, you will see a great improvement in your speaking, and a clear idea of where you need to improve (which most people do not have: many of our clients come to us asking to be “better” but many don’t have specifics). 

These exercises will enable you to identify and work on specific issues with your speaking and enable you to deliver with more clarity, precision and authority. 

You will also make progress by working with the Babaco Media team. Professional speaking, media training and crisis communications are all vital skills and our clients regularly feedback that they’ve found our coaching hugely valuable. Buffett advises, “invest in yourself”, so follow his lead and get in touch with us to talk about improving your communication skills.

You can also read the reviews of our book, by clicking on this link… Insider Secrets of Public Speaking – and you can order your copy.

Good luck.

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Babaco Media is the new face of PS Programmes. Our transformation reflects a new reality and shift in how we’re communicating and presenting ourselves to the world, with a strong focus on virtual interactions alongside our face-to-face experiences.

What prompted the change?

The change has come about because we have always been led by the principle that we coach on what we know from experience. Our team originally came together as a group of industry professionals who made a living as presenters, media spokespeople, journalists, speaker agents and producers.

Our whole industry is experiencing a shift in thinking and is coming to terms with a new reality about how public communication and interaction could and should happen. Last year, there was a dramatic swing from presenting ‘live’ events, including presentations and interviews, to more virtual experiences. Babaco Media’s revised approach to coaching reflects our clients’ new needs.

We decided to act now to ensure that we are on the front foot. It puts us ahead of the curve, as we open up new possibilities for our clients. This is enabling us to guide, advise and coach them as to how best to communicate and present themselves to their own clients and audiences. Although the tools and the platforms may have changed, we are still remaining true to our roots of giving people new skills and boosting confidence where it’s needed most.

A new name for a new direction

As to why we chose the name ‘babaco’, we were hooked from the moment we saw one. The babaco is a fresh, zingy fruit from Ecuador. The tongue tingling taste earns it the nickname ‘champagne fruit’ – very appropriate for those of us who have lived and breathed the events industry for so long. Cut through the middle of a babaco, and the cross section reveals a star, much like those moments where the coaching ‘clicks’ with a client and they find themselves delivering a performance they are proud of.

Keeping reputation at the core

If we once thought of a computer as our window on the world, the camera now gives the world an intimate look into our lives. In 2020, we saw presenters, politicians, experts and businesspeople addressing the nation from their homes. Audiences have forgiven shaky internet connections, poor lighting, and questionable book choices in the background. During 2021, however, the demand for professionalism will be on the rise.

Babaco Media’s core offer is to help businesses manage their public image through media training, crisis communications and presentation skills. In the new media landscape, we have heard and responded to the need for a greater emphasis on how to present in high-pressure environments under the unforgiving eye of the camera.

Such high-pressure environments include parliamentary committees and public inquiries, which can have a significant impact on reputation. A good reputation, which we have always helped clients to safeguard, is the ‘money-can’t-buy’ factor that can carry a business through bad times.

Virtual coaching: convenient, flexible and relevant

As for how we deliver this training, our team’s background in personal communication and television gives us the edge when it comes to the new reality of virtual rather than face-to-face communications. Babaco Media is able to help companies prepare for interviews, hearings, conferences, webinars and crisis communications online.

Apart from the convenience of sharing a URL rather than dealing with the logistics of in-person meetings, remote coaching is a good fit for the work that we carry out. When we are talking about how to present on camera, we are able to have a professional opinion on the equipment already in use and advise on how to make the best of it, or whether upgrades are necessary. A further advantage of coaching virtually is that the practice sessions are a closer reflection of how things will be on the day of the event itself, reducing the likelihood of something unexpected happening during the ‘real thing’.

Making the practice as close as possible to the real-world event is also part of our refocus on crisis planning. Preparing for the unexpected is a key component of leadership, whether it relates to a sudden slump in performance, a cyber-attack, an environmental matter, a tragic accident or other unforeseen circumstance. Our extensive experience in crisis media management points to controlling the flow of information as a vital part of the picture in a genuine crisis, as without a strategy, misinformation will quickly eclipse reality and a reputation that has taken years to build has been destroyed in moments.

The team at Babaco Media have years of lived experience that we share with clients whose media and presentation skills are under the spotlight. The move to digital has increased the opportunity for more people inside a business to talk to more people outside it than ever before. The expectations on teams can be daunting. Our coaching aims to make the task comprehensible and manageable.

Having an expert coaching your team’s performance will give your people the same tools as professional presenters, enabling them to get the best out of their workspace, their camera and how they present themselves.

We have unsurprisingly seen a dramatic shift from live events to virtual conferences, webinars and awards ceremonies. Babaco Media now offers a dedicated virtual and hybrid service too. Over the last few months, we have worked either directly with clients or through creative agencies, to design, create and shape impactful content for virtual events. We have found that virtual experiences deliver all of the benefits of a live event.

Lessons from our experience of virtual events

We have also been requested to host and facilitate virtual conferences too. Last May, Babaco Media founder, Nadine Dereza took on a presenting assignment which involved her setting up a fully operational studio in her front room, complete with stage set, remote-control cameras, lights and monitors.

Directed remotely by technicians from their own homes, Nadine laid cables, positioned cameras, connected the sound desk and plugged everything into the computers that linked her with the crew.

As for the event itself, a great deal of thought had clearly gone into the speaker line-up, interactivity for the audience and much tighter curation of the content: the difference between an in-person event for a captive audience and a virtual event for participants who can switch off at any time was huge.

The viewing figures were higher than we would have expected if the event had been held live in-person. It felt like live TV, with all the attendant expectations and need for speakers to adapt for the medium. The experience cemented the idea of reviewing our priorities, as the millions of cameras embedded in phones and computers around the world have been called on to step up to the task of connecting us for business.

The events landscape for 2021 and beyond

The events industry as we once knew it, is facing a new future: some organisers will take a ‘digital first’ attitude towards events as a way of streamlining costs and logistics and reducing their environmental impact.

There will be an expectation that when live events return, there will be an option to participate digitally, either as a delegate or a speaker, and we are looking forward to seeing how such ‘hybrid’ events will change the industry further. This could be the moment that Virtual Reality finally breaks through for the industry, as it’s more cost effective to send a headset to a delegate than it is to get that delegate to the venue. ‘Pure’ in-person events without a digital element will still happen in the future, but these are likely to be smaller, more exclusive and much rarer.

The whole communication landscape has changed, and Babaco Media is our response, building on our own reputation for excellence in coaching. Connection, by whatever means we achieve it, is what we need to do, and that need has never been greater. We are at our strongest when we work together and as 2021 is just underway, we are looking forward to enabling our clients to connect with their audience in this new landscape with purpose, enthusiasm and confidence.

This article appears on Babaco Media’s website, as well as on Nadine Dereza’s website.

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Many of us will get through this, but what is on the other side is unknowable. Throughout 2019 and early 2020, the business press was full of talk of how innovation was disrupting big business. What they didn’t count on was COVID-19 disrupting everybody. But the bigger picture, that businesses of all sizes need to be more agile to cope with unexpected change, holds true in the current pandemic. Agility, innovation and disruption don’t happen in a vacuum as they all feed off each other, though the reality for many is that without the lifeblood of cash flow, adaptation in an emergency is just not feasible. WHSmith’s, for example, expects April’s revenues to be down 90 percent year on year, while Debenhams is preparing to call in the administrators. Whole industries such as airlines, hotels and hospitality have been put on ice. Look beyond the big names: remember that some 99 percent of British businesses are classed as SMEs and on your state-sanctioned exercise, you’re likely to walk, jog or cycle past any number of shuttered-up businesses that have no idea when they will reopen. 

The economic hit of COVID-19 is being compared with the depression of the 1930s, a time which saw a huge burst in activity, both in construction and invention. Whether you subscribe to the idea that the American business magnate and philanthropist, Rockefeller was a saint for setting otherwise-unemployed workers the task of building skyscrapers or a profiteer for taking advantage of cheap labour, you cannot deny that New York is still defined by its Art Deco growth spurt. Closer to home, historian Dr Charlie Wildman points out that the modern high street and centralisation of businesses are all a result of the depression, with major projects such as Manchester Central Library, the Mersey Tunnel and the Liverpool Philharmonic Hall all built in the early 1930s. Londoners saw Battersea Power Station and The Dorchester go up, but they were more likely to use the Piccadilly and Metropolitan lines which were both extended (thanks to guaranteed funding from the Government) in the early 1930s.

It’s worth taking a quick detour down memory lane because it reminds us that there are big changes in the pipeline and that there are indeed opportunities to do things that were not previously possible.  

In the short term, there is the response to the crisis itself. While there are a few emerging villains of the pandemic (including billionaires who are asking the UK Government to mail the bailout cheques to their tax haven and football clubs paying thousands to their players while hanging their stadium staff out to dry), there are plenty of good news stories too: think McLaren, who have converted their production line to manufacture breathing apparatus for hospitals. The company, having demonstrated their ability to engineer at speed in the pitstop, have now taken their high-performance problem-solving expertise, and fed that into the burning problem of the day and rolled out a smart solution. 

At a less high-tech end of the scale, distilleries and brewers have responded to the shortage of hand sanitiser by making their own: another example of agility and another example of businesses doing what they can. Unlikely as it seems, elite sports and craft distilleries are just two examples of businesses repurposing their capabilities in an emergency. 

Businesses are frequently able to demonstrate the innovation and agility necessary to spot solutions, and the UK Government is funding grants of up to £50,000 to technology and research-focussed businesses ‘to develop new ways of working and help build resilience in industries such as delivery services, food manufacturing, retail and transport, as well as supporting people at home.’ Innovate UK are inviting businesses to compete to win a share of a £20 million pot to kick start lateral-thinking projects, so expect to hear more about companies investigating what more they can do with what they already have.

Technologies that have been around for a while have found new uses against the novel problem of COVID-19: 3D printers are not exactly a household item, but many schools, colleges, and businesses have them. No longer a gimmick, 3D printers have serious applications from printing specialised tools and prototypes to biomedical applications. We were impressed by stories of teachers and lecturers around the country using their 3D printers to make protective gear for NHS staff.  

The problem of getting these masks to hospitals is not capacity, it is communication of need, availability of design and delivery of the finished product – all of which have already been overcome: apps are useful ways of communicating and monitoring needs, designs can be sent by email and delivery is an increasingly efficient process thanks to consumers’ love of internet shopping; the only difference is that rather than moving stock from a warehouse to thousands of customers, there needs to be a way to shift stock from dozens of manufacturers to one central point – a supply chain issue. Using the principle of everybody making a small contribution, this distributed production line could be an attractive solution to all kinds of business needs long after the COVID-19 crisis has passed: no more waiting for that spare part to come in from a specialist manufacturer in a foreign country, it can just roll off the nearest 3D printer.

Away from industry, we are also seeing how local communities are coming together. Anecdotally, we’ve heard stories of elderly and lonely people who have been contacted by neighbours offering assistance, building bonds that will outlast the immediate crisis. Facebook groups have sprung up offering help for self-isolators and sharing resources from books to an over abundance of toilet roll. Although these things are hard to measure, there does seem to have been a sea change in how people now think of front-line workers such as delivery drivers and supermarket workers. After the immediate crisis is over, it will be a foolhardy politician who attempts to damage the NHS, an institution that can move millions of people to grateful applause every Thursday night at eight o’clock.

For initiatives that require more complexity than neighbours checking in on each other, the Royal Volunteer Service are coordinating a huge effort: initially aiming to recruit a quarter of a million volunteers, the charity reported 750,000 sign-ups within two days. Another organisation, COVID-19 Mutual Aid is coordinating hundreds of grassroots organisations around the UK. The last time we saw mass volunteer action like this was during the 2012 Olympics, and we can expect in the coming months further proof that when the chips are down, heroes and heroines will step forward.

Longer term trends may be built into the architecture of our lives. While new build homes have been getting smaller over the last few decades as a result of higher land prices, working from home could push new builds of the future to include extra space for an office if it becomes the norm. Forget working from the kitchen table: if your home is also your workplace, a spare room will only be a nice-to-have, until customer demand drives an office to be a standard feature within a decade.

Most profound of all, however, will be the change COVID-19 has on the attitudes of the generation who are coming of age through it. In a world where there are fewer sureties, the worst predictions of environmental scientists look more possible. The lockdown is just a taste of the chaos that climate change can unleash. Losing a parent, family member or friend is never easy. With many stories of people of all ages dying as a result of COVID-19 and being denied a proper goodbye with funerals held in private and heavily restricted, it’s a reminder that this crisis has a real human cost. We should expect anger and fear, and let this be expressed in healthy ways. We all want lockdown to end, to get back to work, rebuild our businesses, and go on holiday. For others, the end of lockdown will be the start of being able to grieve properly. 

After the lockdown has ended, there will be a reckoning. There must be time for mourning. We will see some of our old assumptions in a challenging new light. We will celebrate our heroes and heroines and reevaluate our villains. And when all this is done, in ways big and small, life will be very different indeed.

We have coached individuals and teams in communication and crisis media management for many years, and this crisis has shown that there are some who have behaved well, some who have behaved badly, and plenty who have not handled delivering bad news well. In a crisis, misinformation can run rampant, and we’re not going to give the conspiracy theories the oxygen of publicity here. In the rebuild, there will be more need than ever for businesses to communicate how they have changed, how their values fit into the post-lockdown world and when things don’t go to plan, what they are doing to put things right. With customers already vowing to support or boycott companies based on the perception of their behaviour in this crisis, getting the messaging right when there is little margin for error is critical. 

Stories of collaboration, co-operation and co-opetition are not only helping in the current crisis, they are also inspiring other businesses to think how they can divert their own manufacturing and creative abilities into helping us get through these surreal times. Businesses that have been struggling with change and transformation projects may be able to use this moment as an opportunity: it’s hard to make changes while everything is in motion and some companies may return from this hiatus with a radically different architecture, a renewed sense of purpose and digital-first outlook. Change is necessary for businesses, because customers will have certainly changed their priorities as well.

This article also appears on the PS Programmes website.

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The coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak has closed businesses and borders around the world. As people are encouraged to self-isolate, many conferences and live events have been cancelled or postponed. Responsible event organisers who are used to carrying out risk assessments, in partnership with their clients are putting more events online – sometimes at very short notice.

As a speaker, presenter or producer, online events are very different from their live counterparts. If you are used to riffing off the energy in the room or asking questions of the audience face to face and vice versa – then all the advice about social distancing hits home when you’re recording your event alone.

Fortunately, there are many things you can do to make sure that you perform at your best and get the most out of your online event.

What do you want to get out of your online event?

Just like you would in front of a live audience, you should know what your takeaways are before you start, when speaking on a webinar or webcast. Pay attention to the information (a paragraph or two) that will be on the landing page in advance and while the audience logs in just prior to your session starting. Are there clear signposts about who you are and what you will be talking about? What is the problem you will solve for the audience? What will they learn?

This webcast has a clear title, sets out the issue to be addressed, and makes a clear promise. The takeaways are in bullets for clarity, and there is a call to action at the end.

Slides and structure

Consider whether you can use the same slides for an online event as you would at a live conference delivering your presentation. Remember people online will be reading them on a mobile device, laptop or desktop. The advantage of an online event is that you can get away with more detail than you would on a big screen in a conference room. However, there is an agreed best practice about not reading out loud all your bullet points from the slide in a live speech, and the same should hold for webinars and webcasts. Your slides will usually be more carefully scrutinised online, so make sure they are accurate and nicely designed to support what you are saying.

We have found that scripting the main body of an online presentation can sound too stilted, but not scripting an introduction can lead to lots of filler words (um’s and err’s) and a feeling of disorganisation. So just script the housekeeping, speaker introductions and closing message, and keep to bullet points for the main presentation.

Divide your speech up into clear ‘chapters’ so that if people check out for a minute or two, they can easily pick up when they return. Adding chapters is also useful for people who watch it back on-demand: if you give them the timings of chapters, they can skip to the part they find most useful.

This landing page makes the same promises as before of covering the three principles and banishing stage fright. This time the chapters have a time code so that people can skip to the part they find most useful.

Again, it ends on a call to action.

Speaking on a webinar and webcast has a very different energy to speaking in front of a live, present audience. While many online service providers offer the opportunity to use a webcam, we feel that if you are using slides as well, there can be too much going on for the audience. So really think about whether using the webcam option will enhance or distract from what you and the audience are trying to achieve. (If you do decide to use a webcam, you are often restricted in what you can convey with facial and body language).

We think that unless you have a larger budget and you’re using a really good TV studio set-up, it’s best to treat an online event as a radio show with supporting slides. If you do still opt for being filmed, you will need an area that looks the part or is purpose-built for appearing on camera. Time and time again we have seen backdrops looking sterile at best and unprofessional at worst.

If you feel that your voice and slides alone can’t convey what you need to, and you would like to insert a video, then try to keep the video as short as possible and above all, aim to be relevant. Don’t just put in a promotional video because you have it. Make sure that it is integral to your whole presentation, otherwise you risk the audience checking out.

Adopting the right tone for an online event can be tricky. Again, we recommend taking the radio approach. When Her Majesty The Queen asked veteran broadcaster Terry Wogan how many listeners he had, he responded: “Just the one, ma’am.” Imagine you’re having a conversation with just one person, and it will help your tone and feel more intimate.

Timing

There is an expectation that online broadcasts will run shorter than an hour-long keynote speech. Unless you have a brilliant big-name speaker, or are planning an online event with lots of variety, it’s usually best to keep to a main presentation of 20-25 minutes so that the whole event runs to 40 minutes when you include the Q&A. This gives you time to cover a lot of ground without overstaying your welcome.

It’s always a good idea for the presenter and organiser to dial into the online event at least 15 minutes in advance to check sound and technical issues before going live to the audience.

Live or pre-record?

Most webinars and live streaming events are reliable enough to trust that they will work live. Over the years, we have experienced a few tech issues, so it’s good to know that most online platform service providers will allow you to edit recordings afterwards, so that if there is a problem in an otherwise perfect recording, you can just cut this out for the on-demand version. 

If the online event has to be abandoned for technical reasons, (we have been there too) you will just have to record the event when you can and post it out so that people still have an option of watching it on-demand. You won’t be able to pass off the recording as a live event because you won’t be able to do the interactive elements at the time and it would be disingenuous.

Engagement tools

HEALTH WARNING: engagement often means using audience data. It is essential that you ensure you have explained to the audience how their data is kept and used and that you comply with GDPR.

An online event may rob you of the unique feeling of being on stage and reading an audience, so you can adjust your words and tone to match their mood, but there are still ways to make sure they are paying attention and are engaged whilst listening. If you have ever spoken in front of an audience before in a room, you will know that the audience shouldn’t be a passive act: the best speeches are a conversation. When the audience isn’t in the room, you have to work a bit harder to give them a voice. Fortunately, most online platforms come with tools that can help. If you don’t yet have a platform for your webinar, this buyer’s guide is a great place to begin your research.

Most online platforms have a folder where you can put resources for the audience to download. This can be very useful: if you have an infographic, handout or eBook, you can direct the audience to download their own copy. One word of caution – don’t overburden the download folder with too much content. Keep it on message and relevant to your speech, don’t treat it as a dustbin for all your company’s literature and white-papers.

You should also have a Q&A box for audience questions and comments (if you don’t, you may have chosen the wrong platform). We have found that it’s best to have someone else on hand, such as a colleague or the event producer who can put questions into categories or sort the questions out into: those you want to answer during the online event; those you can answer post-event; and probably those few questions you would rather ignore.

We recommend holding the Q&A at the end, so that it has a dedicated section. Have a couple of questions pre-prepared to give the audience time to think of their own questions if none have been posted in advance or during the main presentation. At the beginning of the presentation, flag up when you the main Q&A is (i.e. at the end) and signpost about it throughout.

In addition to hosting the main Q&A towards the end, you may choose to address one or two questions as they come in if they are specific to the points you have just raised. The advantage is that this encourages others to put in their questions and comments. Again, this works best when you have a producer / colleague to sift through the questions for you.

The number one most asked question from the audience…

“Can I get a copy of the slides?”

Choose your slide strategy in advance: either put a copy of the slides in the online event download folder and direct the audience to download them in advance or when they wish; or send the audience a copy of the slides post-event so you can engage further with them.

If you have the option to poll the audience, take advantage. Audience polls are a great way of checking in on the audience and letting them feel engaged and part of the event. The most useful of these are multiple choice and you can gauge quite a lot about the audience from these. How many you use depends on your style. We recommend that you open with a poll question and perhaps include one or two more during the main presentation. 

Opening with a poll question like this can tell you whether you’re talking to an audience of experts or beginners – and you can adjust your tone and message accordingly.

At the end of the online event, you should have the option to send out a questionnaire (check again that you are GDPR complaint with any data you gather in this exercise). This is another useful way to keep engagement after you’ve finished, identify what has landed well and if there are any gaps or areas of confusion so you can follow up (and also improve upon for your next presentation).

Statistics

Unlike some live conferences, it’s easier to gauge individuals’ level of interest for online events. You should be able to see how many audience members stay with you to the end of your presentation. An audience member who downloads a PDF and a copy of the slides, takes part in the polls and asks a couple of questions is clearly more engaged than one who doesn’t do any of that. If you are going to follow up with individuals afterwards, you will probably want to adopt a different strategy for the audience members who seem more enthusiastic; in sales terms, these are your ‘warm leads’.

A word of warning: it’s not usually wise to look at the stats on audience numbers while you’re presenting: they will probably only distract you. And while it’s great to have a decent-sized live audience, there will always be a gap between the number of sign-ups and actual live attendees. Some people are just not available at the advertised time and like to listen on-demand at a later time or date.

Follow up

After the online event is finished, if it’s worthy, make it available to be watched back on-demand. This is where you can drive further engagement by timing the chapters and posting them on the landing page.

As many people watch videos on silent or on public transport, you should consider having the webinar /webcast subtitled. There are services that will do this automatically for you from less than £1 per minute (though you should of course check that they have accurately captured what you’ve said, especially any technical jargon).

Do follow up with individuals who are particularly engaged. At live events, a successful speech is often followed by the speaker being approached by audience members with further questions. In this scenario, there is never enough time to talk to everyone, or there is another session starting soon, or the speaker has a schedule to keep. In the online world, time afterwards is less of a factor, and you can kick off a valuable conversation by sending an email thanking someone for their question, asking how they enjoyed the white-paper they downloaded or giving them information if they have requested it.

There are many things to consider when presenting an online event, but if you’re called upon to do so at short notice, this is a really good start. Many principles of public speaking still apply, and when things hopefully return to some sense of normality, you’ll want to keep your skills sharp with a copy of Insider Secrets of Public Speaking available in the UK and internationally

The skill of presenting, whether on stage, in the media or in an online webcast or meeting, is something you can learn and improve upon. PS Programmes coach individuals and teams so that when it’s important to give a great performance, you have all the tools you need to be at your best. We can also help produce your online events.

We are always happy to give advice on presenting, media skills and crisis media skills, and have published a highly rated book based on some of the questions we’ve been asked over the years.

Your health really is your wealth. We hope you all look after your wellbeing and that of your family and friends during this unprecedented time we all face together.

This article also appears on Nadine Dereza’s website and PS Programmes website.

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Over 1,000 flights cancelled
Airport shut down three times over three days
140,000 passengers stranded

Here at PS Programmes Towers, we travel a lot for business, and a few years back got caught up in the fallout of Eyjafjallajökull, the eruption that did for air travel what it just did to our spellcheck. But we’re not just seeing ourselves bedding down for the night on the shiny floor of the North Terminal; we chair aviation conferences / summits and write crisis communications and contingency plans for the aviation industry. So, our interest is more professional than pure sympathy.

The problem? 

‘I am surprised, frankly, that more drones have not been used to do bad things already… If people want to do bad with something they will.’ So says Dr Stephen Prior, a qualified drone pilot and lecturer in unmanned vehicles at the University of Southampton in the Daily Express. 

Given that many of us are still required to take off our shoes in airports thanks to the failed shoe bombing in 2001 you could argue that the air industry is better at massive over reaction after an issue, and less good at seeing the trouble coming. And it’s not as if there weren’t warnings: here’s a piece from 2016 by Security Futurist and risk consultant, Simon Moores and if Gatwick don’t read blogs, they might’ve done something after it happened last year.

The problem is twofold. Firstly, the technology is new, and people get a drone for a few hundred pounds that they start using without checking the Civil Aviation Authority’s guidelines first. People didn’t used to think it was irresponsible to smoke indoors or get in the car after a few drinks, and now we know better. Before this week, you could argue, maybe people just didn’t know better. 

The second half of the problem is that given the low cost and high disruption, the threshold to causing an incident is one that can be crossed easily – if you’re so minded. 

One or the other was bound to happen, and we’re not going to speculate on whether this incident was mistake or malign. The Pilots Union, BALPA released this statement at the beginning of December, which is either prescient or underlies that last week’s incident was bound to happen sooner or later. 

The reaction?

Arguably, the reaction of Gatwick Airport was pretty solid: Gatwick’s chief operating officer Chris Woodroofe was present on the media with a clear message, and didn’t repeat the mistake of BA boss Alex Cruz who went on the news in a hi-vis jacket, not normal attire for the IT department that caused disruption on that occasion.

There was also good information distributed through social media. PS Programmes  would like to pretend that we downed tools and dispatched a correspondent to the scene of the incident; in reality, one of us had a hire car booked and needed to get to Gatwick to pick it up. The status of the runways was an ongoing story, and the updates were frequent. We weren’t flying, but if we had been, a view could’ve been taken long before boarding the Gatwick Express. We’ve banged the drum before about the need for information to be freely available – and that means having a device to read it on. Free Wi-Fi is nice (so long as it’s easy to join), but after a few hours, it’s also important to have a way of charging your device. 

Most of us accept that incidents happen, and the proof of a company’s quality is in the reaction. At Gatwick, warnings were ignored, and chaos ensued. But the blame isn’t squarely on the airport’s shoulders here. Sussex Police admitted it took several hours to mobilise resources, and said lessons have been learnt, but if a contingency plan had been put in place for a drone attack, then this would have saved wasted hours of staff running around looking like headless turkeys.

Steve Barry, Sussex Police Assistant Chief Constable, said it took ‘hours rather than days’ to request extra measures, but added: ‘Coordinating that, deploying that, getting it set up at Gatwick has taken some time, but we’ve learnt from that.’ Coordination is the key word here: a failure to anticipate the problem left those in charge in the police and at Gatwick acting on the fly – and however well they did, a plan and a drill would’ve made for a better outcome.

Secretary of State for Transport, Chris Grayling has come under fire: with less than 100 days left before the UK is scheduled to leave the EU, his lack of action this year – despite being told of the threat posed by drones – feeds into the narrative of a government in chaos. According to PoliticsHome, further legislation on drone use was due for publication in the spring, but delayed when civil servants moved to work on Brexit instead.

The insurance industry is also measuring their response: airlines say they are not obliged to pay out as the situation was outside their control. The Civil Aviation Authority considers this event to be an ‘extraordinary circumstance’ and ‘in such circumstances airlines are not obliged to pay financial compensation to passengers affected by the disruption.’

Travel insurers will have to make a choice between payouts or reputation. But they might argue that the Government itself should step up and compensate passengers, as their lack of action has been a contributory factor. The canny insurer (or airline) might make payouts to passengers, reaping the good PR while they reclaim the money off the government, but we wouldn’t hold our breath for this as an outcome.

Clearly the drone rules need to be beefed up. Listen to the pilots – the PPU are arguing for the owning of drones to be a regulated, licensed and registered practice. The PPU call the increase in incidents ‘exponential’ and a major incident like this is only going to make the problem worse, whether through idiot copy cats or deliberate and coordinated terrorist acts.

Simon Moores, mentioned earlier, also advocates that airports spend some of their huge security budgets on ‘drone rifles’ which, ‘pointed in the direction of an intruding drone threat simply disable it, causing it to land on its autopilot. End of story.’ If one of these had been in place following the last drone incident at Gatwick, it really would’ve been the end of this story.

As for the hero of the hour – we can’t decide if it’s more like Wall-E or Johnny 5. Whichever, maybe the time is right for it to take up a permanent position at the end of all of Britain’s runways. 

Christmas bonus: how to deal with difficult family at Christmas?

We also interview people for a living, and professional detachment goes with the territory. But it’s more difficult when it’s a member of your own family saying something you don’t agree with – and saying it in the worst way at the worst time. So next time someone says something like: ‘This country needs a Donald Trump,’ here’s your cut out and keep (or slip into a cracker) guide to diffusing the situation. 

1. Check your status: there’s a pecking order, and if you’re low on it, you’re going to be riled. The conflict you are feeling comes from someone who has more power saying something you disagree with. Think about it: toddlers say stupid stuff all the time, but when they do it, it’s cute. We want our leaders to know better.

2. Questions are your friend. Don’t say, ‘You’re wrong.’ Do say: ‘Why do you think that?’

3. One of the most powerful ways to calm down a conflict is to get people to see things from another perspective. ‘What would it take to change your mind?’ is a question that leaves only two options – be reasonable or thump the table and say ‘nothing!’ If the latter, save your breath, help yourself to more gravy and emerge as the better person by volunteering to wash up.

This article appears on Nadine Dereza’s website as well as PS Programmes.

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When Trump became President, he pretty much took the standard advice of the speaker coach, screwed it up, and threw it back in our faces: be clear in what you mean, we said. Own your authority on what you’re talking about, we said, and admit when you don’t. Thank other people, be the best version of yourself you can be, give people something to aspire to.

As a speaker, Trump is boring, repetitive, ill-informed, divisive, unaffecting and a million other things that we’d warn you away from. Clear message? No, he rambles and repeats, so that people take away what they think they’ve heard. Authority? Nobody has better advisors than the US President, but Trump’s commentary sounds like he glimpsed a headline over someone’s shoulder. And as for being the best version of yourself, the president’s crossed arms / bottom lip out pose is familiar to anyone who’s ever tried to get a four-year-old to eat their greens.

But you might reasonably say, he did win the election, and that’s got to count for something, right?

Fortunately, we tend not to focus on the nuts and bolts of what makes a good speech. Our main focus is on the relationship you build with the audience. If public speaking was all about getting the tone right, Lost Voice Guy Lee Ridley wouldn’t have won BGT. If it was all about eye contact, former Home Secretary David Blunkett wouldn’t be a compelling speaker. When your relationship with the audience works, you can break the rules. Trump blunders through the rules of public speaking – (and possibly a few other rules too, but now’s not the time!) – able to do so because of the relationship he has with his particular audience.

The second thing we advise is that you tell the truth, because if you don’t, it will come out in the end, and if you’ve been less than honest, that will be your legacy. Trump’s drubbing in the mid-terms looks a lot like chickens coming home to roost; despite inheriting an upward-trending economy, having made himself popular with corporate America by handing them a chunky tax cut, enjoying a period of relative peace and a caravan of bogeymen (of his own invention), the President of the United States (POTUS) has come badly unstuck. He’s good at winning votes, it seems, less good at the actual business of being president.

A natural disaster is usually a fail-safe way for a president to look presidential. Trump has been at the helm while hurricanes hit Puerto Rico and wildfires devastated California. And he has failed to look presidential on both occasions.

It’s a sort of ‘how not to do it’ lesson in crisis communications: quick to find someone, anyone to blame while the crisis is still unfolding, and rolling out an easy answer: they should’ve done this, that or the other, he says, bolstering his claim that he has the answers, that he alone can fix the problem. The problem is that he looks like he’s trying to distance himself from the crisis and he has to create more news before people start to look back and judge what his response to the disaster was. Pointing the finger can only work for so long when you’ve taken command. There used to be a sign on the Oval Office desk that said ‘the buck stops here’. Trump looks like a man who’s constantly throwing it at whoever happens to be nearby.

The hurricane and the wildfires were not of Trump’s doing, but he could’ve brought people together. He could’ve delivered a stirring speech about the indomitable spirit of the United States to face adversity. In California, he blamed the disaster on forest mismanagement, invented a discussion with the Finnish Prime Minister and got the name of the town he was standing in wrong, calling it ‘Pleasure’ when it’s actually ‘Paradise’.

But you take away from Trump whatever you bring; and if his audience wanted to believe he was saying the right thing, that was good enough for them. Preaching to the converted is easy for any leader. Persuading the opposition is the true test, and it’s a test Trump utterly fails.

Failure to bring people together is many things, but above all, it’s weak leadership. It shouldn’t be a big leap for someone to support what their leader is doing in a crisis. Post-natural disaster, it shouldn’t be difficult to say a few words that most would agree with. ‘Capturing the mood of the nation’ doesn’t have to be difficult; it just requires saying something human.

From the outside, crises look like they should be easier to manage. They are chips-down situations where you show what you really care about. A crisis makes us step up to the plate and deal with a situation.

When the BP oil spill disaster ran into weeks, the CEO, Tony Hayward said – “I’d like my life back.” Part of you wants to empathise. The other part recognised that some people affected wouldn’t have the luxury of ever ‘getting their lives back.’

Politicians are often accused of being careful with their words, but there is a lot to be said for not jumping the gun before all the facts are known. You can survive being proven wrong when the facts change, but you can’t really wiggle out of speaking prematurely. Trump’s public rhetoric is like listening to a pundit on a news show. Their job is to entertain and critique, but there’s a reason why these people usually don’t go on to leadership roles for themselves: they still have just about enough self-knowledge to recognise that a clear view is a lot harder to keep when you’re close to the action.

Public speaking and leadership go hand in hand. If you are a great leader, you’ll need to ensure your public speaking communicates it. If you’re a bad leader, bad news: it isn’t going to save your skin.

Above all, as POTUS is showing us, you can’t construct your own reality in which you are inevitably the hero and think other people will always buy into it. Ironically, the leaders we look up to the most are the ones who know how human and fallible they can be.

You can’t fool all the people all the time. The question is, how many people can he fool some of the time? And, if he believes the things he says, for how long will he be able to continue to fool himself?

This article appears on Nadine Dereza’s website as well as PS Programmes.

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Kofi was a Ghanaian diplomat whose tenure in office marked a period in which the UN faced scandals of corruption and failed endeavour – yet emerged with credibility and respect. But these were not, ultimately, the lasting achievements of Annan.

When a young Kofi Annan walked into his first job at the World Health Organisation as a budget director in 1962, he was taking a major step along the path to what will be his legacy as an instrumental figure in the fight against the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in Africa.

His approach – compromise – laid him open to criticism, but like all diplomats, he put up with the showy onslaught in the opinion pages while the lives of the unseen were made a little easier. The balance between public policy and private enterprise is captured in his neat sentence from a report, WE the PEOPLES: The role of the United Nations in the 21st century (2000), calling on member states to ‘put people at the centre of everything we do. No calling is more noble, and no responsibility greater, than that of enabling men, women and children, in cities and villages around the world, to make their lives better.’

Annan himself was a gifted student with a background in economics and international relations, a period of his life which saw Ghana gain independence from the British, while he travelled to Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the States to study management.

The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS – UNAIDS Executive Director Michel Sidibé describes Kofi Annan as a shining light, a rabble-rouser, a trouble shooter and a change-maker, an African at heart, but a global citizen, symbolising the best of humanity.

At the turn of the century, AIDS denialism was at its peak. Mr Annan helped to break it. ‘More people have died of AIDS in the past year in Africa than in all the wars on the continent. AIDS is a major crisis for the continent, governments have got to do something. We must end the conspiracy of silence, the shame over this issue,’ he said.

Under his leadership, in 2000 the United Nations Security Council adopted resolution 1308, identifying AIDS as a threat to global security. In 2001, the United Nations General Assembly Special Session on HIV/AIDS was held—the first-ever meeting of world leaders on a health issue at the United Nations.

His leadership was not free of scandal: Annan was head of UN peacekeeping at the time when genocides were perpetrated in Rwanda and the former Republic of Yugoslavia, and he was in charge of the UN during the oil-for-food scandal in Iraq. But for all this his legacy – battling poverty, HIV, and climate change – set the UN on course for its ambitious sustainable development goals.

The Nobel Peace Prize, awarded jointly to Annan and the UN in 2001, was in recognition of the revitalised work of the organisation, prioritisation of human rights, and his commitment to the fight against the spread of HIV.

In retirement, Annan remained active until quite recently. Former British PM Gordon Brown writes: ‘I remember attending, at his invitation, a meeting of the Kofi Annan Foundation in Geneva and discovering how in his retirement, he was advising, in one way or another, a half-dozen countries in Asia, one or two in Latin America, and the majority of countries of Africa on human rights, elections, or poverty alleviation. For that reason, no single assessment can do justice to the breadth and depth of the successes of a leader who brought the UN’s decision-making out of smoke-filled rooms and into the 21st century.’

The endlessly quotable Annan accepted the UNAIDS Leadership Award in 2016 with the following words: ‘The fight is not over. We must continue the struggle and wake up each morning ready to fight and fight again, until we win.’ For those of us who know that tenacity trumps talent and consistency is the magic that makes real change stick, they are words to inspire today’s leaders to take up the baton just as he has let it go.

Kofi Annan, the first African to hold the office of secretary general, died with his work unfinished, but the world in a far better place than it would’ve been without him.

I’ll leave you with these inspiring words:

‘Education is, quite simply, peace-building by another name. It is the most effective form of defence spending there is.’ Kofi Annan

‘We don’t have to wait to act. The action must be now. You will come across people who think we should start tomorrow. Even for those who believe action should begin tomorrow, remind them tomorrow begins now, tomorrow begins today, so let’s all move forward.’ Kofi Annan

This article appears on Nadine Dereza’s website as well as PS Programmes.

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Why are they important?

The findings of a select committee often inform new legislation, and occasionally feature prominently on the news: following the collapse of retail giant BHS, Arcadia Group’s Chairman Sir Phillip Green was asked to give evidence to the Work & Pensions and Business, Innovation & Skills select committees (now known as Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy) at the House of Commons.

Other notable appearances over the last few years have included Facebook’s chief technology officer Mike Schroepfer (on the Cambridge Analytica data breach), Rupert Murdoch (on phone hacking – at which he got a pie in the face), and former BBC Director-General George Entwhistle (on the Jimmy Savile affair).

Unlike court hearings, the witness is not under oath and committee members combine the roles of investigator, judge, jury and cross-examining counsel.

The select committees are gaining a more prominent role. Indeed The Guardian calls them ‘the best thing about the parliamentary system’, noting that ‘independence and experience are beginning to matter’ more in being appointed to chair a committee, ‘than a record of party loyalism or the patronage of the whips… the independence of the committees should not be exaggerated or romanticised. But [some] chairs displayed tenacity and bold thinking that helped illuminate big policy issues in the last parliament.’

What’s at stake

While the committees can sometimes be quite adversarial in nature, you’re not in front of a judge, and you’re not in imminent danger of being sent to prison. They can, however, be as stressful as giving evidence in a court appearance.

The parliamentary select committees don’t often make it to the nation’s television screens unless there is something particularly newsworthy about them. You are unlikely to become a household name overnight following your appearance at one. But the people who are paying attention will be the ones who really matter: colleagues, staff and shareholders. So remember that although what you say and do may not make great changes to the wider world, they could certainly have a big impact on your organisation – and your future role within it.

Select committees don’t pull their punches when they make conclusions about your actions: Rona Fairhead, an HSBC executive and (now former) chair of the BBC Trust, was judged ‘totally incompetent’ and told to resign by Public Accounts Committee chair Margaret Hodge, while Rupert Murdoch was described as ‘not a fit person’ to be running a major international company. Warren Buffets’ ‘it takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it’ springs to mind.

But an appearance isn’t always bad news: ‘When done right, parliamentary hearings and public inquiries represent a unique opportunity for business leaders to state their case,’ says Cloisters Barrister Ed Williams QC. ‘That didn’t happen with Mark Zuckerberg, whose refusal to appear before a committee became a story in itself. It hasn’t helped his business, and the incident is even being used as evidence that he should step down as the boss.’

Know the process

It’s important to know in advance about what to expect on the day – where you need to be and when. Committee staff will contact you to inform of any administrative arrangements but ask questions so you are completely familiar with the process to give yourself peace of mind.

The British Parliament has a web page that gives you information on what to expect as a witness. Committee staff will usually be able to give you an informal briefing highlighting potential lines of questioning. Don’t necessarily expect the committee to stick to this line; if you’ve ever been in an interrogation situation, you’ll know that it’s a standard technique to wrong-foot a witness with a difficult left-field question, or seemingly inconsequential detail. This is why it’s imperative to…

Know your message

Building a narrative is important.

Watch out for what we like to call ‘editorial’; this is putting a spin on the facts to suggest motivations that may not be the case. Let’s imagine a scenario in which there has been an accident at a remote location, and the CEO is giving evidence about health and safety procedures.

Committee: You knew about the incident for 24 hours before issuing a statement. Why did you ignore it for so long?

Witness: I was not ignoring it; we had one isolated report of the incident and I was awaiting further advice from experts before making a comment that could’ve inflamed the situation.

In this example, the committee member is trying to get the witness to admit to ignoring a situation – which they corrected. If this is not addressed at the time, you run the risk of having it brought up later:

Committee: You say you were asking for advice, but a few minutes ago, you admitted you ignored the situation for 24 hours before issuing a statement. Why are you changing your story?

We counsel that this ‘editorialising’ is a tactic that can be used to trip the witness up – and witnesses are in danger of tripping themselves up if they engage in it themselves. Better, we think, to stick to the facts, be aware of editorialising, and avoid it where possible – in yourself and others.

In preparation for an appearance before a select committee, make sure you are intimately familiar with your narrative – and that it can withstand stress testing.

Remember that it is growing more common for more than one select committee to be involved in the investigation of an issue, particularly if it is especially complex. If you find yourself in front of more than one select committee, it goes without saying that you shouldn’t be changing your story.

Know your numbers

You don’t need a spreadsheet in your head, but you do need to know the numbers that matter: ‘As soon as I heard of the incident I did THIS, and within 24 hours we had ensured THAT.’  It can help to have a timeline of key events, and any other important statistics, documentation and data, which may be submitted to the committee in advance.

Know who’s in the room

Find out who is on the committee and be aware of any particular angles they are likely to take.

As already noted, it isn’t the job of a select committee to give the government the answers they necessarily want to hear, so you shouldn’t assume any member is ‘safe’ just because they happen to share your politics.

Some members do have a reputation, however, and if you think they are going to go after you for a particular reason, it makes sense to prepare yourself for a robust line of questioning.

Control nerves

A lot of the hazards of making this kind of appearance are tied up with nerves.

We counsel that as a speaker you should always be in control of your space and assume authority. In a courtroom or select committee, the power is not your own to assume. You need to have authority over your story, your facts. The committee is there to find out something, so you need to represent yourself as a credible source of information.

The most important thing to remember with nerves is that you can control them at least to some extent. You can start by recognising that you are getting nervous which begins to give you a basic level of control. Beyond that, you can remember to breathe deeply (the more nervous you get, the shallower your breathing becomes so make a conscious effort to breathe slowly and deeply).

Think back to your preparation: the better prepared you are, the more confident you will feel.

Keep your cool

The committee members may become antagonistic, attempt to rile you and get you to say something you will later regret.

The more they push you, the more you need to control your responses.

Under pressure, it’s tempting to say something that you don’t mean, don’t know or can’t deliver. It is useful to be aware of this, so that you don’t make a promise you can’t keep or weaken your position by saying you will ‘try’ to do some thing.

The balance you need to strike is to be deferential without being a push over, helpful without giving too much.

We often say that when you are communicating, it helps to imagine that you are the host of the party, and to treat the audience as your guests. The shoe is on the other foot here – they are the hosts, you are the guests, and you might not feel that you’re at a particularly warm party. It can, however, be helpful to imagine that the baton is being passed to you, and that you have control while you are speaking, before stepping back into the ‘guest’ role when you hand the baton back.

You will almost certainly find that you have to explain something to people that they don’t understand; keeping the tone polite, informative and respectful will serve you well, even if you feel you’re taking people who should know better right back to basics

VERY IMPORTANT

Correct mistakes ASAP. If you have unwittingly made a factual error, it’s better if the correction comes from yourself, quickly.

Do not let inaccuracies from the committee members stand (this goes along the same lines as understanding your narrative).

If you said you’d do something, do it: whether that’s providing further information, or changing a policy within your organisation.

Respond to aggression with calm.

Finally…

Communicating effectively is the most important skill you can have in work and life. When you are in a position of authority, it isn’t merely a ‘nice to have’ – it’s an essential component of your leadership.

The higher the stakes, the more important it is to communicate at your best. Preparation with people experienced in communications – whether you are appearing in the media, at conference, or before a select committee, regulator or public body – will help you convey your message – and not become a part of someone else’s narrative.

This article appears on Nadine Dereza’s website as well as PS Programmes.

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TSB are sorting out an IT disaster that began at the end of April, which locked customers out of their accounts, affecting mortgage and credit card payments.

What happened? TSB used to be a part of Lloyds TSB (now Lloyds Banking Group), and is now owned by the Spanish bank, Sabadell. Customers’ records had been held on the old Lloyds platform, and were migrated to the new Sabadell platform on 20 April of this year.

TSB CEO Paul Pester and COO Miquel Monte Güell were called before Parliament’s Treasury Committee. During the hearing, Pester told the committee, headed by Nicky Morgan MP, that ‘the percentage of people logging in successfully is 95%… Of course, that means 5% are not logging in successfully but that is often the case for any bank.’ These were the sort of remarks that prompted Nicky Morgan to call Pester ‘a staggering example of a chief executive who fails to recognise the scale of the problem that is being faced.’

The TSB CEO also refused to tell the committee when the problem would be rectified, saying that giving a date could be ‘misleading to customers’.

Paul Pester has not handled the situation well. We recommend keeping clear lines of communication open, making the focus sorting the problem and seeing things from the customer’s point of view. His big quote from the fiasco – ‘We are on our knees, we will get up, and come back fighting’ – does very little of this. It’s vague, self-pitying, gives no information, and we’re not sure whether he’s fighting for the customer or to save his own skin (or indeed the £2million bonus Pester would’ve received if the migration had gone to plan. He will not now be getting said bonus).

His other communications have included criticising social media – which is usually a mistake, as it’s where customers go to get information and to vent their frustrations. If you criticise online comments, it looks like you’re not taking customers’ concerns (or anger) seriously. He also said ‘I’ve just resurfaced after 48 hours with my teams who have been working as hard and fast as they can to get our services back up and running.’ Again, unless he’s an IT expert, this statement does run the risk of sounding somewhat misleading and smacks of  ‘poor me’ – never a good look when you’ve got customers missing their rent. It reminded us of the BA boss, Alex Cruz who donned a high-viz jacket to give an interview while he was in an office. Like royalty in a hard hat, you wonder if any real physical labour has been carried out, and conclude that it almost certainly hasn’t. The computer problems and the handling of the fall out add up to what the Bank of England has dubbed ‘self inflicted wounds’.

The story has run and run as the bank has been slow in putting things right and further details emerging about just how unprepared the bank was: a whistleblower who worked on the online banking migration team is reported to have claimed that as the changeover date approached, staff felt under pressure to ‘massage’ a system of alerts and downgrade issues from ‘urgent’ to ‘resolved’ – despite the problems not being fixed.

So it seems the fiasco was inevitable with people working in silos, afraid of communicating the truth, trying to do the IT upgrade on the cheap and the unwary customer now finding that they can not access their money. What will those customers do?

There’s an oft-repeated factoid that people change their spouse more often than they change their bank account. That may have been true once, but we live in a very different world from that which we knew a few years ago; technology has transformed the financial services, and while banks have long referred to us as ‘customers’ – we are only recently behaving like customers and voting with our feet. On the TSB website, Paul Pester had written: ‘At TSB, our focus remains unchanged: we will continue to do our bit to bring more competition to UK banking and ultimately make banking better for all consumers.’ A statement from happier times.

TSB have said they are going to reimburse anyone who has lost money due to the error, but charges for missed payments are only one part of the picture; a damaged credit score can not be fixed by throwing money at it. When customers are refused a mortgage or loan because of the mistake, the second wave of this calamity will unfold. Reputation is one of those things that once lost, is hard to get back. TSB, the Trustee Savings Bank, has held onto its name through mergers, takeovers and buy outs. The latest owner of TSB, Sabadell, decided not to change the name of the business to benefit from customer recognition of a trusted brand. Now they might not have the choice.

This article appears on Nadine Dereza’s website as well as PS Programmes.

Whether you’re being interviewed on TV and radio, speaking at a conference, pitching for new business, delivering a boardroom presentation, appearing before a regulator or public body – Nadine Dereza and the team at PS Programmes can help you communicate more effectively.

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And the demand for these Awards was clearly there, they attracted the best in book publishing with 36 authors shortlisted from 150 entries initially received, all from a variety of publishers. In fact, seventeen different publishers made it through to the shortlist, with entries ranging from independent publishers such as The Authority Guide, through to household names such as Wiley, Penguin Random House, Kogan Page and Bloomsbury.

The entries were judged across seven categories: Startup Inspiration, Selling the Dream, Leading the Team, Embracing Change, Thought Leader, Self-Development, and the Judge’s Choice.

I relished the opportunity to be one of three judges on the ‘Leading the team’ panel, along with Peter McKay and Martin Norbury: Peter is Chief Executive of The Publishing Training Centre, and Martin is an award-winning entrepreneur and author of ‘I Don’t Work Fridays.’  (Presumably, our Friday night award ceremony doesn’t count as ‘work’.)

After judging Campbell MacPherson’s ‘The Change Cataylst’ as the winner of the category, it turned out to be an excellent choice as it went on to win ‘Book of the Year’ overall. And I got the opportunity to share my judging comments on his book with the audience…’Campbell’s generosity of spirit and many years of experience, shone through and he not only thoroughly explained why change fails but also analysed practical solutions for change, as well as how to lead a team to get the desired result so change can be implemented successfully. The Change Catalyst’ is very well-written, insightful with spot on anecdotes to help us transform for the better.’

The category winners were:

Startup InspirationIt Takes a Tribe by Will Dean (Portfolio, Penguin Random House) – whose thank you speech referenced his experience as co-founder and CEO of Tough Mudder.

Selling the Dream
Strategic Tendering for Professional Services by Matthew Fuller and Tim Nightingale (Kogan Page) – clearly an excellent read, as the judges won business from following tips in the book.

Leading the Team
The Change Catalyst by Campbell Macpherson (Wiley) (Also overall winner). Campbell’s Book was the result of ‘a presentation from Bain & Co that said “88% of change initiatives, strategies and merges and acquisitions fail” – and I thought “goodness me, there’s the hook for the book.”

Embracing Change
Futureproof by Minter Dial and Caleb Storkey (Pearson) – collecting the award, Caleb pointed to the future as it would unfold for his infant daughter, whom he is home schooling (when Alexa has the answers, he argued, facts become secondary to how you interpret the world).

Thought Leader
The Startup Way by Eric Ries (Portfolio, Penguin Random House) – Eric adds another fine book to his oeuvre which includes the million-selling New York Times bestseller The Lean Startup.

Self-Development
The Leader’s Guide to Presenting by Tom Bird and Jeremy Cassell (Pearson) – the need to speak well in front of audiences and in the media remains as relevant as ever.

Judge’s Choice
Client Earth by James Thorton and Martin Goodman (Scribe UK) – demonstrating that sustainability really is of core concern to the business community.

So what is the benefit of having an award ceremony?

You had to keep reminding yourself that this was the first ever Business Book Awards, with the event being a huge success – hats off to ThinkFest who got it right first time. I have witnessed many events which have started in a broom cupboard and can take years to gain traction, not this one.

But there’s more to an awards ceremony than getting the champagne chilled and booking a Four Poofs and a Piano (though that’s a great start).

Credibility really is the name of the game. There is no point in running an awards ceremony if people don’t think it’s a fair contest. The business book awards were run properly in this regard from the very beginning. With the high calibre of entries, expertly guided by Head Judge, Alison Jones, all the judging panels took the task very seriously. As you might expect from this kind of contest, my fellow judges had fantastic credentials from the world of publishing, as authors in their own right, and as business people: it’s easy enough to write a book, rather more difficult to write one that’s going to be of use to someone whose livelihood may depend upon it. For every judge turning the pages in the hope of discovering a beautifully turned phrase, there was an entrepreneur who had learned the hard way and was looking for solid content. And many of the judges, including Martin Norbury, have seen the industry both from a business perspective, and as an author.

There was a real sense of being among industry movers and shakers in the judging room, and if anyone felt they weren’t up to the task of choosing a winner, the wisdom of this highly qualified crowd was sure to prevail.

So, it wasn’t easy – and I found myself reading through a stack of books whilst supposedly on holiday. But as Noel Coward so memorably said, ‘work is more fun than fun,’ and this was time well donated to a worthwhile endeavour.

What are the rewards for organiser of getting this event right?

Well, the usual story with industry awards is very simple: publicity. Once you have created legitimate awards, the winners will go off and publicise your brand as being the arbiters of excellence. In this world of reputation management, being seen as a thought leader is more important now than ever it was. And indeed, if you can set your organisation up as providing a benchmark of quality, people will come to you because they know that you are trustworthy and reliable.

Lucy’s aim with this event was not, however, to set herself up as an authority, so much as it was to shine a spotlight on this growing area of the publishing industry. Indeed, as the awards website says, ‘We hope that the Awards will allow short-listed and winning authors to publicise and sell more books; that the event will instil aspiration in entrants and pride in winners; and that the ongoing process will inspire other budding writers to come forward and publish their work.’

Lucy really is about encouraging people to tell their story. There was one thing that shone through at the event on Friday night, it was that so many people wanted to impart the knowledge to others. Established writers were keen to help first timers. Publishers were looking for new talent. The authors themselves wanted to pass on their business knowledge and help other people set up and run successful companies. And at the heart of it all, Lucy seem to be the ‘queenpin’ (new word alert!) that held everything together: this vast network of support, encouragement and mentoring.

The Awards will go on from strength to strength, and we may have had a 50/50 gender balance amongst the judging panel, but next year I hope to see more women write, publish, enter and win. Special mention to Eve Poole for her brilliant ‘Leadersmithing’ book entry which received a Highly Commended Certificate, narrowly missing out on the top spot in the Lead the Team category, which as we know was awarded to ‘The Change Catalyst’!

All the judges gave up their time for the awards, and by co- hosting the event too with Simon Da Cintra, I had one of the best seats in the house! Entries for 2019 open in July 2018, start writing now…(special thanks to @Social_Frames for great pics).

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You really need to get these three things lined up – if your authority wobbles, you’re in trouble. If your message is directed at the wrong audience, it won’t land as it should. And as recent events have shown, if the public thinks your message is less than authentic, it can be catastrophic for your reputation.

So how have two organisations KFC and Oxfam, who have both had their communications in the spotlight recently faired?

KFC, whose supply chain let them down, resulting in closure of hundreds of outlets, have managed quite the trick: apologise for their closed shops in a way that answers the needs of their two audiences: their customers, and the managers. And so, franchisees and the serious papers got a fairly straight analysis of what went wrong with the supply chain, a promise that it would be fixed.

To customers, who care less about the niceties of supply chain logistics, the messaging was simple: a ‘mea culpa’ – my fault! We messed up, and we’re sorry, and we’ll fix things as soon as we can. (They may have kept favour with their customers, but how KFC’s attempts to get staff to take holiday during the shutdown will affect morale is another matter.)

‘FCK’ was a smart response which didn’t lessen the serious nature of the incident, but it also understood where the message was going to land: social media. For all the grumbles about #KFCClosed there were a good many positive retweets of the #FCK graphic. Damage to the brand, we felt, is limited, because often we only see a company’s true colours when things go wrong, and the ‘we’ve had a hell of a week’ line is deliberately in tune with a non-corporate audience. We’ve seen a bit of pushback on the messaging, but only from PR professionals, who probably aren’t the target demographic for the apology.

No, damage is likely to hit DHL who were responsible for the delivery failure. Even if the general public haven’t noticed this, DHL’s big customers probably are all too aware of where the blame really lies. Within days of taking responsibility for deliveries on 14 February, the company ran into difficulties: ‘By 16 February, KFC had started to shut down locations after managers complained of delays to deliveries and by 18 February only 266 of 900 restaurants in the UK were open.’

Oxfam’s problems are more serious, and not just because allegations of widespread sexual abuse are harder to take a superficial ‘we messed up’ approach with.

If the allegations weren’t bad enough, Chief Executive of Oxfam, Mark Goldring, went on to make a glib comment about ‘murdering babies in their cots.’

Given the #MeToo movement, this struck precisely the wrong note for a nervous public, not to mention the people who donate and the aid workers who are grafting on the ground. Their good faith has been given a severe bruising. Further down the line, it’s harder for Oxfam to take the moral high ground on issues such as Fairtrade and justice.

When the story of sexual exploitation in the aid sector became big news, Chief Executive of Oxfam, Mark Goldring, was among several to speak on the matter to a Parliamentary Select Committee.

His opening statement was an apology for the ‘murdering babies’ comment but by then, the damage was done. Talk of ‘seeing a company’s true colours when things go wrong’ is profound here because things rarely go as wrong as they have for Oxfam. The whole incident had shades of BP’s Tony Hayward wanting his life back about it. The result of that incident was a fine in excess of US$20billion.

The BBC has reported that over 7,000 regular donations to the charity being stopped in the wake of the scandal. These may be the tip of the iceberg.

Jokes are not, contrary to popular belief, lies. Jokes have a truth about them. Jokes often say something about a subject that it is too painful or difficult to address directly. Beware the joke: if the underlying message of the joke contradicts the press release, it will be taken as the truth, and the official version will be taken as a cover up.

Given two competing narratives, do not be surprised if the media seize on the less flattering version of events. Shoppers, when browsing the charity shops on a high street, could be forgiven for giving Oxfam a miss.

The lesson is, when you’re the spokesperson for an organisation, nothing is off the record. If you can’t trust yourself to say something, perhaps it is better to say nothing at all. ‘No comment’ isn’t always a great first response, but if there is already a statement available to the public, it doesn’t necessarily need elaborating on unless events change.

Meanwhile, a printed apology on A4 is tacked on the door of our local Oxfam shop. Soon, KFC branches will be buzzing again. Oxfam may now be a name that is permanently tarnished. (Charities do change name; the Spastics Society, which we don’t even like writing, changed to Scope when they felt their name was ‘holding them back’.)

But it would be a real tragedy if the legacy of this week were the damage to Oxfam’s reputation ultimately impacted in the people who the charity was set up to help. Mr Goldring’s unthinking comment may be felt hardest by some of the people in the world most in need of aid.

This article appears on Nadine Dereza’s website as well as PS Programmes.

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From the highest cultural markers to… the Celebrity Big Brother house. This year the reality TV show has kicked off with a women-only household.

Big Brother’s selling point is that there is a sense of authenticity about the programme: the standard Big Brother show invites us to find out about strangers. Celebrity formats promise to tell the viewer who the real person is behind the stranger we think we know, either revealing the public mask – or sometimes discovering that it isn’t a mask at all. People who do well at these shows are not the nicest or the smartest; they are the ones who are most of themselves.

We haven’t had to wait long before the first housemate made a headline for something they’ve said. When someone says something out of turn and causes offence – and there seems to be an ever-growing list of things that can cause offence – there is nowhere to go.

But is the all-woman household a gimmick? Yes of course it is. Eight men will be joining the housemates shortly. The rumoured guest list includes retired footballer John Barnes, a living Ken doll and a drag act (for the removal of all doubt, those are three different people), though it remains to be seen which (if any) is going to take the role of unreconstructed sexist that John McCririck so ably filled when, in the words of an industrial tribunal, he demonstrated ‘his self-described bigoted and male chauvinist views, [which] were clearly unpalatable to a wider potential audience.’

But before the male housemates show up, there is every chance that the women will showdown more. Not because women are inherently more argumentative, but because the housemates have been picked for conflict: staunch Catholic Ann Widdecombe has already rubbed transsexual India Willoughby up the wrong way, and if journalist Rachel Johnson can hold her own whilst growing up with her brother Boris, she is practically guaranteed to give as good as she gets, whoever is dishing it out.

Conflict is how it works. Conflict is the fastest way of telling a story, because it’s easy to define yourself when you’re in opposition to something. Unfortunately, conflict is also a very bad way of getting new information across: televised discussions rarely change minds, because we tend to latch onto the parts of an argument we agree with and ignore information that contradicts the view we already hold, particularly if presented in a format where one side must win and the other must lose. So, if you’re being needled into a strong reaction, pushing back just as hard might not be the best way to win people over – however satisfying it might be in the long run.

When we are training people for crisis media management, we conduct ‘mock interviews’ with realistic scenarios in which they are given both tough questions from an interviewer, and another hostile guest. It’s hard to keep your cool when you’re being berated on all sides, with the audience represented by a cool, unblinking camera lens. Conflict is the basis for drama because it is what brings out a character’s true qualities We find out how far they will be pushed, what they are prepared to stand up for, and how tough they really are.

In drama, the writer has the opportunity to save their hero from overwhelming odds. In real life, the interviewer and the hostile guest are not going to make you look like a hero if they can help it.

Here are our top tips for these most difficult on-screen encounters:

1. Remember that whatever happens in the studio, the audience might feel something very different watching at home.
2. Be prepared: know the facts, be particularly clear on the timeline and don’t deviate into speculation.
3. Control the narrative: this doesn’t mean lie, but it does mean that you choose your words carefully. Your interviewer might call it ‘a disaster’. You might call it ‘an incident’. Controlling the narrative also means controlling the relationship with whoever is asking the questions. If they are being aggressive, they are only doing their job; you must look as though you are rising above it rather than sinking to their level.
4. Don’t be too short, don’t ramble. Both look evasive. You want to give the impression that you’re telling it straight and giving the facts.
5. Do watch back your interview afterwards, if possible. It might make uncomfortable viewing, but there will almost certainly be something you can do differently next time. Watch and critique, but don’t wallow – any damage has been done already and doing better next time is your only real option.

Next time you’re watching a news interview, or indeed any interview that’s a bit ‘edgy’, think of these rules. And if Big Brother is more your thing, look out for conflict, and look out for which housemates are familiar with these rules – and which ride roughshod over them. Keeping your cool under pressure is hard work and requires a lot of concentration – which, unlike the Kardashians, isn’t something anyone can keep up with indefinitely.

This article appears on Nadine Dereza’s website as well as PS Programmes.

Our bespoke programmes are designed with your needs in mind; so whether it’s gearing up to speak at a large scale event, pitching for new business, or simply improving your one on one communication skills, we can help. Our team all have a hands-on connection to live events and the media, it’s our practical experience that will help you perform at your best.

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Books can have a huge influence on society: JK Rowling’s Harry Potter series is credited with encouraging a generation of children to read for pleasure (and it’s paid off – the Harry Potter brand has been calculated as being worth $25 billion and that’s as of 2016, so this has probably gone even further north.

The success of the HP brand (Harry Potter, that is, not the sauce) has led to a real Platform 9 3/4 at Kings Cross, a film studio tour, and most recently, the British Library’s exhibition, Harry Potter: The History of Magic, with a BBC2 programme about the exhibition too!

The book that accompanies the exhibition will set you back £30, which is about 1/2000th of the cost of a first edition of ‘Philosopher’s Stone’. We have seen JK Rowling’s Potterverse take on a life of its own, and it’s a life so rich and textured, that there are now books being written about the books.

JK Rowling is an outspoken advocate for the things that are close to her heart, but this isn’t unusual for a renowned author. Charles Dickens used his popularity to raise public awareness of social injustice and poverty; some books, such as Harper Lee’s ‘To Kill A Mockingbird’ stand alone as a statement on an issue.

Over in the non-fiction section, what about business books? Well I was delighted to be a mentor at the British Library Books Mean Business event, aimed at the would-be authors, and a chance to share my insights on the publishing industry. Also present were Rasheed Ogunlaru and Tessa Stuart, dispensing their wisdom: Rasheed’s book, ‘Soul Trader’ is about having a passion for your own business, and Tessa writes about being an entrepreneur in the food industry. Both had plenty to say about their experience of writing, and then, crucially, selling their books.

Books aimed at the business market can have a powerful influence in wider life. ‘Nudge’ by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein is credited with shaping public policy under David Cameron and ‘the surprising economics of everyday life’ is a does-what-it-says-on-the-tin description of Tim Harford’s ‘Undercover Economist’ books and Steven D Levitt’s epic ‘Freakonomics’.

Dale Carnegie’s ‘How to Win Friends and Influence People’  is a classic of the genre. First published in 1936, it is almost a perfect template of successful publishing:

• A clear promise in the title
• Simple clear instructions on how to achieve what is promised
• A credible author

…and of course, the latest edition has a cover that tells you how many people have also bought the book. How can thirty million (friendly and influential) readers be wrong?

Book titles deserve a blog in and of themselves, and getting the right title can be crucial. We settled (after much debate) on ‘Insider Secrets of Public Speaking’ (which contracts neatly down to ISOPS); about the same time, another book on public speaking did brisk business with an even more direct and succinct title: ‘Talk Like TED’. TED speakers have had an impact on the world of public speaking and it was a smart move for the ‘TLT’ author Carmine Gallo to use the brand as a springboard for her book. Naturally we feel that our book will tell you how to Talk Like TED if you want, or Talk Like Yourself, which is more useful if you’re speaking in public and it isn’t a TED talk. Our book also has a chapter on how to eliminate ‘er’s and filler words from your speech; we’ve just finished working with a film editor whose job it was to cut these out of TED Talks.

It would be a mistake to limit the value of a book to how much the royalty cheque is made out for. A book can establish the author as an authority, which in turn leads to more work: we’ve talked to several authors whose books have yet to reach the bestseller list. But this doesn’t make the book a failure: we know someone who’s given away more books than he’s sold, and the result has been a string of consulting contracts that have repaid the investment many times over.

The money from a briskly-selling book is of course nice, but we think it goes beyond the bottom line. Richard Branson doesn’t need to churn out how-to books and a couple of volumes of autobiography. Just maybe, he really is doing it for the benefit he thinks a reader will get from reading them.

Publishing is an evolving business, with plenty of options for authors to choose between including: self-publishing (author is in effect the micro publisher); traditional publisher (where the publisher takes control and responsibility for producing the book and makes money from book sales); or hybrid publishing (which does the same as a traditional publisher, but the author keeps control, pays for publishing services up front but gets much higher royalty on sales).

(My co-author Ian Hawkins and I decided to go for the ‘hybrid publishing’ option with Rethink Press).

If you want to tackle getting your book out as a pure money maker, you can. But it is risky, and the financial rewards may not match your effort. When you write a book, it makes sense to think about the benefits beyond the number of copies you hope to sell. Whether you make a mountain of cash or a garage out of unsold copies, a book should give you credibility.

What a book shouldn’t be about is your ego. If you’re going to sell any copies beyond your friends and family, you need to think about what the reader wants to read, rather than what you as the writer want to write. What value are you giving? The reader doesn’t care how long it took you to write your book, but they do care about how long it’s going to take them to read the end result, and if you waffle too much to hit your 60,000 word target, don’t be surprised if your book stays on the shelf.

We have found that collaboration is key: whether you have a co-author who can give a fresh look at a paragraph you’ve spent an hour on (and should have deleted in ten seconds) or a publisher/editor who can pull you up on clichés or a lack of clarity, feedback is a precious gift, even if it’s not what you wanted at the time.

And who knows – if you write it well and tap into a zeitgeist, you may well sell a million copies and have world leaders taking your advice. A step along the way could be recognition at ‘The Business Book Awards’  – and I am on the judging panel and will also be co-hosting on the night in March 2018 with Simon de Cintra from Act Naturally.

So if you want your name to be nestled in a gold envelope, submit your entry through the website – if you have had a business book published in 2017. And if not, the field for 2018 is wide open!

This article appears on Nadine Dereza’s website as well as PS Programmes.

Our bespoke programmes are designed with your needs in mind; so whether it’s gearing up to speak at a large scale event, pitching for new business, or simply improving your one on one communication skills, we can help. Our team all have a hands-on connection to live events and the media, it’s our practical experience that will help you perform at your best.

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It’s tempting, especially for those of us whose skill set falls in what might broadly be called ‘the creative industries’, to think that we are immune from the onslaught of smart machines: who wants a robot to present their conference? Or design their logo? Or write a restaurant review (‘I started with a delicious WD40 before moving onto the main course…’)? But the reality is that nobody is going to fail to feel the touch of artificial intelligence in their lives, and that means in their jobs.

The usual technology rules apply: what starts off as a niche idea in a lab on top of the cost mountain today, rolls quickly down, getting cheaper and gathering applications along the way. By the time it hits the village at the bottom, it’s unstoppable, and everyone gets hit by the avalanche.

The Japanese seem to be the culture with the greatest capacity for enthusiastic adoption of robot technology – such as a humanoid robot plastic priest Pepper has put itself up for hire as a Buddhist priest for funerals.

Which is slightly reminiscent of Douglas Adams’s Electric Monk (who believes in all the things you don’t have time to believe in yourself).

The Artificial intelligence snowball has been rolling down the mountainside for some time now, and is beginning to bounce off the chalets of the companies that can stand the cost – and want the edge that the technology promises.

Narrative Science based in Chicago, takes data and turns it into natural language. What does this mean? An early iteration of their software generated newspaper reports of Little League games based on the data fed into it: ‘Friona fell 10-8 to Boys Ranch in five innings on Monday at Friona despite racking up seven hits and eight runs. Friona was led by a flawless day at the dish by Hunter Sundre, who went 2-2 against Boys Ranch pitching…’

Feed in data from a stock market, and get out a clear picture of what’s going on, and you can make informed, human decisions about which stocks to back while your rivals are still pouring over a spreadsheet. Feed in data from an Ebola outbreak and you know where to direct resources. So what does this mean for our line of work – presentation, crisis media management, live events? The mantra of the AI industry is that the technology won’t be stealing your job, but it will change it.

Does this mean we will soon be settling down to watch a robot deliver a keynote speech at a conference? Unlikely. Instead of worrying that technology is going to make your job obsolete, think instead about how it will be made different. The potential is for data itself to change. Computers won’t be calling the shots, but they may decide what information to put in front of the human who makes the final decision.

At live events, technology has been most evident on media screens and audience polls. But let’s consider just one data-driven part of the events industry: feedback is always the vital part of an event that the organisers are keen to capture. If there were an easier, more natural way of gathering this data – an eavesdropping robot that understands natural speech springs to mind – this could have an impact on how the next conference is put together. Another application, purely from the presenter’s point of view, is that there is often a lot of audience feedback, some of it written, some of it spoken, and some of it on social media. Part of the presenter’s job is to sort out relevant information from a lot of noise – and do it under pressure, whilst providing a balanced representation of reality. AI would be able to pull out the main points being raised across more channels and from more sources than the human brain can manage, and deliver it with relevant facts or statistics to the presenter via a tablet or earpiece. This is just one way that AI could lift some of the weight without the audience necessarily being any the wiser!

We can all think of the benefits, but what are the risks? Once you’ve discounted the Terminator scenario, in which machines realise that all the world’s problems really are human-shaped, the downsides of AI are the same as with any other technology: using it wrong, and blaming the machine for not doing what it was supposed to do. The greatest danger is in our own biases and beliefs: consider the Dunning-Kruger effect which is a known and demonstrable cognitive bias in which a person with low ability or knowledge mistakenly believes they have a much higher ability or knowledge than they do in reality. You know you’re feeling the Dunning-Kruger effect when you start a task with confidence – and then find it’s harder than you thought. You might also have been frustrated by meeting someone who knows nothing of your job but assumes it to be easy.

Couple that with cognitive dissonance which is our ability to hold two contradictory beliefs at the same time – for example, that medicine works, we can split an atom and land people on the moon, but that 97% of scientists are wrong about climate change. Combining these two – a belief that we’re smarter than we think we are, plus a belief that is contrary to all known data – and you have a potentially toxic mix of determinedly disregarding all the benefits that AI can provide.

This isn’t to say we should do everything the machines tell us to do; it does mean that we may be more confident than we ought to be about our ability to sort good advice from bad, and the great gift that computers may give to us may be a greater understanding of our own fallibility. The more computers talk like us, the more we are going to imbue them with human qualities. The danger down the line is that the sort of solid, dependable data on which we should base our decisions, becomes no more valuable than opinion. We may ‘feel’ we are right. And we may turn out to be very, very wrong.

This article appears on Nadine Dereza’s website as well as PS Programmes.

Our bespoke programmes are designed with your needs in mind; so whether it’s gearing up to speak at a large scale event, pitching for new business, or simply improving your one on one communication skills, we can help. Our team all have a hands-on connection to live events and the media, it’s our practical experience that will help you perform at your best.

The post ‘What AI means for leaders’ appeared first on Nadine Dereza is an award-winning broadcaster and journalist, conference chair, live events host, keynote speaker, and moderator..

As it’s always a good way to engage an audience, and find out what it is that they expect from a workshop, we started by asking the audience what ‘Leadership’ meant to them.

The answers were as wide ranging as the participants: from ‘integrity’ and ‘visionary’ to ‘getting things done’ and ‘being a good listener’, the tone was set for our workshop around the principles of good communication from a public platform.

What is leadership?

The audience’s answers gave us a helpful metric to gauge what they aspired to in themselves, and what they expected from leaders. We were delighted that one of the key things raised, which we think is critical, is the aspect of communication.

One of our favourite films, The King’s Speech, makes the link between communication and leadership absolutely plain. The central character’s stammer makes him (in some eyes) unsuitable as a leader, whatever other qualities he may have. We follow the main character, Bertie, through personal, constitutional and international crises, and his determination to communicate achieves a greater symbolism.

The King’s Speech is set at the very beginning of the age of mass communication. Now, in our world of 24-hour news, social media and door stepping journalists, being a leader isn’t something you can do on the quiet, but this doesn’t matter: the greatest leaders in the world are of little use to others when their qualities are invisible. If you want to ‘inspire others’, ‘bring the best out of people’ or ‘take responsibility’ – you have to communicate, and we would argue that you can’t do any of those things well if you do communication badly.

Communications skills to master

Communication comes in many forms, and two that are worth mastering are media appearances and public speaking. Why particularly these two? Sir Robin Murray, a leading psychiatrist, says that human brains are ‘the most complex things in the universe’, and when one brain communicates with another, it’s about one of the most difficult things they can do.

Think about all those times somebody took something you said as meaning the complete opposite of what you intended. On top of the actual spoken words are things like body language, eye contact, tone of voice, gesture and so on – the total communications package. If you’re trying to consciously control all of those things, you’re keeping a lot of balls in the air. We can type a lie, but we can’t always tell one. And if a television camera is in your face, the viewer at home will have their own opinion on whether you’re being disingenuous or not.

Appearing in the media

Appearing in the media is a very effective way of communicating your style of leadership: your response to an event, particularly a crisis, tells the audience what you’re like as a person – and what they can expect from the organisation that you lead. In the digital world, what you do in the moment can last forever, so there can be a real sense of your character being tested under extreme conditions. Leaders can benefit from being in the media, because the audience can get up close and see how they think. We never counsel that you should deliberately go out of your way to make mistakes you can later rectify with a flourish to make yourself look good; you will have plenty of crises that naturally occur to keep you busy.

If you don’t think you need to worry about how to respond to a crisis in the media, bad news: you are behind the times: according to the 2017 KPMG Global CEO Outlook, reputation or brand risk is one of the top three risks facing businesses today. This is a new development – as this wasn’t even in the top ten in 2016.

The other advantage of being in the media is that it gives you credibility: if you appear on the news, you must know what you’re talking about. The more familiar your face, the stronger your personal brand. People won’t always like it (or you) but they’ll know where you will likely stand on an issue.

Public speaking

Public speaking is a different animal; because it’s a one-off event, you’re speaking to people directly, and although the reach may be smaller than other media, there is something about a live event that makes a well-delivered message hit home.  There is no room for a retake, and if microphone suddenly cuts out or the set falls down, you’re going to have to deal with it there and then.

The one advantage of making mistakes in front of a crowd is that it’s less likely to live on in cyberspace – and if the event is a disaster because the lights and sound fail (and you carry on as best you can) you’re more likely to be remembered for your stoicism rather than be blamed for technical failure.

The only way to get really good at speaking at meetings, pitches and conferences is to speak in public, in front of colleagues and clients, and learn from your mistakes. As with any other endeavour, the gift of honest feedback is something to treasure. Plenty of people will line up to tell you that you were great, even when you weren’t – particularly if you’re the boss.

It’s important to come back to the point again: however good you might be as a leader, you’ll have limited impact if you don’t communicate to others en masse. One-on-one communications are brilliant but if you can’t talk to every staff member, supplier and customer one at a time, you need to master speaking in front of people and media appearances. These skills are not something you’re born with; they have to be learned. And they are not ‘nice to have’; they are an essential part of the leader’s toolkit. Put it this way: if someone doesn’t present themselves with authority and authenticity, what does that say about the organisation they are supposed to be leading? And if you can’t make the case for the people in your organisation, you are doing them a disservice.

If you haven’t thought about how you come across in the media or presenting in front of people, now is the time to think about it – and this blog post ends now to give you a moment to do exactly that.

This article appears on Nadine Dereza’s website as well as PS Programmes.

Our bespoke programmes are designed with your needs in mind; so whether it’s gearing up to speak at a large scale event, pitching for new business, or simply improving your one on one communication skills, we can help. Our team all have a hands-on connection to live events and the media, it’s our practical experience that will help you perform at your best.

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Our approach to crisis communications – in fact, our approach to all communications – is to be ‘joined up’: you have to align your message with the reality of the situation and the action you’re going to take. Don’t say you did something you didn’t do, don’t say you will do something you won’t do, and don’t say anything that is obviously at odds with the facts as they are currently known. The story is the important thing; Marie Antoinette never did say ‘Let them eat cake’ but the story was too good not to stick, and she unfairly remains the Patron Saint of Crisis Communications.

Trouble at the top

Today, BA chief executive Alex Cruz is in the firing line. His arrival with a CV full of no-frills airlines brought with it a series of cost-saving measures including changing the dining provisions and moving BA’s IT services out to India. They do say that no civilisation is more than two meals away from anarchy, so tinkering with the in-flight catering was always a bit of a risk, but that was merely a distraction from the chaos that only IT can bring to an international organisation as complex and regulated as BA.

Cruz hit the news with a carefully worded explanation of events. While we appreciate that it’s difficult to get information out, especially in a crisis, the big complaint from the ground on the day was that nobody told passengers in the terminals what was happening. Twitter is great, so long as you have a connection, data allowance for the country you’re in and a charged phone (we’ve long advocated that in the event of a delay, the smartest thing for an airline to do is to make charging your phone easier).

The more you examine Cruz’s statement, though, the more it falls apart: being in the ‘operations centre’ could be read as being at the heart of where the problems are, being hands-on. Except, of course, the problems are a quarter of the way around the globe; it doesn’t matter how much activity is happening here if the problem is there. It looks good – until it occurs that maybe it’s disingenuous (rather like the high-vis jacket).

And then of course there is reading between the lines of the statement; promising to give ‘full refunds to customers who no longer wish to travel’ is one thing; what about covering the costs of those who DO wish to travel, and have to make their journeys by other means?

We found out the hard way that taking the initiative sometimes doesn’t pay off; following the emergency landing of BA flight A319 from London to Oslo, one of the PSP team had to book another flight back to the UK from Oslo with SAS to meet a commitment rather than waiting for BA to sort out alternative travel arrangements. A year later, the claim still wasn’t settled, and ultimately we never did cover the cost of the additional flight, let alone the time and trouble it took to badger BA into paying up.

Cruz’s high-vis jacket

So something rings hollow in these careful statements intended to reassure and inform. But you don’t need to listen to the words being spoken to know that there is definitely something off kilter about that high-vis jacket.

Communications have a grammar all of their own – and when something is out of place it can feel ‘wrong’ without us always knowing exactly why. The high-vis jacket was one of those things that captured the imagination of social media: why was Cruz wearing it in the office?

Perhaps the more cynical viewer may have thought it an affectation, like George Osborne’s hard hat or talisman like Andrew Mitchell’s ‘plebgate’ bicycle.

This is a classic case of something not looking quite right, something out of place that prompts people to look closer at what else might not be completely aligned.

‘Alignment’ is one of those things that you can only fake for so long until you’re found out. Think of Trump’s White House, which is an object lesson in how not to do communications. The press office says one thing, and the President humiliates them shortly afterwards by saying something else.

Spokespeople exist for a reason – to take the burden of communications off the shoulders of the people making the decisions. When the decision-maker – Trump in this case – ‘goes rogue’ and changes the story, they create huge problems, because they damage the credibility of the spokespeople.

A leader should decide their line, and let the others communicate it. When the person at the top of the organisation does something that is at odds with what the others are saying, it raises all sorts of questions about how effective they are at leading other aspects of the organisation.

Human brains love stories, and if the story is ‘this person can’t be trusted to tell the truth’, it’s a difficult reputation to shake off. Quite apart from making the communications team at the White House look as though they don’t have the trust of the President, it damages relationships that may have taken years to build; it looks like they are telling lies.

If the only way to be sure of getting the truth is to get it from the person at the top, what’s the point in having anyone further down the line? And when communications become crisis communications, getting the right message out into the world can be a full time job. The trouble is being President is already a full time job. And you don’t have time to do both.

But, back to Cruz and his high-vis jacket.

It’s often been said that PR is an art form, and like the best art, to compromise the vision is to detract from the whole.

Perhaps Cruz hoped wearing it would make him look like a man of action, leaping between the tarmac and the boardroom with ease, if not hard core aplomb. The trappings of manual jobs can make someone look hands-on and involved.

Or maybe, as one Twitter-wit had it, he looked more like he’d been handling the baggage.

Costume vs. uniform

We are reminded of the late Alan Rickman’s line in the under-rated sci-fi comedy Galaxy Quest: ‘Need I remind you that this man is wearing a costume, not a uniform?’

There is a real difference between the two: a uniform gives you credibility, and a costume doesn’t. A uniform, be it that of an admiral, traffic warden or baggage handler, comes with authority. And it also depends on the person: when the Queen wears a crown, it’s a uniform. When we wear a crown, it’s a costume.

So why did the high-vis jacket ring alarm bells? Surely it’s standard-issue uniform for anyone trying to avoid being run over by a taxiing aeroplane? It’s to do with alignment: the story is that BA have been slashing costs and sending the IT systems overseas. The unexpected appearance of a high-vis jacket in an office (where the uniform is a suit and tie) didn’t merely suggest something was out of place; the subtle impression was that the CEO was also preoccupied doing things that he should be leaving to some other person.

And being CEO is already a full time job.

The very worst-case scenario is that Cruz put on the jacket not because he genuinely had to be somewhere that required it, but because he thought it would give the impression that he was more hands on than he actually was. The problem was IT; his outfit didn’t match the thing that should’ve been occupying him. If there had been a problem with baggage handlers, perhaps the jacket wouldn’t have been such a misstep.

It’s refreshing, after so many front-page stories about what women are wearing on red carpets, to have a man’s wardrobe choices pored over. Fortunately, after the storm of Cruz’s high-vis jacket, his embarrassment isn’t likely to be further compounded by anyone else turning up in the same outfit.

Counting the cost

What the debacle has done is throw the spotlight onto BA, and what it shows isn’t flattering: an IT system in chaos, customers unhappy with the standards of service, and a brand that’s built on quality now cutting corners. BA’s bill for putting things right with customers could top £100 million though this might be little more than a down payment if BA is to prove it’s still a world-class airline brand worth paying a premium for.

BA seems yet to fully get a grip of the situation. Consumer group Which? has weighed in on this issue, telling BA that they should automatically give compensation to passengers, rather than making them fight for it.

With the compensation bill projected to run to over £100 million, it’s in the interests of BA to take advantage of the 70% of airline customers who have a right to a payout not claiming. BA may have ‘no desire to be obstructive,’ but neither is it going to push money into disappointed people’s hands. Our PSP colleague, with the year-long compensation claim brought back to memory, had a few comments on this, which are best left to the imagination.

The other strand of crisis management is to take control of the situation, and here, again, BA has made things worse with advice on their own website for passengers to contact their travel insurers to discuss compensation claims.

The Association of British Insurers (ABI) says the advice is confusing. ‘Those affected should seek compensation, and any refunds, in the first instance from British Airways. Any cover available under travel insurance will usually kick in only if compensation is not available from any other source.’

On a low-cost airline, this attitude is understandable. On BA (‘to fly, to serve’) it looks underhand, disorganised and shabby.

o Cruz has his work cut out if he is going to persuade the paying public that there isn’t another crisis waiting to happen. And with calls for BA to ‘take the crisis seriously’ (implying that so far, it hasn’t) the story is now that things are far from fixed, even if Cruz is pretending that they are.

Apart from Marie Antoinette, the other historical character that comes to mind is Nero. Does anyone else hear the sound of a lyre?

This article appears on Nadine Dereza’s website as well as PS Programmes.

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The facts of the case are these: a United Airlines flight was overbooked and four crew members needed to be transported to make another flight. Passengers were offered money to give up their seats, and as none did so, passenger David Dao was selected to make way for a staff member. Dao refused on the grounds that he had patients waiting for him at his destination, and the matter was escalated to the point that Dao was forcibly removed from the plane by armed aviation police in an incident that Dao’s lawyer says left him bloodied, concussed, and with missing teeth.

The impact of the incident was a dramatic decline in United’s share price, a civil suit against the airline, and a huge hit to the company’s reputation when footage of the incident appeared on news websites, television, and social media. In the past, United might’ve got away with an incident like this, but in the days of Facebook Live, Periscope, and Snapchat, dramatic events are now nearly always captured on camera live at-the-scene, courtesy of the world’s growing army of citizen journalists.

Some stories are ‘sticky’ – the incident cannot be shaken off. When a Delta pilot struck a passenger on another flight on 21 April, less than two weeks after the United incident, the new story didn’t overtake the original; it merely dredged up the United incident again. United’s CEO Oscar Munoz reacted by, er, praising the actions of the employees during the incident.

Quite apart from hastily coming to the wrong conclusion, it was inevitable the letter would be leaked to the press – Munoz should’ve kept in mind that anything written down can and will end up being leaked to the media if it’s attached to a big story (and it was). By placing the emphasis on the employees rather than putting things right with the customer, Munoz gave the impression that United was taking a bunker mentality approach to the incident, and not looking out to the rest of the world. ‘Why do you hate the American people?’ one representative asked Munoz at the House Transportation Committee hearing, dangerous language in America’s currently jingoistic political atmosphere. This question came at a hearing held to discuss whether US airlines needed legislation to sort out customer service issues, or whether this could be achieved as an industry.

The United story has and will continue to create ripples, some of which circle back around in unexpected ways. For example, an unrelated story around a fast food restaurant gave the United board another cause for indigestion. When burger and chicken chain Wendy’s was approached on Twitter with the question ‘Yo @Wendys how many retweets for a year of free chicken nuggets?’ the company responded with a sensible answer, ’18 million.’ Customer Carter Wilkerson gave them their publicity and a warm, fuzzy feel-good story was created. Wilkerson’s plea has now been retweeted more than 3.5 million times and is the most retweeted tweet of all time. When United decided to try and get in on the Wendy’s game – by offering a free flight to Wilkerson – their ploy backfired spectacularly.

Twitter smelled cynicism and United got another mauling. It wasn’t just a communications misstep; it was a complete omnishambles: the incident with David Dao was immediately brought up again and the United brand faced further criticism. Why?

Our three golden principles of communication at PS Programmes are authority, authenticity, and audience. The airline has the authority to make things happen, whether that is a free flight or an out of court settlement – or doing the thing that you’ve paid them to do like honour the details on the ticket. The authenticity part of the equation is a bit more nebulous, but essentially, the actions and the words have to match up: you cannot say one thing and do another. Finally, you must take the audience reaction into account. United’s actions were an open invitation to the Twittersphere to turn the knife.

United was a classic case of the butterfly effect: the idea that seismic events can spring from small causes. ‘Businesses run complex systems so a small error in one part of the system can have an unpredictable large impact elsewhere,’ says Eric Priezkalns, a former Deloitte consultant and editor of Commsrisk. ‘Customers are more informed, more powerful than ever before because they can connect and act together like never before. United carries 143 million passengers a year but social media means one terrible incident can be global news – the butterfly effect!’

So what went wrong? A couple of things: while Dao may have settled out of court, the long-term damage for United is yet to be reckoned. The incident has truly gone viral, escaping the original context and appearing in other places to tell other stories – such as the front cover of an issue of the New Yorker.

Even if United’s settlement prevents Dao from being the voice of disgruntled customers, his bloodied face could be a lazy photo editor’s illustration of hostility in hospitality for years to come.

And by offering Wilkinson a free flight, United looked as though they were being excessively nice to one person, and excessively nasty to someone else. Twitter has seen the footage of Dao being dragged away, and an image paints more than 140 characters, let alone a thousand words. The free flight offer was too little, too late, to the wrong person, and in the light of Wilkerson’s tweet being one of the most retweeted of all time, too exposed. This hits the company’s authority and makes them look out of control, which is bad for a brand, and disastrous if you’re an airline.

United also looked like they were piggybacking on someone else’s success to remedy their damage. This is a gut punch to all ideas of authenticity. United needs a campaign that is original, gets traction, and puts things right with the customer – not necessarily Dao, but something that speaks to people like him. It needs to come from the heart. Think about why Wilkerson and Wendy’s are doing so well. He’s 16, and is cheekily asking for a freebie. Wendy’s has laid down a challenge, and he’s accepted. There are no great stakes here – it’s a bit of fun with a teenager with chutzpah (and we all know someone like that) and a fast food place that most people are familiar with. When United offered to throw in an unasked for free flight, it felt like a figurative smack in the face to customers like Dao who have paid for a ticket and been treated badly.

To top off this perfect storm, United crucially misunderstood the audience they were reaching. Travellers don’t want to be pulled from their seats, and they don’t regard being beaten up as something that can be put right in a playful Twitter game. United’s future customers don’t want to see a faceless big business cynically wooing their dollar with a freebie flung at someone who only seems to be getting it because they’re momentarily famous.

United have to do a lot of work to rebuild their reputation and it won’t happen overnight. They need to face their responsibility (authority), and make genuine reparations (authenticity) in a way that speaks to their core customers (audience). Or they can hope it all goes away and people forget about it. A risky strategy… even the self-acknowledged king of the PR gaff Gerald Ratner never got things THAT wrong.

This article appears on Nadine Dereza’s website as well as PS Programmes.

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Fake news – and you can tell the considered tone of this piece, because we spell it without an exclamation point – often leaves two sides equally bewildered that the opposition could possibly believe the very words they are speaking. There are plenty of big and serious stories that are an invitation for us to cause offence, so let’s stick with a lighter story that happened this week: The National Trust has banned Easter.

Except they haven’t. In fact, the National Trust (Director General: Dame Helen Ghosh, recently voted in the Tablet newspaper as Britain’s 4th most influential lay Catholic) repeats the word ‘Easter’ 13,000 times on its website.

So peering through the pen strokes of ‘horrified’ (really!) commentators on social media, what does this tell us about how the news is consumed and passed on today?

The first thing is to understand that social media is the news. If you want a comment from a member of the public, you can cherry pick a juicy one from Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Instagram, and more (an ever growing list) without leaving the comfort of your desk. We did leave our desks and found a display of chocolate eggs in M&S that didn’t have the word ‘Easter’ on the box either, but shush! Don’t tell anyone. The point is: Twitter got upset by Cadbury and the National Trust, and that’s the story.

How we consume news

Ironically, the rise of social media has gone hand in hand with the fall in trust of traditional media. It’s all in the way we consume news: when a big story is unfolding, many look to social media first, checking tweets from the police, public figures, colleagues, friends and family.

Most people experienced the news about the horrors of the 9/11 attacks in 2001 through their television screens; whereas, for many of us, news about the recent Westminster attack came from our smartphone social media alerts, with many Londoners notifying friends that they were unharmed by marking themselves as ‘safe’ on Facebook.

When America sneezes, the world catches a cold. Right now, America seems to be suffering from advanced pneumonia so who knows what that will mean for the rest of us? If a tweet from Trump says one thing and a tweet from the New York Times says another, who you believe might depend on who you like. Part of Trump’s attraction is the apparently unmediated nature of his communications; despite having the biggest job in international politics Trump claims not to be a politician.

The shifting ground of what is and isn’t truth is partly the nature of a medium which blurs the line between the purely factual. There’s little arguing with a tweet reading, on the one hand, ‘Police cordon: explosion on 5th street’, and, on the other hand, opinion, ‘Muslim extremist’, ‘false flag operation’ (which may or may not be true). But both are asserted as facts before the full evidence is known and we find ourselves treating opinion as fact, and fact as opinion.

Citizen journalism has the look of raw data – but we shouldn’t be seduced into thinking it is the whole story – or that it isn’t as editorially filtered as anything that comes out of a major news organisation (which is often where the most compelling citizen journalist turns up).

Spotting fake news

In the UK, the Leveson Inquiry uncovered the worst parts of the media, but at least there is no secret about which organisation owns which newspaper. Online, social media timelines are populated with news stories that are chosen by – well, who knows? For example if an algorithm spots you are displaying the classic signs of floating between a choice of, say, two political candidates, you might find content appearing in your news feed that pushes you in one particular direction. Interestingly, at the time of writing this piece, bona fide news (we hope!) emerged that Facebook is to launch a new campaign advising users how to spot fake news stories. It’ll be interesting to see if this will have any real impact on the issue – we’re not overly optimistic considering that Facebook’s own trending topic algorithms, and incorrect targeted posts continue to be causing increased public distrust.

Sceptics among us may be critical of news and information put in front of us, but it’s often more difficult to go to the next level and think about all the news stories we might not be seeing.

If your personal contacts on social media are telling you that Easter has been banned by the National Trust then anything that the organisation does or says seems like no more than backtracking to save face after being found out. The problem with this is that innocent people and organisations can often look guilty if they haven’t been transparent or communicated well in the first place and sometimes no amount of counter evidence offered is good enough. The entire NASA archive, for example, isn’t sufficient to convince some that Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon in 1969.

Distrust of traditional media

Politician, journalist or business owner, understanding the media’s own rules is essential; at a time when ‘the public’s trust in the media dropped to a level which matched distrust in government officials’ there is a clear opportunity for business leaders to establish themselves as credible voices. People still want to trust brands, to feel that in a changing world life tastes better with Coke and that every little helps in the supermarket. Companies have to live their promises, or they go out of business. And customers – all of us – know what authenticity looks like.

We were encouraged; however, by the recent Times report that the founder of eBay is donating £80 million to tackle a “global trust deficit” and to combat fake news. It is reported that among the first to benefit will be the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, which was behind the release of the Panama Papers.

Will truth prevail?

The trouble with scepticism for the sake of scepticism is that every moon landing can start to look like a conspiracy. And then the truth can be whatever you choose it to be. But, all things considered, we’re optimistic here at PS Programmes that, with the help of a more accountable and responsible media industry, we will all soon learn how to better differentiate between fact and fake news.

Our one hope, for the moment at least, is that the current ‘war on Easter’ doesn’t turn into another annual non-event like the ‘war on Christmas’. [2] 

[1] There are plenty of po-faced conspiracy discussion websites and podcasts, but our favourite is the not-especially-safe-for-work-though-that-depends-where-you-work Parapod website.

[2] Winterval, the byword for the ‘war on Christmas’, was originally intended as a catch-all celebration of all the festivals (including Christmas) taking place in a culturally diverse city between November and February. Forget most of what you’ve read and check out the interview with the man responsible for Winterval.

This article appears on Nadine Dereza’s website as well as PS Programmes.

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In previous posts I have cast away Denise Fryer, Ross Edmonds, Rasheed Ogunlaru, Tom York, and Ian Hawkins – and I’m pleased to say they have all since been rescued.

Before I introduce my final cast away – a recap for anyone not familiar with the Desert Island Discs format. In each episode of the BBC Radio 4 show a guest is invited to choose eight recordings they would most like take with them if they were to find themselves stranded on a desert island. Guests are also given the Complete Works of Shakespeare and either the Bible or another religious or philosophical work. They are then invited to select a third book and one luxury item to take with them.

Our final PS Programmes castaway is Nadine Dereza

That’s right, it’s my turn at last.

So, here’s a little bit about me – I founded PS Programmes in 2007, I am Media Director at the company, delivering bespoke media training, crisis media management training and presentation skills coaching individuals and organisations in UK and internationally and across many industry sectors.

I am also a broadcaster, interviewer and international conference chair with a 25 year career background presenting for CNN, Simply Money, BBC, Sky TV, SABC and Summit TV. As London Markets Correspondent for the Financial Times and Summit TV, I was awarded ‘Financial Journalist of the Year’.

Nadine’s eight Desert Island Discs

David Bowie – Wild is the Wind

David Bowie was the soundtrack to my youth, and my brother and I really connected with him and what he stood for. He was a wonderful trailblazing figure that inspired us to be creative and be ourselves. Quicksand and Five Years were hot contenders for this slot, although Wild is the Wind from the album Station to Station is the perfect love song. I like Johnny Mathis’ and Nina Simone’s recordings of this song too, but Bowie knows how to tug on the heartstrings and it’s his interpretation of the lyrics… ‘For my love is like the wind and wild is the wind’ that expresses pure emotion.

Echo and the Bunnymen – No Dark Things

With Ian McCulloch on vocals and the sublime Will Sergeant on guitars, Echo and the Bunnymen never cease to enthrall me and are a constant in my life. I try and see them live whenever I can. I discovered them at the age of 13 when their debut album, Crocodiles came out in 1980, and nearly four decades later, their gig in Oxford last year was one of their best performances I have ever witnessed. I never tire of listening to No Dark Things from the album Heaven Up Here. My children were a product of the band as well – no, Macca is not responsible and I won’t be claiming child maintenance from him(!) – however, I met my children’s father at an Echo and the Bunnymen gig nearly 20 years ago – so without them, Emily and James would not be here.

Coldplay – Yellow

Released in 2000, the song Yellow propelled Coldplay into the limelight, which also coincided with the birth of my daughter, Emily, and I would look at her in her cot with this track playing in the background. To this day it still reminds me of her. I love the sentiment behind the song – brightness, hope, devotion and unrequited love for someone. (Although reading this choice out to said daughter, she cringed in dismay. Can I change my choice to Interpol – Leif Erikson?)  

Leonard Bernstein & Stephen Sondheim – West Side Story – Tonight Quintet

I am a huge fan of ballet, musical theatre, and opera and I once read a quote from Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber which said that he thought West Side Story was the best piece of musical theatre ever written. So if it’s good enough for Lord Andrew, then it’s good enough for me. With a nod to Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, I think it’s the perfect fusion of opera and musical theatre, which became Leonard Bernstein’s iconic signature, not forgetting lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. The five parts of the Tonight Quintet are sung by the Jets, the Sharks, Tony, Maria, and Anita, and the song begins with the parts sung in turn, and then overlapping and building to the final line, ‘Tonight,’ sung by the ensemble with multiple harmonies. I love the way their lines intertwine, pulling the whole musical together.

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky – Sleeping Beauty – Rose Adagio

My talents for ballet lie in watching the professionals, rather than performing, as I discovered to my horror when I fell off the stage at the tender age of five dressed as a lamb (don’t ask). I managed to disassemble a drum kit in the process – no injuries sustained but hilarity in the audience ensued. My Russian father was temporarily dismayed for 5 minutes, with his hopes of me becoming a Prima Ballerina smashed to pieces. I may have hung up my ballet shoes at an early age, but my love for this dance form and music continues to grow and grow, and it’s the Rose Adagio, which I love to listen to because I know it’s the true test of a great ballerina. In Sleeping Beauty the young princess Aurora arrives at court and is presented to four suitors who give her roses (hence the song’s name) as they dance with her and hope to win her affection. The choreography is difficult technically as Aurora becomes more comfortable with the suitors. The biggest challenge is the series of promenades, when the suitor holds one of Aurora’s hands and walks around her in a circle, as she holds her position, turning like a figurine in a jewellery box.

Blondie – Atomic

I so wanted to be Debbie Harry when I was younger. If you look up the word ‘cool’ in the dictionary, it will say the words ‘Blondie’ and ‘Debbie Harry’ underneath – or at least it should! Atomic delivers one of the greatest pop vocals ever, which stands the test of time because listening to it, the song’s post-apocalyptic feel still sounds as immense, fresh and searing as it did when it was first released in 1979. Heart of Glass and Dreaming were hot contenders too, but Atomic soars and soars. I love the surges of synth under the verses, explosive drum fills and it’s great to dance to at a party.

James – Waltzing Along

Aside from Echo and the Bunnymen and Starsailor (I wanted to include them too), the rock band James are just the complete article and, again, there are many tracks of theirs to choose from, including Getting Away With It, Laid and Born of Frustration. But the one track for me (I’d like it played at my funeral) is Waltzing Along. The way the legendary Tim Booth sings, ‘May your mind be wide open, may your heart beat strong,’ takes me to a place no other song ever has. I regard myself as a spontaneous person and, with little time to think (juggling life and work), this song from the brilliant album Whiplash (you can tell Brain Eno’s involved) brings out my (quite rare) philosophical side, which allows me to connect with planet earth on a more spiritual level.

Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II – Carousel – You’ll Never Walk Alone

The film Carousel contains some of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s most beautiful songs, and I have chosen You’ll Never Walk Alone, because it still makes the spine tingle and the tears fall. I know it is heavily associated with Liverpool FC, and although they are technically my second team with QPR taking the top spot, my love for this song is not connected to football in any way. Although, I can see why fans like it because it’s an anthem of triumph over adversity. My brother Nick played the lead, Billy Bigelow, in the school production of Carousel, and the song reminds me of my immediate family watching this all together, with a shared sense of purpose and unity. ‘Walk on, walk on, with hope in your hearts. And you’ll never walk alone. You’ll never walk alone.’ Beautiful, moving and poignant.

Nadine’s top pick

I would have to choose James – Waltzing Along. With Tim Booth’s snake hips, the band always commit to their performances and I feel they are one of the most enduring and underrated bands. I would relish listening to this song repeatedly while reflecting on all the James gigs I have seen and the friends I have shared their music with.

Book choice and luxury item

In addition to the Complete Works of Shakespeare, Nadine would take The Things You Can See Only When You Slow Down: How to be Calm and Mindful in a Fast-Paced World by Haemin Sunim. The back cover says it all …simple, compassionate teachings transcend religion, borders and ages, and serve as a calming reminder of the strength and joy that come from slowing down. The world moves fast, but that doesn’t mean we have to…and would make me feel better about being stranded on a desert island!

Nadine’s third book would be The Complete Works of Jane Austen. The seven books contain some of the most brilliant, astounding text in the English language. Jane Austen was gifted at observing society, and her books are timeless pieces of literature.

Nadine’s luxury item would be a queen size bed with an integrated teasmade. This would hopefully prevent me from being bitten by sand flies and allow me to continue enjoying the best drink in the world.

More about Nadine

Nadine Dereza is an accomplished broadcaster, interviewer and international conference chair with a career background presenting for CNN, Simply Money, BBC, Sky TV, SABC and Summit TV. As London Markets Correspondent for the Financial Times and Summit TV, she was awarded ‘Financial Journalist of the Year’.

Nadine chairs conferences and live events across the globe for a diverse range of clients across many industry sectors. She also runs PS Programmes, which delivers bespoke media training, crisis media management and presentation skills coaching to companies in UK and internationally across many industry sectors.

Nadine’s experiences in a career spanning 25 years inspired her to write the best-selling book, Insider Secrets of Public Speaking, with her PS Programmes colleague, Ian Hawkins, who is an award-winning public speaker, author and coach.

This article appears on Nadine Dereza’s website as well as PS Programmes.

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Before we introduce this week’s castaway – a recap for anyone not familiar with the Desert Island Discs format: in each episode of the programme a guest is invited to choose eight recordings they would most like take with them if they were to find themselves stranded on a desert island. Guests are also given the Complete Works of Shakespeare and either the Bible or another religious or philosophical work. They are then invited to select a third book and one luxury item to take with them.

Our castaway this week is… Denise Fryer

Denise is an experienced facilitator and business coach specialising in personal development for both the UK and overseas markets. For over 25 years, she has been partnering with individuals, teams and organisations to help achieve their goals.

Denise designs and facilitates programmes on leadership, influencing skills, personal impact and team skills. In addition, she coaches senior managers and executives on a one-to-one basis, helping develop their personal effectiveness in managing people and teams.

Denise has taken on many long-term projects with large global organisations and these include BT, RSA, Marks and Spencer, British Airways, T-Mobile, dunnhumby, Swarovski and BP.

Denise is a certified trainer of NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming), as well as being a Certified Consultant and Trainer of Language and Behaviour (LAB) Profile.

Denise’s eight Desert Island Discs

In a Lifetime – Bono and Clannad

Denise says: I heard this song when attending a Neuro-Linguistic programme run by David Shephard of The Performance Partnership. David has a fabulous ear for music (he loves it) and he played this track and I fell in love with it.  It’s so beautiful and haunting and Bono’s voice is amazing. I love the fact that U2 does ‘folk’ which produces something timeless. I can listen to this track over and over and it has the capacity to let you be in the music.

Samba Pa Ti – Santana

This has always been my favourite song since the first time I heard it. It reminds me of my teenage years living in Cyprus and the summer parties we used to have when more friends who had been at boarding school in England came back for the summer. The guitar solo by Carlos Santana at the beginning starts so slowly and builds… he is a master of the guitar. I loved the Abraxas album and when all those years later he released Smooth I was hooked again – not that I think I was ever unhooked.

Different Corner – George Michael

I chose this, not because of his recent passing, but because it’s always been a favourite of mine – his voice tonality and quality is fabulous. I love to sit with this turned up really loud and just get lost in the song …so full of emotion. I saw him live at the opening concert for Wembley Stadium and he was even better live. This was at a time in my life after my divorce when I was exploring a new relationship so I did have a bit of a ‘Bridget Jones’ playing this at every opportunity! Still love it.

Touch – Seal

This is taken from Seal IV one of my favourite albums. My brother in law is in the music business and I can remember when Seal first came on the scene him saying it was the best live act he’d ever seen – I’ve seen Seal live many times and he is an absolutely stunning performer. He did a great concert in the grounds of the Tower of London – amazing.

Ruby Love – Cat Stevens

I loved Cat Stevens albums when I was a teenager living in Cyprus – I got each album as it came out. Apart from all the classic tacks I loved this one from Teaser and the Firecat. As I went to school in Cyprus I learned to understand and speak a little Greek Cypriot. I learned to read the alphabet and could read the subtitles on all the English and American programmes on the television… I used to surprise some of my friends when they spoke in Greek and I joined in the conversation having understood what they were saying!! This song has a Greek verse and I was very please with myself that I could sing it and understand it.

Zorba the Greek – Herb Albert and the Tijuana Brass

Still a bit of a Greek theme going here with a song my dad played over and over again when we lived in Cyprus (he was a football Manager for a Apoel, a local team, and the Cyprus National Team having been a goalkeeper for both Manchester United and England). He had a great sense of humour and loved nothing more than putting this LP on and doing his Zorba dance… a hilarious party trick. He also learned a little Greek and his most impressive was ‘toothpick’ (odontoflyfis) which he said with a really great English accent!  

Every Time You Say Goodbye – Ella Fitzgerald

My mum always loved music so it would be playing most of the time at home. She had a big Tom Jones collection – the man of the moment – and lots of Broadway Shows and films, however, this Ella Fitzgerald track stands out as one I remember playing a lot. Ella Fitzgerald’s voice is really warm and the track almost haunting. I wonder if she played it because my dad was often either away playing football.  

Light My Fire – Jose Feliciano

I’ve always loved fabulous guitar music and think Jose Feliciano is where this love started. I love this track as you just want to sing along and you get lost in the music. I’ve just booked to see him in November as he is touring with Jools Holland so I’m looking forward to being lost in this music again.

Denise’s top pick: Samba Pa Ti – Santana

This track feels like it’s always been with me throughout my life as a constant – since I first heard it I loved it and to this day I still do. There are some things in your life that are important to you at particular times of your life and you move on from them – this isn’t one of them. It still reminds me of the impact one person’s creative output can have on others, how there are some ‘designs’ that stand the test of time and are enduring ‘works of art’ and it reminds me of my teenage years exploring who I was.

Book choice

This is quite a challenge as I was brought up as a Catholic and attended a number of convent schools. I think the learning and repeating of the Catechism for much of my youth turned me off anything I deemed ‘religious’! The closest to the philosophical arena would be Herodotus, a Greek historian, which I read whilst at school in Cyprus – he was a great storyteller and I loved his books. I remember primarily him recounting tales from Egypt that were captivating. I could get lost in my own thoughts reading his books – this is what philosophy is about… being able to think… and ask good questions. 

Denise would also take Shantaram by David Gregory Roberts. I was on a trekking tour in Bhutan, we had two tour guides, one Bhutanese (Pema) and one English one (Tom). Tom spent a lot of time away with his job so he read a lot, as did his family, so I remember talking to him about books and he said this was one of the most amazing books he’d ever read. That was enough for me so I ordered it – it’s quite a big book so I was hoping he was right! I could not put this book down, have recommended it to many others subsequently. It’s about a Kiwi, David Gregory Roberts, who escapes from jail in New Zealand and ends up in India. The book charts his adventures (and there are many and risky) and his finding himself – the storytelling is amazing, the landscape in your head as you read it seems to come alive so you are there. One of those defining books you read that lingers with you long after you finish reading it.

Luxury Item – jigsaw(s)

I have loved jigsaws since I was a child and my sister and I used to always do a big special jigsaw at Christmas time – we’d be up for hours moving it on. Ideally if I could have a digital version and a plug to charge up my iPad that would be hours of entertainment while I’m on my desert island. If that’s not allowed then a really big 1000 piece or more jigsaw of a piece of art like Kandinsky or the like would not only give me something to keep my brain active but something gorgeous to look at before I broke it down and started again.

Read about our previous PS Programmes castaways Ross Edmonds, Rasheed Ogunlaru, Tom York and Ian Hawkins.

Join us next time when our cast away will be Nadine Dereza

This article appears on Nadine Dereza’s website as well as PS Programmes. Nadine is the co-author of the best selling book Insider Secrets of Public Speaking.

The post Desert Island Discs at 75: Denise Fryer’s selection appeared first on Nadine Dereza is an award-winning broadcaster and journalist, conference chair, live events host, keynote speaker, and moderator..

Our castaway this week is… Ross Edmonds

Ross spends much of his life travelling around the world of conferences and workshops.

It all started for Ross when he worked for British Airways for over a decade, representing the airline at a variety of internal and external events. This inspired him to become a full time Conference Facilitator and Presenter for a multitude of organisations in different sectors, and he now puts this experience to good use with PS Programmes, coaching others to present – ranging from helping clients with their ‘storytelling’ to presenting on a stage, to preparing and delivering pitches to win contracts, as well as helping clients develop their event content and flow for company conferences.

Ross’ eight Desert Island Discs

Walking on Sunshine – Katrina & The Waves

Ross says: An uplifting way to start. We used this song for a roadshow for a holiday company. It was one of the first events we had ever produced and presented, and the company had the confidence to go with us. Thankfully, it was a big success, and I still love hearing this song today.

Nimrod – Edward Elgar

My parents used to play Elgar’s Enigma variations to me as a child. It is to this day, my favourite piece of classical music. It’s often thought of as a solemn piece of music, yet it was played at the opening of the London Olympics with enormous impact.

Days Like This – Van Morrison

I used to play this when I first met my wife Jana. I discovered she loved it as much as I did, and ‘Van the Man’ became one of many things we had in common. It reminds us that life has its ups and downs, and that we all have ‘days like this’.

Jupiter – Gustav Holst

Jupiter is the ‘bringer of jollity’, impressive and cheerful. This piece of music has so many components, from bold to soft, the centre piece of which is the hymn I used to sing in my church as a choir boy, ‘I vow to thee my country’. Rugby fans and choir boys are amongst many who will know and love this music!

For All We Know – The Carpenters

I could listen to Karen Carpenter’s voice all day long. This is one of their hits which wasn’t written by Richard Carpenter, yet this version stands out from the rest because of her purity. Play this in a large venue (before anyone comes in!), and you’ll know what I mean.

Long Way Home – Supertramp

I was doing a number of events for a hotel company, and driving between the locations. ‘Breakfast in America’ was the CD in the car at the time, and I found myself playing it every day, as I drove around the country. It drove me mad, but this is just one track from a brilliant album.

Forever Man – Eric Clapton

I have to have an Eric Clapton song somewhere on my list. He used to live locally to me, and his mother came to many of the concerts, from the village hall (as ‘Eddie & the Earthquakes’) to the large concert venues. ‘Forever Man’ was recently released as a compilation album, and he still brings something fresh and new to his performances. That’s something worth remembering.

Somebody to love – George Michael & Queen

With this final song, I get to have one of the greatest British rock bands and one of the greatest singer/songwriters. George sang this at the Freddie Mercury Tribute concert at Wembley, and rose to the occasion with what he said was one of his proudest moments. Life is short, so I want to make the most of my time here, before I’m cast away on my island!

Ross’ top pick

I would have to save – Edward Elgar, Nimrod. It’s both moving and uplifting.

Book choice and luxury item

In addition to the Complete Works of Shakespeare and the Bible, Ross would take Middlemarch by George Eliot. “This will remind me of all the different aspects of life, some of which I’ll miss, and some I definitely won’t.”

Ross’ luxury item would be a painting set. “I’ve never painted before, but always wanted to, so this is my chance. I’m a mixture of left and right handed, and this is something I would do with both hands.”

Read about our previous PS Programmes castaways Rasheed Ogunlaru, Tom York and Ian Hawkins.

Join us next time when our cast away will be Denise Fryer.

This article appears on Nadine Dereza’s website as well as PS Programmes. Nadine is the co-author of the best selling book Insider Secrets of Public Speaking.

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Our castaway this week is… Rasheed Ogunlaru

Rasheed co-delivers our radio and TV media training with PS Programmes Founder Nadine Dereza and he is an accomplished life coach, motivational speaker and business / executive coach. Rasheed is author of the acclaimed Soul Trader – Putting the Heart Back into Your Business and is life/business coach for the British Library Business & IP Centre. His many media appearances include: ITV News and BBC Breakfast.

Rasheed’s eight Desert Island Discs

Jeff Buckley – Grace

Rasheed says: “This song is transcendently- intoxicating on every listen. I never tire of it; just as well if I’d be on a desert island with only eight songs on heavy rotation. Jeff’s voice is pure spirit soul.”

Sarah Vaughan – So Many Stars

Ideally I’d take the entire album “Brazilian Romance.” I believe it was her last and it is her masterpiece. At the end of her life she was at the peak of her powers. If I’m cast away I want to spend it with the greats.

Nick Drake – River Man

Hypnotically- wonderful. Sublime. I can’t say more about this without writing an essay – which I’d happily do. It’s one of the finest songs of all time. As a singer-songwriter I’m spellbound by it.

Radiohead – Paranoid Android

Like Tom from PS previously I could have chosen a catalogue of tracks from this group who are, to me, the best in the business. This track – like so many of their songs – transports you to another world – Planet Radiohead. And that guitar solo – wow.

Samuel Barber – Adagio for Strings

Classical? Yes. Predictable? Maybe. It’s rightly earned and endured popularity and has touched many movie-goers hearts and creative soul’s. It would be stirring and sustaining stuff staring up at the skies on the desert Island at night. It sparks empathy, humanity and creativity.

Kate Bush – This Woman’s Work

Again I’d like take her entire catalogue if I could. She’s a one off – like all the artists I admire. This song is heartbreakingly brilliant. Maxwell’s cover is stunning too. This one is for my mother – my greatest inspiration and influence who through love and deeds taught me strength, self-belief and service.

Michael Jackson – Don’t Stop Til You Get Enough

l need up-tempo music to dance, move and work to on this Island. This Quincy Jones produced track is one of the best-produced songs of all time. It still sounds breathtaking, gets you moving and reminds me of growing up.

Chaka Khan – Some Day We’ll All Be Free

For me the greatest vocalist of them all, covering Donny Hathaway’s classic which itself is one of the greatest songs of all time. There are so many great Chaka songs within and beyond the hits. I could listen to her all day – and often do. Chaka’s voice evokes passion, power and possibility – touching and triumphant, as life should be.

Rasheed’s top pick

 I’d have to go with Chaka Khan “Someday We’ll All be Free” – between the spirit and lyric of the song and Chaka’s breathtaking impassioned vocal it speaks to something fundamental and transcendental about this thing we call life.

Rasheed’s Book choice and luxury item

In addition to the Complete Works of Shakespeare, Rasheed would take I Am That by Nisargadatta Maharaj, “an astounding book of self-enlightenment. A book to transport you from a small island to the big universe.”

Rasheed’s third book would be The Way of the Peaceful Warrior by Dan Millman. “An enchanting self-development story that helped inspire my journey of my own life’s work.”

Rasheed’s luxury item is a warm duvet. “No need for tent pitching when tired, sleepy and cold.”

More about Rasheed

Rasheed began his career in media and communications aged 18 working at Which? He became Communications Manager for two charities, then a volunteer at Samaritans before eventually being appointed Co-Director of Samaritans (Central London Branch). He is also a singer-songwriter – which led him to retrain as a life coach 14 years ago. Since then he has coached CEOs, entertainers, entrepreneurs, sports stars and the public, as well as running transformational leadership and career development programmes for organisations including the NHS.

Rasheed is also a singer-songwriter (is there anything this man can’t do?!) and you can listen to Rasheed’s music on YouTube including all tracks and videos from his new album Rasheed Re-imagined. MOBO Awards 2017 – watch this space!

Read about our previous PS Programmes castaways Tom York and Ian Hawkins.

Join us next time when our cast away will be Ross Edmonds

This article appears on Nadine Dereza’s website as well as PS Programmes. Nadine is the co-author of the best selling book Insider Secrets of Public Speaking.

The post Desert Island Discs at 75 (Rasheed’s selection) appeared first on Nadine Dereza is an award-winning broadcaster and journalist, conference chair, live events host, keynote speaker, and moderator..

In our previous post we cast away writer turned-comedian, presenter, award-winning public speaker and PS Programmes coach Ian Hawkins. We are reliably informed that Ian, together with his luxury item (an electric guitar and amp), is back home and dry after his rock rendition of the mayday call was picked up by the search and rescue team.

Before we introduce our second cast away – a recap for anyone not familiar with the Desert Island Discs format: in each episode of the programme a guest is invited to choose eight recordings they would most like take with them if they were to find themselves stranded on a desert island. Guests are also given the Complete Works of Shakespeare and either the Bible or another religious or philosophical work. They are then invited to select a third book and one luxury item to take with them.

Our PS Programmes castaway this week is… Tom York 

Journalist-turned PR man, social media whizz and PS Programmes Head of Communications Tom York is our second castaway. Tom has worked in communications for 10 years, running multidisciplinary campaigns for the National Apprenticeship Service, Microsoft, Royal Mail Group, the Skills Funding Agency, WorldSkills UK and children’s charity Zimkids.

Before that he worked as a news reporter at Newsquest South London, and can still occasionally be found penning articles for the likes of the Wimbledon Guardian and Gay Star News.

Tom’s eight Desert Island Discs

Queen: A Kind of Magic

Tom says: I am a huge Queen fan and often listen to the ‘Live at Wembley, 1986’ concert version of this song; it really gives me that magic punch-the-air-with-joy feeling. Mercury’s vocal range was just incredible and his energy-fuelled theatrical stage performances are so iconic.

Amy Winehouse: Stronger Than Me

What a voice, what a talent. I deliberated between this and Love is a Losing Game (another beautiful track). There is something so alluring about the simplicity of the production on this song and Amy’s vocals are so raw and powerful.

Michael Jackson: Man in the Mirror

I couldn’t survive on a desert island without at least one Michael Jackson track. The ‘Bad’ album was the first cassette I ever bought and I remember playing this song on my Walkman so many times that I eventually wore the tape out.

Coldplay: Green Eyes

I’m a romantic at heart and this song will always remind me of my fiancé, particularly of the summer we first met (by complete chance on a beach in Greece). I would walk home after our first few dates, singing this song to myself.

 David Bowie – Heroes

This song has been covered by so many artists over the years but no-one comes close to the original. I particularly like the arrangement that Bowie chose when performing this song later on in his career. Stripped back, self-assured, spine-tinglingly good.   

Adele – Daydreamer

I love Adele’s vulnerability as a performer. I remember capturing my first glimpse of her singing this song on Jools Holland Live in 2008. She looked so nervous but delivered such a beautiful, heart felt performance and I was hooked from that very moment. As a fellow Londoner, hearing Adele’s voice while I’m a castaway will help me feel closer to home.

Radiohead: Creep

There are so many Radiohead songs to choose from but this one has to win. I remember hearing it for the first time as a heart broken and troubled teenager and the lyrics seemed to capture all the emotions I was feeling. Later, in my first temping job out of college, my colleagues nicknamed me ‘the creep’ (the band’s lead singer is my namesake).

Alicia Keys – If I Ain’t Got You

I saw Alicia Keys live in 2005. She was absolutely sensational and is one of the best R&B singer, songwriters alive today. This is my all time favourite “turn it up loud and belt it out” song, much to the discontent of my neighbours.

Tom’s favourite song

If Tom could pick only one of these records it would be Radiohead: Creep.

Tom’s book choice and luxury item

In addition to the Complete Works of Shakespeare and the Bible, Tom would also take with him the Complete Works of Oscar Wilde.

Tom’s luxury item would be a pen & some paper.

Join us next time when our cast away will be PS Programmes Media Coach, Rasheed Ogunlaru

This article appears on Nadine Dereza’s website as well as PS Programmes. Nadine is the co-author of the best selling book Insider Secrets of Public Speaking.

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Seventy-five years since Desert Island Discs was first broadcast we’re sure its creator Roy Plomley could never have imagined how his simple idea for a radio programme would go on to become one of the BBC’s longest-running and most loved programmes.

We’re huge fans of Desert Island Discs at PS Programmes so to celebrate its 75^th Anniversary this year, I have decided to (temporarily) cast away members of the PS Programmes team over the next few blog posts.

But before I introduce our first cast away, for anyone unfamiliar with the format of the show (perish the thought!): in each episode a guest is invited to choose eight recordings they would most like take with them if they were to find themselves stranded on a desert island. Guests are also given the Complete Works of Shakespeare and either the Bible or another religious or philosophical work. They are then invited to select a third book and one luxury item to take with them.

Our first PS Programmes castaway is… Ian Hawkins

Writer turned-comedian, presenter, award-winning public speaker Ian Hawkins is our first team member to be cast away. This much loved PS Programmes coach has written for BBC One’s Politics Show, Channel Four’s The 11 O’Clock Show, Loose Ends, The News Quiz, and The Treatment for BBC Radio (“Quite simply, week in, week out, the best satirical show on the radio” – Heat Magazine). Ian has also written for high profile comedians over the last twelve years and for five years he worked as an agent at one of the UK’s biggest specialist speaker agency, working with speakers including as Sebastian Coe, Eliza Manningham-Buller and Mikhail Gorbachev.

Ian’s eight Desert Island Discs are:

Mahler: O! Mensch (from Symphony 3, sung by Jessye Norman)

Ian says: “It has to be Jessye – she was soloist at the first big gig I ever did at the Festival Hall. You haven’t really heard this piece until you’ve sat behind the timpani and can hear the creak of the violins and rattle of the brass.”  

Emperor Yes: Cosmos

I think “each star may be a sun to someone” is a quote from Carl Sagan. On my desert island I’ll certainly need a bit of a perspective – and some first class drumming to boogie to. 

Bach: Prelude 1 in C Major

It’s incredibly simple, but it underpins how music is structured. I love Bach for his ability to press the “reset” switch on a busy mind. I never fail to be calmed and cheered by this piece.

Kirsty MacColl: Soho Square

There are so many Kirsty MacColl tracks to choose from but this one wins because it showcases that amazing voice and paints a picture of the Soho I’ll be missing from my desert island. A reminder of appointments not kept and the people waiting for me to construct a raft to paddle back to civilization. 

Kingmaker: 10 Years Asleep

If you were at Club Art in the 90s on £1-a-pint Tuesdays, you won’t need this explaining to you. And if you weren’t there, you wouldn’t understand anyway; I’m not going to pretend to care (when I don’t care). Anyway, I’m going to brew rudimentary alcohol with tropical fruits and coconut water, crank my gramophone up LOUD and dance around the camp fire to this in the remnants of my plaid shirt. 

Vaughn Williams: Fantasia on a theme by Thomas Tallis

This is one of those pieces that is entirely impossible to put into words. One for a quiet night watching the sun setting on a watery horizon. Music can really take you places, and if I’m going to be stuck on an island, this will be my escape. 

Stephen Sondheim: I’m Still Here (sung by Shirley MacLaine in Postcards From the Edge)

I had to pick a Sondheim, and I loved this from the first time I saw it. If I have to endure living on this desert island, I’ll still be here when the rescue comes – complete with high kicks. Whatever life throws at you, you have to ride with it.  

David Gilmour: Rattle That Lock

Not Comfortably Numb? No – this is off Gilmour’s last album, and is a reminder you’re never too old to rock. Freedom is a state of mind, baby – you’re as free as you want to be. I saw this live at a tiny gig recently, and it has some very happy memories. 

If Ian could pick only one of these records it would be Kirsty MacColl: Soho Square

Ian’s book and luxury item selection

In addition to the “Complete Works of Shakespeare” Ian would take “On The Origin of Species” by Charles Darwin and his third book would be a big book of songs for buskers. His luxury item would be an electric guitar with a huge amp, (which is technically two items, but I’ll let Ian off just this once!).

Join me next time when my cast away will be PS Programmes Head of Communications Tom York.

This article appears on Nadine Dereza’s website as well as PS Programmes. Nadine is the co-author of the best selling book Insider Secrets of Public Speaking.

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In my third and final instalment of my series on charisma, I’m going to give you some tips and tricks on how to inject more charisma into your stage presence and suggest an approach to speaking that may be new to you.

The story so far…

I’ve explored what makes speakers charismatic and impactful. I’ve considered how charisma can be both a positive and negative force, and I’ve examined how charisma is brought about in a live event. In summary, charisma is not so much a judgement on the speaker, but rather a comment on the relationship between the speaker and the audience; for the successful speaker to master the tricky element of charisma, he/she needs to understand the importance of controlling this relationship, and calling the shots without turning the audience against him/her. (Part of this is realising that you can’t please all the people all the time!)

I also observed that charismatic speakers have status, and make sharing this status accessible to others in an inclusive fashion, sometimes in the face of overwhelming jeopardy. It is, above all else, a powerful bond between speaker and audience.

Let’s look at a few ways of first, gaining status as a speaker, and second, making that status accessible.

Gaining status as a speaker

There are many things that give you status when you walk onto a platform – and many things that can take status away. Preparation is absolutely key: things like checking the microphones don’t feedback when you start speaking, and that you’re properly lit are vital.

When you walk on, you want to look as though you’re supposed to be there. I know of one comedian who specialises in ‘MCing’ (the act that warms up the audience and introduces other acts). Before he goes on, he repeats to himself, ‘I am in charge! I am in charge!’ before stepping in front of the rowdy mob. Your audience might not be rowdy, but it’s a good way of bolstering your mood before you walk on.

Illusionist and performer Derren Brown is particularly good at telling people he’s in charge with his gestures and body language. In Brown’s Evening of Wonders programme Brown’s eye contact with the audience member doesn’t wobble, his arms are wide, expansive, and he looks very confident for someone about to do something apparently impossible.

What to wear

When it comes to presentation of yourself, of course you need to think about what you are wearing. Do you want to fit in with the rest of the audience – or be ‘apart’? I’ve seen comedians at black tie functions performing in black tie (they feel like they are part of the event), I’ve also seen some wearing a smart suit (which manages to convey they are separate from the event but respectful of it), and others wear street clothes (which looks a bit disrespectful, particularly if they are not a ‘known’ comedian). A call ahead can make sure you match what the other people are wearing – and if in doubt, it’s sometimes wise to have a change of tie or accessory that can make an outfit more or less dressy.

Whatever you wear, you will be sending a message, so make sure it is the message you want to send. If you’re sending out unintended messages, the audience will pick up on these rather than the message you want to send, and you’ll look as if you’ve lost control. Your status will slip, and the audience will leave with a different impression to the one you were trying to convey.

Demeanour

Your demeanour is also important. I occasionally show clients a clip of zoologist Dr Tristram Wyatt talking about human pheromone analysis (over a million views, but not all of them from us) to critique.

I like this because unlike what most people think about presentation training, at PS Programmes we’re not about getting people to ‘show off’. Dr Wyatt’s demeanour is laid back, under-played, almost awkward, but above all, quietly confident as he takes a scientific look at a subject some of us might feel awkward about. We feel, as an audience, that we are getting authentic and hard-won knowledge from Dr Wyatt: everything he does underlines and reinforces his message.

Managing your nerves

Getting on top of your nerves is helpful to make a first impression. I often counsel that an audience should be on your side – but not worried about you. I don’t think it’s a complete disaster to be a bit nervous when you go on – it gives some speakers a vital spark of pep and energy – but you should avoid the temptation to apologise for being nervous. Nerves are a fact of life, and you can control them to a certain extent. What you can’t do is communicate to the audience that the nerves are in charge of you.

Here’s a tip you can deploy on stage and elsewhere: imagine you are the host of a fabulous party. Champagne in the fountain, Elton John playing the piano in the corner, the great and good nibbling canapés. Just imagine yourself welcoming people to this party, and you will find yourself playing the role of the host: shoulders down, ready smile, hospitable and friendly, yes, but ultimately in charge. This is exactly the attitude to adopt on stage, and if you’re a naturally nervous performer, channeling the energy into giving people a good time is an excellent strategy to go from nervous wreck to actually enjoying your time presenting/speaking.

Back to the practicalities: how are you going to be introduced? You may or may not have control over this. Whoever is introducing you onto the speaking area, whether it’s a big stage or a square of carpet in the corner of the room, should end with your name so that you walk on to applause – but if they fluff this, ask the audience to applaud the person who introduced you and have a punchy, positive introduction for yourself, throwing in a bit of ‘feel good’ for the audience.

For example ‘Ladies and gentlemen, thank you Rachel… such a busy programme, so I’m grateful to have your time today. My name is John Smith and as CEO of the world’s biggest widget company, I’m delighted to be speaking to you today…’

If things go wrong

Step up and be in charge as much as possible. I once saw a presenter struggling with a malfunctioning autocue (a screen which scrolls through the presenter’s script so that he or she doesn’t have to look down at their notes). He went off, and brought his paper script on from back stage. It didn’t exactly get him an applause break, but there was a clear sense of relief that from now on, the event would run more smoothly (and it did). If you know the name of the person in charge of the tech desk (and you should), it’s far better to thank them for getting things back up and running, rather than blaming them for things going wrong.

Think back to the party host tip above: if you’re playing the host, deal with the problem and move on. Nobody wants you to keep bringing up that spilled glass of red wine – or the crackling mic – time moves on and so should you.

Not blaming others is a clue to the other element of charisma: even as the speaker is walking to the centre of the stage, they need to signal to the others in the room that they are all part of the same group. Being nice to the sound desk for fixing your mic is not only magnanimous, it shows your willingness to collaborate with others in an open way, which in turn encourages others to drop their guard. To be truly charismatic, you need to build a strong rapport with the audience – look again at how Derren Brown does it: he is explicitly inviting the audience to join him in a role play game in which he is the mind reader and the audience are the helpless subjects. It’s safe, clean fun, and if everyone believes it, everyone enjoys it. Contrast this with Donald Trump, who built his entire US Presidential campaign on encouraging the people in the room to oppose the ‘other’ which moved into dangerous territory when the use of status and power got physical. This is the dark side of charisma; where the status and power turn into something far less positive.

I’d like to leave you with a final, positive example. Princess Diana was one of the most charismatic women to have lived, and was in the habit of sending ‘thank you’ cards to people she had met or heard from. These thank you notes were long enough to require her to write on both sides of the card. I think this is a very good metaphor for doing that little bit extra for audiences and others: what are you going to do that’s the equivalent of writing on both sides of the card? Sometimes, working out how to be a better speaker can help you to be a better person when you carry the lessons over into real life – going the extra mile, thinking about what the other person really wants (rather than what you want them to want) and leaving people feeling uplifted and motivated rather than back on the starting blocks.

I think these are practical, powerful approaches to take into account ahead of speaking in public: thinking less about what you are giving to the audience and more about what you are sharing with them. Too often we see speeches that are delivered like pronouncements from on high; I think that a good speech is really a dialogue that builds a relationship. This may be an entirely new approach to you, but a good relationship is better than your script’s best adjectives.

I also think that beyond the conference platform, you can use this knowledge to help your career and personal relationships – by building stronger and more collaborative partnerships, knowing when to lead and when to follow, and using your status to your advantage without treading on other people’s feelings. Use this new power wisely, and remember that your relationship with the audience is far more important than getting delivering the perfect line or sticking rigidly to the script. In the words of Maya Angelou: ‘I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.’

For more advice and insight about how to nail your next speech or presentation take a look at the best-selling book Insider Secrets of Public Speaking by Nadine Dereza and Ian Hawkins.

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Let’s return to the last question on that list: ‘Are you suspicious of charismatic people?’ If yes, it could be that you have misunderstood what charisma really is. So let’s pull it apart and examine how charisma functions.

I have worked with some of the most charismatic people in the world: politicians who have built their careers on having charisma; business leaders who have represented some of the world’s most trusted brands, and whose actions can make or break a company; and with entertainers who appear in front of millions with little else to fall back than the force of their personality. What is it that they have in common? And what can we learn from them?

Let’s start by looking at actors and entertainers, because when they use charisma, they use it consciously, ‘turning on the charm’, if you like, though there is a lot more to it than that. For example, take a look at the actor Brian Blessed in the 1976 TV serial, I Claudius.

One of the notes given to Blessed by director Herbert Wise was not to play the emperor as powerful, but to let other characters treat him as though he was. The truly powerful do not throw their weight around: they don’t have to. Think also of Marlon Brando in The Godfather. This is a key part of what makes charisma work: it’s not something one person has. It’s a dynamic between one person and another person, or group of people. These people who play powerful figures on film are acting with confidence, but it is just as important that the rest of the characters act with them as though the figure is the most important person in the room. It’s all about being powerful without looking as though they have to work too hard to remind others of the fact.

Let’s be really clear about this: charisma is not something you can ‘do to an audience’ – it absolutely has to be a two way process. In my previous blog I looked at politicians who have passed and failed the charisma test. To look at this from a different angle, I’ll examine charisma in comedy to illustrate the relationship between speaker and audience more clearly. During our speaking training workshops I often ask delegates to watch this piece of footage of Smithy from BBC Sport Relief.

A few of questions before you read on:

1. Do you personally find this clip funny?
2. Do you know who the people in the clip are?
3. Is the BBC Sports Personality of the Year (SPOTY) something you would usually watch?

This is a clip that has divided PS Programmes Towers: some of us think it’s hilarious (Nadine, Ross, Denise, Rasheed and so on) and some of us (Ian and Tom) find it leaves them cold. I think the answer to question one depends entirely on how you answer the other questions.

Jimmy Carr is wont to say that ‘if you think I’m not funny, you’re right’ which is a neat way of saying we all have our own sense of humour, and we’re all welcome to find him entertaining – or not. One thing Jimmy Carr isn’t is needy: he knows he can’t please all the people all the time, and makes a very good living from the proportion of the population who go to comedy gigs. Non-comedians occasionally think they can insult a comic by telling them they’re not funny; it’s not an insult, because it’s not a comment on the comedian’s talent, so much as an acknowledgement that they are the wrong audience member.

Back to the BBC Sport Relief clip. What James Corden is doing throughout is playing a game with the audience: he’s poking fun at people who are being celebrated for their sporting ability by taking himself far more seriously despite being – well, shall we say less than a prime example of athletic ability? He’s setting up the rules and leading the game, and the audience plays along, buying into it. It’s rather like pretending to be a more step and chasing a toddler around the garden: understanding and buying into a game (even unconsciously) is something many of us do before we learn to talk, understanding relationships is far more basic a skill than speech.

Charisma, we can agree, isn’t in what you say, and I’d argue, not even in how you say it; one approach will not have equal success with every audience. True charisma comes from being an active participant in a relationship with an audience. This is why when I coach presentation skills, I am very conscious that I shouldn’t be too prescriptive. Standard public speaking coaching (and most books on the subject) will admonish speakers for using filler words (‘you know’, ‘erm’, ‘ah’, etc.) but I know that sometimes a well-placed ‘um’ can signal to the audience that the speaker shares their confusion on a topic.

Charisma is not something that can be switched on or ‘done to’ an audience. Charisma has to be a dynamic, and the person who is in control of the dynamic is the person in charge of the charisma.

So what does this dynamic look like? 

I think that status is the key to this. One of my three golden principles of public speaking is ‘authority’ – the notion that the speaker must be in command of themselves and the space. Let’s go back to the comedians for a look at authority: what is a heckler, after all, but someone trying to pull status from the performer?

Dealing with hecklers is easy (and fun) to Google, but the results aren’t always safe for work. Here’s an office and family friendly clip of John Bishop.

Note that the first thing John Bishop says when asked is that in the arenas he plays, hecklers are not a problem because they are too far away. This is the common complaint of the arena comedian – they are literally separated from the audience, which makes building a relationship with them more difficult.

The other good observation from John Bishop is that hecklers ‘haven’t done as much heckling as you’ve done gigs’ – and then he immediately shows how he would take control of the situation, playing up the heckler’s inexperience.

Dealing with hecklers is one of those things that is a lot easier than it looks: all the power (the spotlight, the amplification, the fact that people have paid money to see the name on the poster) is with the performer; new comics who doubt their status are the only ones really vulnerable to hecklers. The trick to dealing with hecklers is to play up your own non-verbal trappings of authority, highlight the heckler’s weak position, and respond according to your personality. The ace up the sleeve of every performer is that they have been paid to turn up, and the heckler paid to get in.

Putting all this together, what’s my final definition of charisma?

A charismatic person is someone who:

Has status (legitimate or not) and

Responds to the audience …

…With affirmation. In effect, you are giving the audience a little boost of status by allowing them to share yours, without them having to take any of the risks of claiming leadership.

It’s easier to see this dynamic when it breaks down. There are three ways in which attempting to be charismatic can backfire.

When charisma can backfire 

1. If you don’t have status, but pretend that you do, you appear deluded. (Think of those minor celebrities who are inconvenienced and ask ‘do you know who I am?’)
2. If you have status but don’t give the other person affirmation, you appear arrogant, a diva (in my book, Insider Secrets of Public Speaking, I counsel: ‘be a star, not a diva’ which speaks to this). There are plenty of headline acts known to be taskmasters by their road crew, who nevertheless keep people on-side by working as hard as anyone else to reach the end goal – pleasing the ticket-buying audience.
3. If you have status but then give it all away too quickly, you become a pushover. Status has to be something valuable – otherwise what is the point in having it? Think of the speaker who starts their speech with an apology or a weak joke: very difficult to regain that lost ground.

Great speakers intuitively understand that getting charisma is the process of getting status fast – and then letting others share it in a controlled manner without diminishing your own stock.

If you feel held back from achieving this, you’re probably experiencing an anxiety that a lot of smart people suffer from. Ever since Socrates told us that, ‘The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing,’ some people have felt nervous about pulling rank, or being seen to be too fond of their own achievements in public.

One of the requests that I get time and time again as coaches is that speakers would like to feel more confident. And while there are some practical steps towards achieving this, a lot of confidence is in being comfortable with who you are, what you do, and when to take charge.

Anxiety about public speaking really is anxiety about putting your head above the parapet and saying ‘I am the leader’ whilst you are speaking in front of people and commanding an audience’s attention.

In my next blog, I will be looking at a few tips and exercises that can inject more charisma into your speaking: from some quick and easy tricks, to a new way of approaching a speech.

This article appears on Nadine Dereza’s website as well as PS Programmes. Nadine is the co-author of the best selling book Insider Secrets of Public Speaking.

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How about charisma? We’re going to make you a PS Programmes New Year promise: over the next few blogs, we’ll talk you through how to be more charismatic in 2017 and beyond. Over the years, we’ve worked with world leaders, top sportspeople and entertainers. They all have ‘something’, call it star quality, call it the X factor… We call it charisma, and it’s something anyone can learn to have for themselves.

Charisma opens doors, no two ways about it. How much easier would it be to get things done if people wanted to help you, rather than pick holes in your plans and thwart you at every turn? We might be suspicious of charisma – indeed, we might consider it downright dangerous, and rightly so (a recent BBC documentary was provocatively titled The Dark Charisma of Adolf Hitler). But if you want to be a leader, understanding how charisma works is a vital part of the toolkit.

Ask yourself:

Do you find it hard to get things done with other people?
Do you prefer to get tasks accomplished by yourself?
Do you find collaboration with others takes you off the track you are on?
Do people say they will help you, and then drag their feet?
Are you a nice person with a good idea that is failing to get traction?
Are you suspicious of charismatic people?

If you answer mostly ‘yes’ to these questions, you could need some help with building your charisma.

Over the next couple of blog posts, we will examine what charisma is, and explain the things you can do to become more charismatic. But before we do, it is worth thinking about what charisma isn’t.

Charisma isn’t a cheap trick

We’re all familiar with pushy sales people who leave us feeling we’ve been scammed while the ink on the agreement is still wet. These are not good sales people; long-term sustainable sales are the result of helping customers to buy what they really want, and developing the relationship beyond simple financial transactions. Really good salespeople get repeat business and new business from recommendations.

It’s a similar story with charisma. We shouldn’t walk away from somebody who is charismatic feeling as though we are waking up from a trance; we should feel we are aligned with them, and energised to take action. If you’re full of ideas, you’ve met someone charismatic. If you’re thinking, ‘Wait a minute…’ you may have met a huckster.

Let’s also think about how charisma is exploited. The argument against hopping in the time machine and assassinating Hitler in 1936 is that if it hadn’t been him, someone else who chimed with the times would likely have become leader of Germany instead. Hitler’s ‘charisma’, if that is what it can be called, was built upon exploiting the feelings of unfairness and frustration felt by the people of Germany at the time. Hitler was an effective leader, but only along the road laid before him.

Consider Martin Luther King Jr who led people equally unfairly treated and frustrated by the pace of change in the USA. While Hitler scapegoated, King encouraged collaboration in the face of tough opposition and while Hitler strove for dominance; King campaigned for integration. It is very easy to divide and highlight difference; but it is much more difficult to celebrate diversity in a country whose journey through slavery and abolition has been as protracted and difficult as it has been in the USA.

In our book, Insider Secrets of Public Speaking we explore what makes a good speech. The charisma of the speaker certainly comes into it, but is only one element of the whole. It doesn’t sit well with us to describe Hitler as ‘charismatic’ – he was pushing buttons to provoke a reaction, and that’s not the same thing at all. It’s a sort of received wisdom that Hitler was a good public speaker, though we’d challenge you to cherry pick a good quotation and remind you that his histrionic speaking style was one of the first things to be satirised by his contemporaries.

King’s speeches, by contrast, are full of lines that inspire us to perform at the top of our talents and to be the best that we can be. You don’t have to share King’s religious conviction to feel your spirit moved by his words; you don’t have to condone his adultery to agree with him on the issue of race. To find Hitler’s speeches stirring, you really do have to be ignorant, wilfully or otherwise, of his personality and the repercussions of his actions.

Here’s a very recent barnstormer: Michelle Obama’s final speech as First Lady works so brilliantly because it sits right in the middle of being about both herself and the audience, and there are moments where she seems to be right on the edge of controlling her emotions. It’s a rallying call for the students she is addressing, but seen in the wider context of Trump’s election victory, it takes on many more layers of meaning to the large audience watching at home. It reminds us of the lines in Churchill’s famous broadcast: ‘We shall fight on the beaches…’ It is worth listening to again, because it has the same quality of someone laying down a backstop. A line which will not be crossed. From 3:30 into Michelle Obama’s speech there are definite similar cadences in the rhythms and words, though where Churchill sounds stoically resigned, Obama sounds as though she is on the edge of powerful emotion. Churchill said ‘we’ shall fight; Obama, handing on the baton, said that ‘you’ will fight, and the fight is personal. Churchill is all-in; Obama is reminding us of her achievements, what it took to attain them, and inviting us to step up and share her ambition for ourselves.

Charisma as a speaker is, in these examples, about giving part of oneself to the audience. Often when we coach speakers, we encourage people to open up on stage, show a little vulnerability, ‘be yourself’. In a business context, ‘being yourself’ is often mistakenly seen as being at odds with ‘being professional’.
Charisma is not the be-all-and-end-all. We were bowled over by Monica Lewinsky’s speech to the Forbes Under 30 Summit in 2014 which was powerful, timely, provocative, and said something really valuable about the way women are dealt with in the media. But there was something about the speech that – quite understandably – felt too scripted, too careful. Monica Lewinsky may well be a very charismatic person; this speech did not display that quality.

Without this substance, the veneer of charisma can look very flimsy indeed. Tony Blair famously fell foul of the Women’s Institute when he delivered the speech he wanted to give rather than the one they wanted to hear. The tricks of superficial charm did not save Blair from the slow handclap of an audience that was sincerely insulted – and they let him know it. The incident caused a stir at the time: mass disapproval of the Prime Minister whose public face seemed until then flawless; for those who were never fans of Blair, it was the moment that the mask began to slip, and the truth was revealed. There was a moment in the speech where Blair seemed to be thinking ,‘Why isn’t this working? Why have they taken against me?’ And for many viewers, it was a discomforting moment when the ground shifted and the spell was broken.

We may all have experienced the odd sensation of being ‘outside’ the charisma bubble – watching someone else completely falling for the charms of someone who leaves you cold. Whether this is seeing a politician at a rally getting big cheers for a view you don’t agree with, or being the only person in an audience who doesn’t find a comedian funny, this experience can leave you feeling confused, isolated, and asking who in the room has got things terribly wrong. Think of all those Trump voters who didn’t care about what he said about women (or Mexicans… or black people… or… you get the idea). We can’t help but think that some people are due a rude awakening, and the harder they have fallen under the charismatic spell, the longer it will take to smell the coffee.

But what can we say about charisma?

• Genuine charisma should have a lasting effect
• It should align audience and speaker to a common goal or set of actions
• It is a two-way process: you can’t be charismatic by yourself!

Next time we’ll be discussing what charisma actually is and how, by understanding it, we can take steps to make ourselves more consciously charismatic when the circumstances call for it.

This article appears on Nadine Dereza’s website as well as PS Programmes. Nadine is the co-author of the best selling book Insider Secrets of Public Speaking.

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The panel included Sophie Taitt (Head of Production, Comedy, BBC, about to move to a new role for Netflix in LA); Saskia Schuster (Commissioning Editor, Comedy, ITV); Lynne Parker (Founder and CEO of Funny Women); and Harriet Braine (Stage Award winner in the 2016 Funny Women Awards).

The discussion was an eye opener, if only because some panel members were keen to beat the drum that women have always enjoyed successful careers in the comedy world – Lucille Ball’s name came up more than once. It took Llewella Gideon in the audience to point out that there were some sectors of society who were not adequately represented on screen, and that complacency should be called out wherever possible.

The Funny Women Awards point in the direction that things are heading; the late and lonely nights of a jobbing circuit comedian might not be attractive to women cutting a career as a stand-up, with sexist hecklers sometimes being part of the job. In response to this, the Funny Women Awards now include a category dedicated to people putting their content online rather than touting it around the comedy circuit. Women have always been part of the comedy world – as agents, publicists, producers, directors and increasingly as creators of original content. The statistics speak for themselves; the very first Funny Women Awards in 2012 had about 70 nominees, this year that number exceeded 500.

I have a foot in both business and entertainment – I was one of the first female football presenters (and grateful to have had the job in the days before social media trolling became an occupational hazard for women in any sort of media, let alone sport). It’s natural for us to consider a successful comedian in much the same way we’d regard a successful entrepreneur. Comedians – in business speak – have an IP-based brand that has to exist in a highly competitive world.

With many successful comedians creating production companies, selling products (DVDs, tour tickets, merchandise) and employing staff from writers to PAs, it makes sense to put the comedy industry in context alongside all the other businesses we regularly read about in the news –and the wider world beyond.

The headlines could make for depressing reading, but don’t tell the whole story (of course).

Britain’s second female Prime Minister, Theresa May came into power without her gender being any issue – at least in the mainstream press – and although we don’t have a female President-elect about to enter the White House, there are a growing number of key political figures around the world who are women.

In the 2008 US election campaign, Tina Fey’s impression of Sarah Palin catapulted her to international fame, not just as a performer but also as a key creative figure. Back in Thatcher’s day, plenty of men impersonated the Prime Minister (the low voice helped) in a way which would be inconceivable today. But I don’t really want to think too much about the world of politics. Just recently, every time I hear what sounds like a political joke then goes on to win in a public vote.

Back to business: looking at the top FTSE 100 companies, only seven have a female CEO. Low as that figure is, it’s better than the top earners in comedy: according to Forbes Magazine, of the top ten earning comedians in the world in 2015, none of them were women. (And only one Brit made the list – John Bishop at number 9).

Let’s go beyond the headlines, though, and look at the rest of the cultural landscape.

Universities have been the breeding ground for performers from Peter Cook to the Monty Python team and Mitchell and Webb. According to the BBC, though, women in the UK are now 35% more likely than men to go to university and the gap is widening every year. Could this be the end of the old boy’s club – and the beginning of the old girls club? Possibly – but new talent is increasingly coming from people that are ‘doing it themselves’ – making their own YouTube films and podcasts.

Comedian Richard Herring, for example, is a poster boy for creating content free from editorial control. Much of his work is paid for directly by the fanbase he has spent more than ten years nurturing online. Social media may be where the new talent is found, and also where it is being monetised; if the broadcasters don’t up their game, social media may be where it stays.

At the RTS event, Funny Women Award Winner Harriet demurred when asked about her potential television career, and with good reason: when distribution is open to anyone with a laptop and an internet connection, it’s quite possible to make more money from a YouTube sketch that you knock out in an afternoon than a BBC Radio 4 series that takes a year to get commissioned and made.

The challenge for television is attracting talent that is used to answering to itself, such as Herring, rather than to a commissioning editor. Some of this is reflected in recent output: BBC Three’s Fleabag came up several times during the debate, and you don’t have to watch more than the first five minutes of this sitcom to realise this programme simply wouldn’t have been made a couple of years ago.

Television is no longer the great medium for linking a performer with an audience. In many cases, the audience watches the performer online, so television is just another platform among many.

On the RTS panel Sophie Taitt observed that co-creation is the new trend for producing programmes as different distribution networks like Netflix and the BBC stop seeing each other as rivals and start seeing each other as partners in creating (and sharing the costs of) new content.

There are, thankfully, more women working in comedy now than ever before and there is something to be said for strength in numbers. For example, when Amy Schumer kicked a sexist heckler out of her gig earlier this year, the audience burst into applause, signalling their unanimous support for the comic who shut down sexism on a public stage for the world to see.

The future is starting to look a lot more balanced, and as audiences become more used to hearing voices outside the ‘male, pale, stale’ demographic, the opportunities for new and authentic talent are only going to increase.

Don’t believe me? Take a look at Marie Claire’s 50 Funniest Women of 2016 with Amy Schumer happily at number one, and family favourite Miranda Hart keeping the British end up at number 18.

If ever a year needed comic relief, it is this one; the helpful links in the Marie Claire article should have you tapping into some fantastic female funnies for the rest of the day.

This article appears on Nadine Dereza’s website as well as PS Programmes. Nadine is the co-author of the best selling book Insider Secrets of Public Speaking.

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After a lot of very positive reviews, the headlines for the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 took a nasty turn when some of the handsets started bursting into flames. Under these circumstances, a company usually recalls the faulty product, replaces it with one that works properly, and complains quietly internally about the dent in the profits. So, what makes this situation different? Replacement handsets with the ‘problem fixed’ have also been exploding, and nobody at Samsung seems yet to have an explanation why.

BBC Technology Correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones wrote in his article, ‘You can bet business schools are preparing to use the inflammable Note 7 as a case study in crisis management,’ citing the original product recall as being regarded as impressively efficient, and the subsequent issues with the handset as bringing on a fiasco.

Indeed, at PS Programmes we counsel at our Crisis Media Management workshops that it is not the job of a media spokesperson to paper over the widening cracks of a collapsing business. The fist thing to do in crisis is to start dealing with the crisis itself – and only then can you communicate what it is that you are doing about the crisis in a way that protects your brand’s reputation. Saying the right thing is not a substitute for doing the right thing, and if what you do and what you say are completely different, you will eventually be found out and most likely hung out to dry.

Samsung’s problem is nothing less than a lack of control. As the devices we have in our homes and carry about in our pockets get more sophisticated (Arthur C. Clarke: ‘Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic’), we put more faith in the manufacturers to look after our best interests and to keep us safe at all times. In The Guardian, Richard Windsor, an analyst with Edison, was quoted as saying, ‘The fact that Samsung appeared to still be shipping defective devices could trigger a large loss of faith in Samsung products.’

The damage is spreading: a story in the Independent cites allegations about Samsung washing machines being sold in the US that are also prone to causing fires, and hints at a cover-up, ‘A lawsuit filed in New Jersey in August, claims that the company has moved aggressively to collect and destroy all evidence of the defective machines after they exploded.’

If there’s one type of news story that a PR department finds difficult to ‘sell’ to the media, it is that a company is genuinely more interested in customer safety than good PR and profits. Good news stories will be regarded with suspicion, and bad news stories will be taken as confirmation that the company is inept at solving the problem.

According to the New York Times, the faulty Samsung Galaxy Note 7 has knocked $17 billion off Samsung’s market value, and the paper hints at what the real problem might be, ‘Two former Samsung employees, who asked not to be named for fear of retaliation from the company, described the workplace as militaristic, with a top-down approach where orders came from people high above who did not necessarily understand how product technologies actually worked.’

So there we have it: a problem with one product out of dozens produced by a global, trusted brand has exposed even greater problems, entrenched deeply within the structure of the company itself. The exploding smartphone is no longer a problem in the consumer’s mind – it is a symptom of a business that is sick to its very core. And nobody wants to catch this particular bug.

Containing the damage during a brand crisis is difficult. When I first sat to write this article, for example, I found myself interchanging freely between using ’Samsung 7’, ‘Galaxy 7’ and just ‘the Samsung smartphone’ as the name of the device before combing back through what I had written and correcting the name to the actual device at fault: the Samsung Galaxy Note 7. Unfortunately, the consumer’s brain often isn’t quite so interested in the detail of correct names as I am (and as Samsung’s lawyers undoubtedly are too).

The pressing question in need of answering now is – just how far along the chain of the Samsung’s product range will consumer confidence be tarnished? Would consumers feel uneasy buying, say, a Samsung Galaxy Note 8? Will Samsung have to drop the word ‘Galaxy’ in their next model? Or will they have to lose the word ‘Samsung’ altogether? And how will this affect consumer confidence in Samsung as a brand – all those televisions, speakers, laptops and washing machines?

To add to Rory Cellan-Jones’ sentiments, this latest disaster for Samsung really is a business student’s dissertation waiting to be written.

This article appears on Nadine Dereza’s website as well as PS Programmes. Nadine is the co-author of the best selling book Insider Secrets of Public Speaking.

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But what is a debate in the Mother of Parliaments if it isn’t in the historical debating chamber itself? Andrew Marr’s guests on BBC Radio 4’s Start the Week programme on Monday discussed the need to move (from about 21 minutes into the programme), and found the conversation quickly turn to the potential impact on the quality of political oration.

I immediately have a problem of definition here. What does ‘good’ political oration actually mean? Across the pond, Donald Trump for example, is barely coherent and when he does say something with a bit of substance, it isn’t something we’d immediately jump to support – but there is no denying that his effect on a crowd (of supporters, at least) is electric. Spoken words often don’t look great when written down, but an article about Trump’s views on ‘the cyber’ from Wired magazine is particularly damning.

MP Margaret Hodge is bang on the money when she says, during the Start the Week debate that ‘your performance [on TV and radio] becomes more important than your ability to debate in the House of Commons.’ Arguably, Trump is all about using his oratorical prowess on television, as he’s never held a political post in his life. But will this be enough to get him to the Oval Office? Read more about my views on Trump’s public speaking skills in my previous blog post.

Oration is fine and dandy, but if you’re delivering a speech to an empty House of Commons and there are fifteen viewers and a dog watching on the BBC Parliament channel does it really matter? Isn’t it more important to get that 15-second soundbite that will be seen by millions and repeated across the media for the next news cycles? What’s more important – the badly delivered but undeniable speech that may or may not sway a committee’s vote, or the it’ll-never-happen headline-grabbing ‘we’ll-build-a-wall-and-make-Mexico-pay-for-it’ sort of nonsense that people talk about by the water cooler?

It is tempting to look back on a mythical golden age of political speeches in UK parliament with dewy eyes, cherry-picking the good moments, and pretending that they were normal. So tempting, in fact, that on Start the Week, Robert Harris did just that, before then immediately executing a U-turn: ‘What worries me is…the terrible quality of debates and speeches. Even in the seventies, even in the eighties… there were brilliant wind up speeches, with the possible exception of Hilary Benn’s [recent] wind up in the debate over Syria.’

Did we have any tub-thumping speeches about Brexit that would satisfy the public speaking analysts among us? A few – but Brexit wasn’t about persuading a debating chamber. The Brexit debate happened in homes, in staff rooms, at bus stops, in pubs (literally: Wetherspoons printed pro-Brexit beer mats). Michael Gove spoke to a nagging concern of many when he said that the British people ‘have had enough of experts’ (for the time being, people seem to have had enough of Michael Gove too), and the pro-Brexit vote did, in many ways, highlight again the double-bind politicians find themselves in. The British public generally don’t seem to like ‘career politicians’ who’ve ‘never done a proper job’, and yet we will need some highly skilled diplomacy to smooth over the chaos left by the likes of Nigel Farage, whose heights of oration in the European Parliament extended to insulting a room full of people, knowing that someone else will have to go in and strike a deal on behalf of the rest of us.

But it made good TV, right?

As politics gets more about the media, more grass roots and less about watching people make speeches, I have to ask: is there any value in teaching oration? Or is it regarded, as Andrew Marr mischievously suggests in his programme, regarded as ‘huxterish and disreputable’?

Okay, let’s teach oration, but maybe let’s not call it that. Let’s call it communication, if for no other reason than I’ve got a feeling it’s the sort of word that will make novelist Robert Harris harrumph. It’s a mistake to think that good orators simply hand down a beautifully tuned phrase to their passive, open-eared audience. They don’t. The audience plays a key part in the speech.

I’ve run communication workshops in businesses, organisations, universities and colleges, and constantly struck by how speaking well in public is tied up with leadership. The PS Programmes team ran a memorable session at an adult community college. It took some time to chip through one student’s suspicious exterior, but when she realised that there wasn’t a wrong answer to ‘tell us about your journey here today’, there wasn’t an exam to fail and she was completely in charge of the space, she blossomed. She spoke to an audience as if they were old friends, putting her nerves to one side. She was funny, likeable, opinionated and compelling (yes – about taking a bus). All in the space of a minute.

We found out later she would consider herself lucky to get a pass mark in a single GCSE, yet while our student was on the platform, she showed the sort of charisma and charm that some CEOs would give their teeth to have. Afterwards, she told us that it was the first time she could remember being in a classroom without feeling like a failure, or stupid, or that she was in conflict with the teacher.

Good speaking isn’t about being impenetrable, or showing off vocabulary (though I’ll take ‘huxterish’ as my word for the day). Once again, I find myself reaching for my three golden rules of public speaking: Authenticity, Authority, and Audience. I’m not so sure that oration is dead. Communication is very much alive: we are encompassed by communications, surrounded by soundbites and dizzy with delivery. The challenge for leaders – be they politicians, CEOs, students or whoever has to give a speech – is to be in charge of what they are communicating, through the medium in which they are delivering it. Beginning that learning process at school would be a valuable first step.

This article appears on Nadine Dereza’s website as well as PS Programmes. Nadine is the co-author of the best selling book Insider Secrets of Public Speaking.

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Donald faces Hillary in November, and depending on your pollster you can find the election predictions going either way. While their political enemies criticise them as a thoughtless, blowhard, imbecile (Trump) or a devious, cold, political robot (Clinton) it can’t be denied that they are both savvy players to have made it this far. Though they appear to have little in common, step back and notice: both candidates have placed public appearances as a key part of their campaign.

Looking at the body language of the candidates, the immediate realisation is that the audience will see what it wants to see: Hillary’s speeches are carefully planned and scripted – which depending on your point of view makes her look either presidential or calculating, authoritative or disingenuous. Donald’s speeches may be looser and more off-the-cuff, but he has exactly the same problem of appearing to be one thing to one person, and something else to someone else: where supporters see honesty, opponents see a loose cannon.

It’s especially difficult to get a steer on the speakers’ body language when they are in front of a friendly crowd: adversity tends to knock down the barriers and reveal character. But here are a few pointers: Clinton has a relaxed on-stage presence behind the podium, usually gesturing with a single hand. She expects the audience to come to her, and listen to what she has to say. Clinton is in the detail, and gives the impression that she knows the situation as well as any of the journalists who put questions to her.

Donald’s body language is superficially much more dynamic than Hilary’s, and as a result his personal image and brand stick powerfully in the mind! As an example, in this speech at Saint Anselm College’s New Hampshire Institute of Politics Auditorium he starts slow and vague, but at around the 14 minute mark, he’s gets more excitable and less articulate, with his hands coming up and moving around a lot more than Hillary tends to do. However, whenever Hilary references/attacks Trump, her body language begins to mirror his, with both hands coming up and wheeling around. Look at this Columbus Ohio Speech clip to see her do this clearly. Clinton is attacking a Trump statement at about 24 minutes and 15 seconds mark, and here you will see her mirroring his non-verbal behaviour.

Endeavouring as ever to be politically neutral, we are going to do a classic SWOT analysis on both candidates and looking at how their performances stack up against our criteria of good public speaking – namely the three golden principles of Authority, Authenticity and Audience.

Strengths…

Hillary
Authority is Hillary’s strongest asset. She has already taken a role on the world stage and is a known quantity to people and governments overseas. The world would like to see Clinton in the top spot, because she has been a global household name since her time as the First Lady to her husband, Bill. Hillary speaks with real authority, a grasp of the situation under discussion and knowledge of foreign affairs. She demonstrably knows her stuff.

Donald
Donald doesn’t have to appeal to people around the world – they don’t have a vote. What is clear is that pro-Trump voters are having an emotional response to him. Whilst the liberal media worries about what he is saying about Hispanics and women (to name but two groups he’s upset), to the people who love him, what he says hardly matters. This emotional response put the outside observer in an interesting position: logically, Trump is opposed to many of the things that we are told attracts voters – and yet to those who love him, his faults are ignorable.

How does he do it? Trump’s strength is in knowing his audience. Making the big statements – such as the wall between the USA and Mexico, or refusing entry to Muslims – may appear unworkable as well as offensive, but to a proportion of the voters, they are radical, big-thinking and easy solutions to their problems. Trump ‘says the unsayable’ – which are usually the sort of things that some people may say over the dinner table or in bars. To a Trump voter, Donald is ‘one of us’, while Clinton is ‘one of them.’

Weaknesses…

Hillary
Clinton has already admitted that she has a problem with likability and trust. Likability isn’t such a problem, but the business of trust certainly is. The ins and outs of who she did and didn’t email – and from which account – are confusing and labyrinthine.

The big problem for Hillary is one of authenticity. Are we getting the real deal with Hillary – or is she presenting an acceptable face? When we feel we are being lied to, we treat everything about an individual with suspicion: presidential traits – such as putting on a power suit and choosing words carefully – can look underhand and calculated. Hillary doesn’t have Trump’s from-the-heart, speak-as-I-find style. This is a style that has brought Trump problems, but it has also won him strong loyalty.

Donald
Donald says what he’s thinking – and that, you might think, is his downfall. But most people accept that no president is going to give them 100% of what they want, and so in a world of political players and professional dissemblers, Trump’s candour deepens his relationship with his admirers, while those at the edges are turned off.

One vote, however, is only one vote, however passionate you are about it.

Trump’s supporters are telegenic: there’s nothing like an enthusiastic rally, with plenty of showbiz thrown in, to make good TV pictures, and the state of the show can be relied upon to say something newsworthy. The problem for Trump is that each time he says something controversial, he is alienating the middle ground. He looks like a man buffeted by whim, and while his solutions to problems appear straightforward, in our heart of hearts, we all know that complex situations require more than a wall on the Mexican border.

We always counsel authenticity over likability: people seem to love Trump, but do they like him? Would they want him as their direct boss?

Opportunities…

Hillary
There are many opportunities that Hillary can open up between now and November. One of Trump’s key selling points is his successful track record in business. Hillary needs to appeal to the small businesspeople, the entrepreneurs and ‘mom and pop’ stores and assure them that they will be better off under her leadership.

It isn’t her style, but Clinton needs to go on the attack with a simple emotional statement about Trumps shaky business background.

Above all, Clinton needs to respond to Trump’s statements that upset large numbers of voters; there are plenty of long-term Republicans who didn’t like Trump, so anything that attracts these voters over to her side could help turn the tide: the centre ground could be Hillary’s for the taking – if she listens to criticism and makes more emotional plays for the support of former opponents. Clinton may not win many friends, but what she needs is for people to pinch their noses and vote for her – which is not the most compelling slogan, but elections have been won on less.

Donald
‘Strategy’ and ‘Donald Trump’ go together like cheesecake and Marmite, but there are still opportunities for getting voters on side before the polls. The first thing Donald needs to do is to soften the message: the hot air and bluster may well be exposed for what it is. Trump needs to keep his candid, authentic voice, but he needs to show a more thoughtful side if he wants to reassure voters that his radical proposals are more than reckless.

If Trump could persuade those who don’t like him that he would be a competent steward of the United States, they may well come around to the idea that he is the breath of fresh air politics needs. He needs hard policy: if Brexit has taught us anything, it is that you shouldn’t vote for something on the basis of a bold promise without a rigorous plan. If he could demonstrate that on major issues he has the ability to be more conciliatory than divisive, and give more detail than rhetoric, he would be delivering the kind of message the moderates prefer: better the devil you know as for all his faults, and no one could ever accuse Trump of misrepresentation.

Threats…

Hillary and Donald

The threats are where both Trump and Clinton have something in common and it boils down to one word: complacency.

On polling day, it all comes down to who can bring out the higher number of voters to make their mark, and both sides in this contest could fall foul of complacency.

For Clinton’s supporters, the thought of Trump as president is so abhorrent that they literally can’t imagine it happening. There is a risk that the Democrats who wanted Bernie Sanders will withhold their vote, reckoning it will be a walk in the park for Clinton. They could be proven wrong. Clinton needs to present Trump as a credible threat – which risks boosting Trump’s campaign. Between now and November look for dire predictions of a Trump presidency from Camp Clinton.

Complacency also affects the Trump camp, but the threat is potentially greater. Whilst Clinton may appeal to voters to support her, Trump’s campaign has always hinged on his overwhelming self-confidence. Presenting himself as the natural winner may be just enough to make some of his supporters feel they don’t need to add their vote to a majority they assume will be overwhelming. A change of tone from Trump to imply that losing is even a possibility would look like weakness, and admitting weakness is a long way off-brand for The Donald.

Final score
From a public speaking perspective, Hillary and Donald are a dead heat. The contest looks set to be a classic head vs heart decision: will the American people choose the established, credible career politician? Or will they plump for the businessman who speaks his mind and gets what he wants? A simple solution appeals to the heart. Messy reality requires more careful thought. But who will come out on top in November?

In terms of public appearances, Hillary has it nailed when it comes to authority, and Donald has a direct line to his audience. We suspect that they are both presenting an authentic version of themselves, but Clinton’s is by necessity a lot more guarded and cautious. And it is costing her support. It’s hard to accuse Trump of anything he doesn’t cheerfully admit to himself.

We always counsel that public speaking is more than a ‘nice to have’ – it is a key leadership skill. The president (or CEO, Senior Leadership Team etc.) have to look like they are in charge at all times.

Where did Obama get it right?
In many ways, Obama had similar problems to Clinton: the perception that he is a political insider, more head than heart, an academic with some questionable associates. Throughout his presidency, he has appeared on chat shows, poked fun at himself and done a lot to address this perception.

Obama has done a lot to make himself appeal to the greatest number of people for as much of the time as he can: but there is a new breeze of anti-intellectualism blowing through the world, perhaps as a consequence of social media. We don’t want our leaders to be smarter than us anymore; we want them to be more like us, and Professor Barrack Obama is very much not like the poor, white, educationally disadvantaged Americans who fundamentally dislike him. It’s a cliché to say that Obama was elected by the black and Hispanic votes, but the USA is increasingly a nation of minorities, and Trump’s big mistake may be that the audience member he sees as ‘typical’ (white, male, working class) is not, ultimately, typical of the voting public.

Obama’s speaking style is calm, measured and authoritative. For voters frustrated by a lack of change, the instinctual manner of Trump marks a completely different approach. It’s fashionable to print what Trump says in black and white and cast him as an idiot; natural speech rarely makes sense when written down, and to the people watching Trump’s speeches rather than reading them, they make perfect sense.

Whether Hillary’s campaign survives the authenticity problem or Donald finally says something that even his most enthusiastic supporters cannot stomach, we shan’t know until the results are called. Between now and November – there’s a lot to think about.

NB: Past performance is no guarantee of future results; post-Brexit, we shall leave calling the election results wrongly to professional pollsters!

This article appears on Nadine Dereza’s website as well as PS Programmes. Nadine is the co-author of the best selling book Insider Secrets of Public Speaking.

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Every time I started to write this article, further news and opinions were continuing to emerge, and while I always tread the line of impartiality, the confusion has raised the practice of neutrality to the level of an extreme sport.

You don’t have to be anti-Brexiter to look at the stock market and worry, and you don’t have to be pro-Brexit to think we should grasp the nettle now the decision is made. The story now isn’t whether we should stick to the referendum result (and Nicola Sturgeon for one isn’t giving up on the move to veto the Brexit decision): it is about uncertainty.

There is a power vacuum and that is more damaging to our long-term prospects than anything else that the warring sides can cook up. I don’t expect the press who promoted Brexit to provide too much coverage of the negative impact, and I don’t expect much optimism from those who encouraged Bremain. That’s the problem with the press: stability is not in its interest, because instability provides more compelling stories.

Brexit may or may not be good news in the long run for the UK. But worse would be long-term uncertainty. Until (or, indeed, whether) we pull the trigger on Article 50 we are in no position to negotiate with our neighbours. So this decision has to be taken as a matter of urgency.

It does seem remarkable that this level of upheaval should be a direct result of a single vote, which is the basis for the record-breaking petition calling for a second referendum if the winning side gets less than 60 percent of the votes based on a turnout of less than 75 percent. (‘Vote Leave’ won the EU Referendum with 52 percent of the vote, with a 72 percent voter turnout.) In another reversal, for which this entire issue is becoming notorious, the second EU vote petition was created by a Vote Leave campaigner just before the referendum.

How much influence should this petition have on the process? Should it be a more powerful voice than the official poll? How much weight do we give to these extra-curricular voices? In the USA for example, the debate over gun legislation resulted in Democrat politicians staging a sit-in protest in Congress. Does an elected representative’s opinion fail to count if it is merely broadcast on Periscope rather than CNN? And can any of us truly distance ourselves from the emotive issues at stake and take a view on any of these questions about Europe, guns, or whatever, without letting our opinions cloud our judgment?

Brexit has given us a glimpse into the deep rifts within political parties, between generations, classes and UK regions. Far from being a ‘United’ Kingdom, the country now feels more divided than ever.

David Cameron may have stepped down, but he is still de facto leader until his successor is announced. If the intention is to reverse the decision of the referendum, Cameron should get on and do it: leaving it to someone else would be to nudge them into a corner of political suicide. If Cameron is giving up to the Leave camp, he has to get out now.

In or out of the EU will be Cameron’s decision and ultimately his legacy. At the time of writing everything still seems – frighteningly – uncertain.  And as a mother currently trying to shore up the confidence of her 10-year-old son – who burst into tears on hearing the referendum result – a speedy resolution can’t come soon enough for me.

This article appears on Nadine Dereza’s website as well as PS Programmes. Nadine is the co-author of the best selling book Insider Secrets of Public Speaking.

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As millions of people go through the system, thousands of planes come and go, and untold numbers of workers seen and unseen make it all happen. Somehow. Throw in the variables of human error, wear and tear on plane parts or just poor weather and chaos can break out from where it was being held delicately in check.

It’s enough to make you fall on your duty-free Toblerone for reassurance.
 
In a complex system, small breakdowns can take a long time to put right across the system as a whole: in February, an oil spill closed London Gatwick’s runway for less than an hour – but passengers found themselves stuck on their planes for considerably longer.
 
When a second Gatwick closure more recently, many started to ask if Gatwick should really be getting another runway if it can’t look after what it already has. One company did manage to earn a few PR brownie points though, or better put, PERi-PERi points, on the back of the crisis. Top marks to Nando’s for gallantly staying open late to feed delayed passengers!
 
Even more troublesome was an incident last September when an engine fire on a London-bound Boeing 777 at Las Vegas airport caused chaos. The incident in which 14 people were injured, now even has its own Wikipedia entry: British Airways Flight 2276.

And then there was, of course, the snow at London Heathrow airport in 2013.
 
Time and again, the main complaint from passengers is that they are not kept informed about how events are unfolding: is it worth waiting for a plane that may never leave? Or is it best to decamp at the earliest opportunity and relax away from the scene of the crisis?
 
Knowing how to deal with a crisis may sometimes only be figured out when the crisis itself is actually happening, but having a strategy and knowing how to disseminate information properly is something that can be planned well in advance. A crisis communications plan is not just a ‘nice to have’: it is vital so that you can communicate with passengers who are inconvenienced, and maintain your reputation as the media will be door-stepping your CEO before you can say “delays expected”. 

At PS Programmes we advocate a clear strategy when dealing with the media during a crisis:
• Always prepare a holding statement at the earliest stage
• Establish credible lines of contact
• Keep your messages clear and consistent
• Work with the media – rather than treating them as the enemy
• Always be available
 
The news might be bad, but you must present your organisation’s side of the story has clearly or the media, the public and your competitors certainly won’t pass up the opportunity to make the most of your misfortune.
 
Aside from the mainstream media, you should also think about the different ways in which media is now consumed. In this age of lightening-fast smartphone technology, would-be passengers may well be watching the crisis unfold on their device, with up-to-the-minute information, while an airport employee standing in front of them is none the wiser.
 
By ‘media’ of course, we include ‘social media’ and it is imperative that you use your organisation’s social channels responsibly to share accurate and clear statements (and post replies to comments if appropriate). Establishing and sticking to a hashtag is one useful way of managing information and helping to protect your reputation. Twitter is a law unto itself, but it is better if you stick to a hashtag like #AirportDelay or #AccidentUpdates rather than #AirportDebacle or #CrashLatest.
 
Your partner brands – like Nando’s mentioned above – may find they are pulling out the stops to help you, and social media is a good place to say thank you. 
 
Mobile devices are also a fantastic way of rearranging plans, working on the move (and playing Candy Crush or FarmVille) – which may all sound glib, but an occupied passenger is one who is not actively causing a problem. Tempers tend to fray as batteries run out, so the airport that responds with a reliable way of recharging devices gets our vote.
 
The problem with airports is that so much of what they offer is strictly limited for regular passengers. It is, after all, one of the tactics they use to generate Business Class ticket sales. The problem is that regular passengers – forced to sit for hours on deliberately uncomfortable seats, their 45 minutes free WiFi long since exceeded – are the ones who will cause you the biggest headache. In the Business Class lounge, passengers may just shrug and order another G&T to nurse their woes.
 
The real challenge of crisis media management, particularly where social media is concerned, is recognising that individuals can have a significant impact on your brand if they have a bad experience. The world has changed: it is no longer possible to spin the story in the right way to a handful of journalists and hope for the best. Whatever your business, in a crisis situation, thinking of the impact on the people on the ground and mitigating their discomfort – in small, but meaningful ways – can shift the story away from the crisis and onto your positive values as a brand. 

Must dash, delayed flight to catch!

This article appears on Nadine Dereza’s website as well as PS Programmes. Nadine is the co-author of the best selling book Insider Secrets of Public Speaking.

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We’ve been to plenty of the world’s conference centres, and the things we look for aren’t necessarily what the venues highlight on their websites. We want to know: does the wifi work? Will the venue manager panic when we say we want to plug a Mac into the projector? And how easy is it to get to?

Location is everything to the conference venue. In these times of ecological concern, a few hundred delegates catching a plane can put a dent in the most robust claims of carbon neutrality. It doesn’t matter how often you reuse your hotel bath towel, if you’ve missed out a carbon efficiency somewhere else, the carbon tally can soon add up.

Venues work well when they are at a hub, even if that means the London delegates complain all the way to Birmingham. Speaking of which, we were at Birmingham for the HBAA conference (which as you’d expect got all the details right) in which we found out the cost of a hotel room outside the capital makes events that last longer than a single day much more cost effective when they happen in the regions (and here’s a list of average hotel prices around the world: – believe it or not, London is not in the top ten).

Does Sydney count as a hub? Culturally more than geographically, perhaps. It is a profoundly international city with (unsurprisingly) a very strong Asian influence. And we mean ‘Asian’ and not ‘Chinese’: So Korea, Japan, Malaysia and India are all strongly represented in the city.

Sydney city centre is easier and faster to reach from the airport than most other cities – and indeed from many of Sydney’s own suburbs, many of which are most easily accessed by ferry. A pretty journey, but not necessarily a fast or efficient journey. The schlep to and from Gatwick has put a crimp in many an excursion, though we welcome the overdue investment of £120 million for the line. Heathrow is better, but we remember one harrowing occasion on which the Heathrow Express was overtaken by the slower Heathrow Connect service into Paddington. Credit where it’s due – we got an immediate refund on the ticket.

Sydney is 11 hours ahead, which from the British point of view puts it at a real advantage. In theory you can have a full day’s conference in Sydney before your London office has turned up on Monday morning. Or fly east across the International Date Line and catch the last of the weekend in a move that would have Doctor Who scratching his head and double-checking the control panel on the TARDIS.

But the other attraction of Sydney has a sting: China’s economic boom has come at the price of air quality. And while Sydney makes much of their sunny weather, the real selling point is that it is far away from the smog that makes many industrial cities in the east impossible to explore without breathing apparatus. The catchment area is so vast that getting anywhere means getting on a plane, so you might as well be brave and keep going until you reach Sydney.

All this is great news for Sydney, and although we travel the world, most of the work we do is here in the UK. What are the lessons for the conference organisers we work with the most? We always think that the best approach to deciding on anything is to ask the right questions and give honest answers. With that in mind, and putting the reliability of the Wi-Fi to one side, we think the major points for an organiser to consider are:

Is the conference a chance to get away from it all or a chance to plug into a wider world? We’ve seen the bunker mentality of a countryside hideaway work wonders on a business problem, and witnessed a bar crawl around Manchester masquerade as ‘networking’.

Is it important to be in a ‘landmark’ venue (such as Sydney Opera House) or would somewhere more anonymous serve your purposes better? Prestige can be a legitimate business need (we were particularly delighted to have our book launch in a venue as smart and stylish as King’s Place) but glamour can come at a price.

Is the event entirely business focused or is the opportunity to break out and get involved in other activities important? We are thinking particularly of the falconry at Gleneagles, but you might prefer the kayaks at London’s Excel, or Park Lane’s proximity to Harrods.

What is Plan B? The occasional North Atlantic volcano may put the kibosh on your best-laid plans once in a generation, but there are always strikes, engineering works, traffic jams and bad weather happening on a daily basis. Knowing more than one way to the venue may save your event.

Finally, can we make a last plea to conference venues all over the world? Many places get this right, but all too often, venues are fronted by gatekeepers whose reaction to being asked directions to join 6,000 delegates attending a three day international conference that is currently happening in their venue is one of disbelief. It’s the mark of a professional to be in the right place at the right time, but so often we find the first hundred miles to the venue to be the easy part, and the last hundred yards to the right suite to be much more challenging…

This article appears on PS Programmes website as well as Nadine Dereza’s website. Nadine is the co-author of the best selling Insider Secrets of Public Speaking

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Fear is a dangerous genie to let out of the bottle. One place you’re likely to hear a hard sale is in the tumble drier section of your local white goods showroom. As we know only too well, the mistakes at the top of a company are often felt by the people facing the customer: when your take home pay depends upon your ability to sell a product, a bad news story about that product can have a serious impact on the monthly figures. And that isn’t good for the salespeople, the retail company or the manufacturer. For all these reasons, the Hotpoint washing machine and tumble drier scandal that is currently unfolding in the nation’s homes spells bad news for the company.

Hotpoint is one brand under the Whirlpool umbrella: other brands include Indent and Creda, but we’re going to stick to referring to ‘Hotpoint’ to keep things straightforward.

This is not just another ‘communications gone wrong’ story – goodness knows that at PS Programmes we not only have our own extensive collection that we use as the basis for our crisis media management workshops and talks on the subject, we also hear informal tales of ‘near misses’ from clients. There are plenty of narrow escapes, could-have-beens and stories that managed to skim under the radar.

The Hotpoint situation demonstrates clearly why good communication and good business are two sides of the same coin. It should also serve as a warning that a mistake, badly handled, can have big implications at all levels of an organisation.

A problem with communicating with the public

We can play ‘Bad Comms Bingo’ with this situation. Disgruntled customers posting on social media? Check. Unrealistic promises made to smooth things over? Check. A general sense that the last people to see and respond to the problem were the leaders of the organisation that caused it? Check.

Hotpoint is a national, well-established and highly respected brand. While much of the news happens to ‘other people’, many of us have a product in our home with the Hotpoint logo on it. When such a news story hits, it triggers a nasty feeling that you may have a potentially lethal machine quietly sitting in a corner in your own home. How many times have you chucked something in the drier before you go out for the day? Or nodded off to the sound of tomorrow’s outfit rolling around in the machine? This is precisely the taint of mistrust that could be seriously affecting the company years from now.

Indeed, for a brand the road back from a moment of misjudged media management to restoring its reputation is a long one – just ask Skoda, whose brand renaissance may be thwarted in the wake of the VW emissions debacle.

Communications are vital, especially if they are multi-channel. Or, in plain English, deliver your message using your people who talk directly to your customers as well as using an official company spokesperson to speak to traditional media and on social media. Remember, when a crisis hits, customer services teams are the front line, and they are often under a huge amount of pressure. They will be the first port of call for many of your customers in a crisis, so it’s imperative that they are briefed and prepared so that they understand what to say to customers and how to say it.

The Daily Mail story about the Bettridge family whose Hotpoint washing machine exploded, destroying their kitchen, highlights the role and the importance of a customer service team in a crisis. The last few sentences in the Daily Mail article are particularly damning of Hotpoint. Mr Bettridge is quoted, saying: “I’m so annoyed because I’ve gone down all the right routes to try and get help.

“The lady on the phone said there was nobody I could talk to, and when I got annoyed she put the phone down on me.

“I feel like we’ve been fobbed off.”

Some serious red flags for Hotpoint here:

• Mr Bettridge comes across as a lot more reasonable than one might expect considering the circumstances
• He has done all the ‘right things’ and feels as though Hotpoint has washed its hands of his concerns.
• Hotpoint is perceived as careless and indifferent in concern about the safety of their machines once they have left the company warehouse.
• All Hotpoint customers who own a machine – whether it has exploded or not – are now feeling the pain and are being hung out to dry by the company that is at fault
• Perhaps worse than the news story itself are the reader comments beneath the story in which other Hotpoint customers air their grievances against the company.

As the story unfolded, things got worse for the company when a whistleblower from Hotpoint spoke out after quitting her job, saying, among many things, that potentially lethal tumble dryers were being ignored by Hotpoint.

The moral of this story is: however expensive you think it is to fix a problem (such as a faulty product) when you first discover the issue, it’s a lot less expensive than it will be to fix it once it has metaphorically burst into flames in a customer’s kitchen.

Fixing the problem

Arguably, the horse has already bolted here, but Hotpoint can still claw back some goodwill – though it will be difficult and expensive.

Getting the problem sorted quickly is going to have to be a priority, and clear communication on timescales is going to be an issue. It should be clear that reliability of the mechanics and technicians is going to be a factor – none of this promising to be there at 10am and then turning up at 3.15pm nonsense.

Hotpoint should start by making small promises that it can keep. This could be something as straightforward as saying ‘We can’t confirm when we will have an engineer for you, but we will give you an update tomorrow,’ and then give the customer the update – even if the update is ‘no further news’. Hotpoint needs to start building relationships with customers, and those relationships begin with going back to the basics of establishing trust.

Ultimately without trust, a brand like Hotpoint will be less worried about profitability and more concerned with survival; Hotpoint is rightly proud of its long history in the industry, but it could very easily go the way of Woolworths, Chrysler and Delta if they don’t fix what is clearly broken.

Time and again at PS Programmes, we work with organisations that question us about whether crisis media management training is time and money well spent. We rarely have to look further back than a few weeks or days in the news to provide examples of companies that have got it seriously wrong and – if you’ll pardon the hard sell – regretted not implementing crisis media management training sooner.

Finally, back to Hotpoint: what will be the conclusion? Will customers hang Hotpoint out to dry for good or will the stain simply come out in the wash? Only time will tell…

This article appears on PS Programmes website as well as Nadine Dereza’s website. Nadine is the co-author of the best selling Insider Secrets of Public Speaking

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We always endeavour to be politically neutral with this blog. Sure, we’ve singled out the occasional politician for praise, and sometimes criticism, but always (we hope) with the remit of PS Programmes foremost: it’s not the content that we’re concerned with, so much as the delivery. More than once we’ve highlighted a particularly skilful speaker with a slightly heavy heart, as we wonder why they cannot use their talents for the greater good. But that’s only our opinion.

Here, then, are a few ways of keeping solidly on the fence, however tempting the grass on either side might be. Fence-sitting, when done with panache and style, is essential for the professional interviewer. There are bound to be plenty of social gatherings between now and the announcement of the referendum result where keeping your opinions to yourself would be a wise choice. At best, by remaining neutral, you can keep in the good books of a host who realises with dread that the notorious bore who has found their way over to you is the worst company after six glasses of red wine.

Avoiding Arguments
The dullest of conversations often involve ‘True Believers’ flinging their opinions at one another. Generating plenty of heat and noise, and very little light. If you’re in the cross fire you’ll be invalided off the battlefield long before the real combatants have settled into a grouchy stalemate.

A good way to find out whether you are dealing with a ‘True Believer’ is to ask a very simple question: ‘What would it take to convince you that you are wrong?’ If the answer is ‘Nothing’, then you might as well talk about something else. You might investigate why they feel as they do, or how they would cope when things don’t go their way, and all of this can be discussed with a neutral approach.

So long as you are not moderating a debate in front of an audience, you can let two ‘True Believers’ have a go at each other for hours on end. They will have a fun time and quite possibly leave as the best of friends as barristers on opposing sides of a court case often are.

Measure your words
Does one side of the debate have a particular trigger word? In the EU debate, ‘bureaucrats’ is the word that springs to mind for the ‘out’ campaign, while the ‘in’ team is going with ‘safer’ and associated synonyms. Words and phrases can take on a life of their own, and come adrift from their original meaning. ‘Education, education, education,’ was all very laudable, but if you were critical of education policy at the time, you’d find yourself being accused of being ‘anti-education’ – even if you were in fact suggesting a better way of doing it than was being proposed.

Being aware of these words, and avoiding them wherever possible, is a good strategy. When moderating, it’s vital to keep an ear attuned for such words, as they are often used as a sort of code, and it’s sometimes more illuminating to drill down and find out what these words mean to the person who is using them. In the US elections, it’s currently in vogue for the Republican nominees to say that they are ‘taking our country back.’ We are not sure quite what this means: back from who? Back from where? Back from what? It’s vague – but vague can be useful if you’re trying to appeal to a broad group of people, as they can project their own meaning on a meaningless slogan.

Words and phrases like these can turn into cliché, and you can sometimes spot someone who has trotted out a phrase so often, they will parrot it on autopilot when it is out of context, makes no sense, or to make a completely unrelated point. While he was Labour leader in the UK, Ed Miliband seemed to respond to casual questions with responses honed to within an inch of their lives at Labour HQ, which gave the impression that… well it’s hard to say. Judge Ed Miliband’s performance for yourself.

A cliché always makes us think that whoever is using it has temporarily ducked out of responsibility for their own thoughts, and if you’re on the cusp of one yourself, it might be worth taking a moment to think about expressing yourself differently.

As George Orwell once said, ‘Never use a cliché unless you are coining one.’

When one side claims ownership of a word (like ‘bureaucrat’ or ‘safer’) they should be mindful of how they use them. If you’re being deliberately neutral, using one side’s words without clear inverted commas makes you sound as though you have picked a side.

‘I don’t follow football’
This is the nuclear option of neutrality, and familiar to anyone whose circle of friends includes a decent number of football fans: whenever discussion of teams is in full swing, someone will be asked, ‘who do you support?’ And will respond, ‘I don’t follow football.’ All within earshot will drop their jaws and a good many seconds of shocked silence will fall on those assembled.

We have never seen cricket fans, rugby fans or music fans react with quite such intense incredulity. * (See footnote)

‘I don’t follow football’, or whatever equivalent phrase you find yourself deploying, remains the gold standard when it comes to avoiding arguments, as declaring yourself independent from the entire debate forces whoever you are talking to into explaining why the debate matters in the first place. Very much like measuring your words, you can position yourself into talking about the debate rather than engaging in it. Two questions that are guaranteed to get interesting answers are: ’What do your opponents say?’ and ‘Why do they say that?’ Very occasionally, you’ll see someone entertaining a notion that they might not have previously considered.

Three quick don’ts…

1. Don’t… Attempt to lighten the mood with trivial arguments
Yes, the EU referendum ‘out’ campaign necktie is a hideous clash of colours that is upsettingly garish, but if you say that, you will get a face full of hard facts from someone who is taking all of this much more seriously than you.

2. Don’t… Leave your true feelings to the last moment
Either you have a horse in the race or you don’t. It’s better to kick yourself for not saying something you believed in all the way home than it is to leave everyone feeling (rightly) that you misrepresented yourself and only showed your true colours as you were walking out of the door – a bit like Michael Gove and Boris Johnson inviting speculation right up to the 11th hour before announcing their intentions in the EU referendum campaign. Experience tells us that this flash of opinion often manifests as a joke, and jokes can too-easily fall flat, be misinterpreted and occasionally backfire. You’ll be talked about after you’ve gone, and it won’t be complimentary.

3. Don’t… Get personal
Disliking someone whose opinion you disagree with is easy. The higher path is to find the likeable and admirable traits in someone whose opinions are different from your own. Seeing Jeremy Corbyn share a stage with David Cameron on the EU issue may make you think rather better of whichever one you currently like the least. Speakers are more likely to persuade people with their principles than by airing personal grudges against someone.

Finally…
Neutrality doesn’t have to be dull. Properly deployed, it can shed more light on someone’s opinion that a tough adversarial stance. You’ll often learn more about someone’s argument and their character by taking the softly-softly approach, and if you happen to disagree with them, understand why their choices are different to your own. You are more likely to spot the flaws in your own arguments – and if you find yourself saying, ‘this is my view and no evidence to the contrary will change my mind on it’, ask yourself why that view can appeal to you even if the facts themselves don’t?

The EU referendum on whether Britain should remain in the European Union is to be held on Thursday 23 June.

* I support QPR, if you must know.

This article appears on Nadine Dereza’s website as well as PS Programmes.
Nadine Dereza is the co-author of the best selling Insider Secrets of Public Speaking.

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Nadine and Ian took a PS Programmes team trip to the Langham Hotel in London on Tuesday 9 February to deliver a crisis media management masterclass exclusively to some of the UK’s most senior PR industry figures.

Hosted in partnership by Eventopedia, the event industry search engine and reviews site, and Gorkana, a media intelligence company, the masterclass was attended by more than 200 communications specialists from a diverse range of businesses and organisations.

One of the key learning points that we touched upon in the session, was that one standard approach to dealing with a crisis certainly does not fit all. We talked about a number of real-life crises that have dominated the headlines recently, and discussed the ways in which each of the organisations involved handled the media when crisis hit. The examples we used illustrate how different approaches can succeed or fail depending on the situation and demonstrate why some strategies work while others don’t (in our opinion).

DISCLAIMER: this blog is not about stating the rights and wrongs of different circumstances that lead to the need for crisis media management strategies to be put into action. We are conscious that one of the examples we discussed during our workshop involved a fatality, and our role, as crisis media management coaches, is to examine the way that organisations respond when a crisis hits, not to apportion blame.

Volkswagen emissions scandal

One of examples we highlighted was the Volkswagen emissions scandal, of September 2015. Namely the way that Volkswagen Group of America’s President and CEO, Michael Horn, revealed in a YouTube broadcast that the company had been “dishonest”.

This is a good example of getting it wrong: but not getting it wrong in an overt way – more a failure to strike the right chord. Sometimes details matter, and this was certainly the case for Volkswagen.

Horn delivered his “we totally screwed up” confession live on stage to a packed auditorium, and his poor attempt at a joke fell completely flat. He paced the stage, his hands were busy gesticulating and, despite his words, the overall impression you are left with is that Horn either didn’t take the time to think things through or that he completely misunderstood how serious the situation was.

We can imagine a well-meaning advisor suggesting to Horn, before he took to the stage, that he could lose the tie, take a relaxed manner and try to be himself. All potentially good tips – but not appropriate under the circumstances.

This was clearly a staged event and a few changes could have made Mr. Horn’s statement more powerful.

The head mic he wore gave the impression of someone who was free to move around, but this actually took away a lot of his gravitas. A lectern would have helped ground him and given him more of an air of the official ‘voice of the company’.

This ‘non-official’ feeling intensified as Horn continued to speak and the absence of Volkswagen branding in the video also served to strip away the company’s credibility further.

And the sartorial question: should Horn have worn a tie? The open neck suggests a casualness that doesn’t feel appropriate for a serious business statement. It suggests a lack of attention to detail.

And finally, obviously, drop the joke.

The over all effect was not of the representative of Volkswagen making an important statement – Horn instead looked as though he had wandered in after a business lunch and was simply expressing his opinion on the situation. For what was a staged event, there was a lot of looseness about what was actually happening. By the time we reached the final sentence, ‘this behaviour is inconsistent with our core values,’ the words rang hollow enough to make viewers question whether deceiving the public and cooking the figures might in fact be the company’s true values (as opposed to the values given on their website).

CarFest 2015 air crash

In stark contrast to Volkswagen’s style and approach, is CarFest 2015 which saw television personality Chris Evans speaking live on Sky News informing the press that there had been a fatal air accident at the show.

Evans is a seasoned broadcaster and presenter, but slickness and professionalism would have struck the complete wrong note here. He was too close to events to avoid being a part of them. He is also someone who people at home feel that they ‘know’ personally – so in Evans’ reaction we’re immediately inclined to think of him as ‘one of us’ and in this scenario we experienced the events through his eyes and honest reactions.

Evans looked disheveled, upset and unprepared. However, he succeeded in getting a lot of information out, accurately, in what must have been a very pressured and distressing time.

His faltering style is exactly what you would expect from someone who really cares for the event and has empathy for the victim’s family. He let the facts stand for themselves and communicates his feelings and emotions powerfully, and non-verbally.

Even though he was speaking on behalf of CarFest, it’s difficult for Chris Evans to represent anyone other than himself, and as the media face of CarFest, he is had a very difficult balance to strike.

Of course, this is a very different crisis media event to the Volkswagen example. Chris Evans was appearing on Sky News informing viewers what was happening as the crisis was unfolding. We felt an immediacy about the information being given – it wasn’t dressed up in any way. It felt honest and authentic.

Alton Towers ‘Smiler’ rollercoaster crash, June 2015

One of the most interesting pieces of footage we looked at – and again, this is an exercise in how the media works, not an attempt to downplay the seriousness of the situation itself – is news presenter Kay Burley’s Sky News interview with Merlin CEO Nick Varney following the Smiler rollercoaster crash at Alton Towers theme park.

We expect interviewers to hold powerful people accountable, but this was one of the very rare occasions when public sympathy actually turned against the news presenter. Varney was questioned at length, interrupted, and criticised by Burley who used language that many viewers felt crossed a line.

Reviewing the footage, it is clear that Varney did a lot right. Most important, he stayed calm under pressure from the interviewer. He didn’t rise to the bait, and although we generally advise against saying ‘no comment’, Varney gave a clear and understandable reason as to why he would not be discussing aspects of the victims’ medical conditions. Burley came across as someone trying to claim a scalp. Because Varney presented himself as sincere and reasonable, expressing concern for the victims in a professional way (without being cold) Burley was perceived to be grandstanding and only serving to make the situation worse. The result? 33,000 people signed an online petition calling for Burley to be sacked.

The main thing to learn from this is that if you get the tone and the words right – and we don’t mean in a glib or superficial way, because viewers or listeners will detect insincerity – you can get your message across in a way that ensures your position is understood.

Every organisation needs to know what to do in the event of a crisis. Our PS Programmes workshop underlined that even big companies like Volkswagen and BP can get it seriously wrong.

Plan and prepare

Whatever the size of your organisation, your media response to a crisis needs to be genuine – there is no substitute for having your heart in the right place during events that impact on the well being of others.

Crises are undesirable but often also unavoidable. We always maintain, however, that they are an opportunity to demonstrate to stakeholders, customers and the broader public that the core values of an organisation are as important in a crisis as they are when everything goes to plan.

The majority of our audience of communications specialists at the masterclass said that they have a crisis media management plan in place, although not many had reviewed it in the last six months. Could your organisation benefit from training in this area?

PS Programmes runs bespoke media and crisis media management training programmes for public relations and communication companies, as well as working directly with businesses and organisations of all shapes and sizes, in the UK and internationally.

Eventopedia and Gorkana

We would like to extend a special thanks to Eventopedia and Gorkana for providing PS Programmes with the opportunity to share our knowledge and meet with the best of the best in the PR and Communications industry.

Photo: Red Photographic

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2. Does the face fit?
Once you have a selection of potential candidates in the right fee range who can actually do what you are asking of them, you need to narrow down a couple of individuals to approach for a diary check.
This is the part where booking a speaker becomes more art than science.
A conference on a serious subject might need a presenter with gravitas. Or you might feel that it needs someone who has a light touch to stop the day from getting too heavy.
Will booking a comedian be seen as a ‘thank you’ or frivolous expenditure? If half the audience doesn’t speak English, would a musical artiste make more sense than spoken-word comedy?

We remember watching a very good presenter at a conference. Superb value for money, in command of the stage, asking all the right questions, but looking down the running order, he was yet another white man in his 40s, as were all the other speakers. During the afternoon session on diversity within the industry, it was hard to take the host organisation’s commitment to this seriously when the platform was dominated by white middle aged men. On the other hand, we once witnessed a speaker talking about the value of practical hands-on skills. He left the stage and the moderator’s lectern fell apart. Within seconds, the speaker was back, fixing the lectern with a flourish and proving that he was as good as his word – to a round of applause.

It’s worth checking how flexible a presenter or speaker can be in what they are offering: our experience is that clients use Jeremy Paxman as a benchmark: ‘Don’t be too Jeremy Paxman,’ is shorthand for ‘go easy’ and ‘Feel free to do the full Paxman’ means you can give interviewees the tougher questions. Some can manage to be both, and some people have the one setting. If this is the case, you need to be even more careful about balancing the tone that you want the event to have with the needs of the audience, and do your research before committing: the presenter cannot be anyone other than themselves, so if they are the wrong person for the job, it’s more your responsibility than theirs.

4. Use a speaker agency or Google?

It’s never been easier to find a speaker through the internet or social media. So why go to an agency for your speaker? There are advantages to using an agent: they will have easy access to speakers you won’t know of, and have a good idea of that person’s abilities. They will take a commission (usually a proportion of the fee) but their buying power is such that you shouldn’t pay more through an agent than you would by going direct to the speaker. The agency will also sort out some of the logistics of getting the speaker to the event on time. They also have some handy insider information, such as knowing who does and doesn’t like taking on certain roles, and whether they’ve done a similar event for a competitor recently.

If your speaker collapses with appendicitis the morning of your event (it’s happened), an agent will also be able to help source a replacement quickly. If you’re on your own, you’re going to be back at square one at short notice when there are a million other things about the event clamouring for your attention.

A good agency brings a lot of expertise to the table, so although there is nothing to stop you Googling the names they give you and making a booking direct, you probably won’t get a better deal, and you will probably be found out. Some speakers get a lot of their work through agencies, and don’t want to damage those relationships. If you try to book a presenter direct, having been recommended them by an agent, you are probably not going to pay less, and you’re putting the presenter in a difficult position. Presenters who value their livelihoods have been known to send a commission to an agency that put them up for a job, even when a wily client tried to cut out the go-between. We’ve heard of a client who drove a speaker close to tears by going back and forth between them and an agent trying to get them to undercut each other. In the end, the client booked another speaker through another agent.The service that Eventopedia provides allows you to find an agent that has been reviewed by other events industry peers, which should give you added confidence in the service and expertise you will be receiving.

You don’t have to use an agent. For example, you may know exactly who you want and have their contact details. An agent will always try to control your access to the presenter. By talking to the presenter directly, you can do your own negotiations, keep them updated with changes as they happen, and have a deeper conversation with them about your event. A professional will often bring their own expertise to the table and make helpful suggestions (we knew a speaker who had been booked ‘after dinner’ but felt that her speech would work better between the starter and the main course: after people had had something to eat and before they got too drunk on the free booze. It worked brilliantly). A conference presenter may have some input into how a day should run, and if you’re an inexperienced event organiser, this kind of input may give your event a little extra sparkle.

Conclusion
In our book, Insider Secrets of Public Speaking, we advise speakers to remember our three golden principles of public speaking: Authority, Audience and Authenticity. The same three principles apply when choosing a presenter or speaker:

Authority: Is the speaker a credible person within the scope of the event? Have they performed a similar role successfully at previous events?
Audience: What does the audience need? What are their expectations? What do you want the audience to take away from the event?
Authenticity: Does the speaker you have chosen ‘fit’ the event? Are they ‘on-message’ – or somehow contradictory?

Asking the right questions before you begin your search is essential because booking the wrong speaker is no fun for the audience, the speaker – or for you.

This article appears on Nadine Dereza’s website as well as PS Programmes.

Nadine Dereza is the co-author of the best selling Insider Secrets of Public Speaking.

The post 4 key questions to answer before booking the right speaker for your event – part two appeared first on Nadine Dereza is an award-winning broadcaster and journalist, conference chair, live events host, keynote speaker, and moderator..

It’s usually quite easy to know who you don’t want, but what are the questions you should be asking before committing to booking a speaker or presenter? (For this blog, we’ll generally be using the word ‘presenter’ and ‘speaker’ interchangeably to mean anyone who is booked to appear on stage, be they conference moderator, awards host, speaker, cabaret artist or that great catch-all: ‘other’).

What’s the job?

It’s really helpful to have a job description.

The first thing a speaker will ask is, ‘What do you want me to do?’

Being clear about this up front is going to save a lot of trouble later. Do you want your comedian to have dinner with the client before their act (most won’t) or hand out awards afterwards (most will but will want a bit more cash)? Does your presenter have to be an expert in the subject of your event (be it climate change, diversity or textiles) or do they have to be an industry ‘outsider’ who asks pertinent questions of the experts, without having vested interests of their own? Is a speaker’s job to provide information, motivation and / or entertainment? What is the event for? And who is in the audience?

Armed with the answers to these questions, you can put together a brief that will immediately make some names stand out and discount others. Some speakers are more flexible than others, but there is no single person who is right for every brief. Event briefs are very wide and varied and can include requests for:

…and so on.

What’s your budget?

Presenters’ fees are usually based on their profile, so budget is something you need to think about from the get-go: if you are booking someone that everyone will have heard of, you’re likely to be looking at a fee that few people can afford: the cut off point for ‘celebrity presenters’ is generally from about £5,000 and upwards.

Having a ‘big name’ speaker comes at a price, but they are not a waste of money. If you’re saying ‘thank you’ to clients or hard working staff, the appearance of a comedian they know from TV tells them just how much you value them. If your conference is on the power of sport to bring people together and an Olympian pops up to talk about their medal collection, you’re telling the audience that your event is a serious affair. If you want your event to have gravitas, the name of a national TV news anchor or international business presenter on the invitation as conference chair will do the trick.

At the other end of the scale, there are hundreds of presenters who have an excellent reputation on the live events circuit without the high public profile. Look for presenters who regularly get repeat business from their clients – you may not have heard of them but they could be a safe pair of hands. The advantage of using such a speaker is that you don’t look like you are throwing your money around, that you have booked someone for their talent not their reputation, and you will often find that presenters at this level will put in a lot of homework to do a good job as they don’t have a celebrity status to bring in work for them.

For international events, it’s worth remembering that big names in one country can be total unknowns overseas, so the ‘profile premium’ might not be a wise use of budget: we felt particularly sorry for the comedian who was booked to do impressions of British sports personalities to a hundred French bankers who knew nothing of the idiosyncrasies of F1 commentators. As the British had trounced the French in a sporting event the day before, the timing was particularly unfortunate.

There are no fixed fees in this world, you have to negotiate between what the presenter wants and what you can afford.

Expect to pay more if:

Ask to pay less if:

The most powerful bargaining chip you can have as a client is to have the metaphorical chequebook open and your pen hovering over it, whilst being prepared to walk away: “I know you want £5,000, but if you say “yes” right now, I’ll make a transfer for £4,000 which is all I can afford. Otherwise I’ll have to look elsewhere”.

Footnote

*The brown M&M is a legendary example of unreasonable artist demands. Van Halen used to have a clause in their contract that said they would not perform if a brown M&M were to be found backstage at their concerts. Whilst on the face if it this looks unnecessarily pernickety and diva-ish, the reasons for the clause were sound: with a complicated technical set-up, the safety of the audience, band and crew trusted the venue to competently carry out the Encyclopaedia Britannica-sized instructions to the letter. The ‘brown M&M’ clause was buried right in the middle of the contract. The upshot was that of the band saw a brown M&M in the green room, they instantly knew that there had been some skimping on the detail of their contract, and the whole rig needed to be minutely re-checked to find a potentially fatal error.

Look out for Part 2 next week.
This article appears on PS Programmes website as well as Nadine Dereza’s website.
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Nadine Dereza is the co-author of the best selling Insider Secrets of Public Speaking.

The post 4 key questions to answer before booking the right speaker for your event appeared first on Nadine Dereza is an award-winning broadcaster and journalist, conference chair, live events host, keynote speaker, and moderator..

Besides nostalgia, the other thing that David Bowie didn’t do was dwindle. His penultimate album, The Next Day defiantly subverted his legacy from the cover artwork (the Heroes cover with that title crossed out, and the new title on a white square covering the main image) onwards. And his final album, Blackstar, released just two days before he died, has been described variously as ‘extreme’ (Independent), ‘intriguing’ (Q) and according to the New York Times ‘refusing to cater to the expectations of radio stations or fans’. Whilst the music critics were glowing, his first wife Angie was appearing on C5’s Celebrity Big Brother, and so the span of his influence reached everywhere, from the chin-rubbing intelligentsia to tabloid telly and plenty in between. Greg Proops’s tribute to Bowie, released on the day that he died was not an obituary; it was recorded a few days before and was a celebration of an artist very much alive.

If you remember where you were when you heard that David Bowie had died, you’re likely to remember where you were when you found out who he was, and these memories have been the starting point of conversations since the news broke. And what a reach he had: ‘When Ziggy Stardust arrived in Hong Kong in 1972, it could not have caused more fuss if David Bowie had actually arrived from Mars,’ remembers one friend. ‘Hong Kong was colonial, old-fashioned, buttoned-down and culturally stuck in the 1930s, so Ziggy Stardust was like a stick of TNT (explosive) under the establishment.’

The truth about Swinging London of the 1960s is that it was a bit of a London fad: the sexual revolution and the hippie movement were obviously the driving forces of King’s Road and Carnaby Street. But as you left the city behind, suburbia’s grip tightened and although ‘Sgt. Pepper’ did brisk business, ‘Strawberry Fields’ was famously kept off the top of the charts by housewives’ choice Englebert Humperdinck. England’s suburbs may have been less oppressive than Hong Kong, in both cases the distance was as much cultural as geographical. It all felt ‘other’ and far, far away. David Bowie was arguably the artist that popped the London bubble and had brothers and sisters bonding over the mascara out in the real world.

Each album provided more than a soundtrack to our lives, it also gave us a ‘look’ and an attitude. And the attitude was everything. The attitude celebrated all that was quirky and anti-establishment and appealed directly to the hunger for being quirky and anti-establishment that many felt. The world was changing, and we weren’t going to be left behind. Though parents and teachers may have reserved a special heavy look for anyone who was deemed too ‘far out’, those of us who didn’t feel quite ready to be adults and get jobs and dress just like our parents opted instead to spend some time spinning the discs of this unworldly being who personified every single thing that the grown-ups disapproved of.

Walking among the exhibits of ‘David Bowie is’ at the V&A in 2013, I felt a heady rush of memories: Bowie’s music was telling us that we were on the edge of a world of possibility and could be anything we wanted to be. We were all the lucky ones: with a box of eye shadow and a creative approach to our clothes, we could travel to outer space. Bowie may have presented a slick product and a crafted image, but there is no getting away from the rough edges of the home-made outfits that we phoenixed from old clothes or the slightly artless reconstructions of the album covers we attempted in our bedrooms. As we sat in front of the folding dressing table mirror and sang into a hairbrush, he felt like he belonged to us, not the other way round. With mainstream culture today telling young people that their ultimate goal should be to become consumers of whatever the mainstream produces, it felt like Bowie was holding a door open into an exciting world of self-expression. Television talent shows seem to be an advert for the astonishing odds stacked against your success, and high street fashion homogenises self-expression for the mass market. Bowie was saying that you should follow wherever your compass pointed – even if it was in the opposite direction to everyone else. Pleasing others or being yourself is the choice.

You didn’t have to be a teenager in the 1970s to be influenced by Bowie. The early ‘70s may represent the bright heat of breakthrough, but even in the 1990s, Bowie was handed a project that introduced him to a new generation of fans because Bowie did the soundtrack to the TV drama The Buddha of Suburbia.

One such new fan was my co-author Ian Hawkins, who was astonished to find many of these songs already existed in the house in his big brother’s record collection. He told me he remembered listening to Hunky Dory and saying to his brother “Why don’t you play this all the time?” Twenty years after Ziggy Stardust, David Bowie’s mix of music, style and attitude was still powerful stuff on first experience.

So although we say goodbye to David Bowie, we remember that good music doesn’t really go away. Two short months ago, a previously unheard recording of Under Pressure was doing the rounds: with all the music stripped out, Bowie and Freddie Mercury’s vocals stand alone and you can hear just how brilliant and original they both are. It isn’t an obvious choice to leave you with, because obvious choices are elsewhere – if not everywhere else. What it does do is show that inside the costume, behind the makeup and beneath the production we have said a premature goodbye to a singular talent.

David Bowie was the soundtrack to not only my youth but my brother Nick’s youth as well, and Nick has to take credit for introducing him to me and over a tearful exchange on hearing the sad news, Nick summed it up beautifully…‘Bowie was a wonderful trail blazing figure that inspired us to be creative and be ourselves’.

This article appears on Nadine Dereza’s website as well as PS Programmes.

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Authenticity provides the crucial third dimension to any speaker’s toolkit, although ‘being yourself’ isn’t what comes naturally to most people when they are in the spotlight. We are going to consider how you can make your speaking more authentic, but first, why do you need to bring your own personality to the stage?

Why you need authenticity?
Don’t be seduced into thinking that you can hide behind facts: you might think that because you are presenting a mass of data, the person delivering is less important than the numbers.

We would argue that authenticity is what makes the information stick, it is what builds your brand as a leader and it is what makes audiences talk about you afterwards. A speech is never just about the content presented: there will always be a relationship between the speaker and the audience, whether the speaker realises (or wants it) or not. You have to bring something into the room that lifts you above a photocopied factsheet.

As we have said in the book, audiences respond well to authenticity – and can sniff out the bogus with uncanny accuracy. If you look back to our last blog on authority, we mention that audiences always prefer clear direction over confusion. The learning for this is that you don’t need to worry about your presentation being perfect (because you can’t please everyone), you just need to be understood.

Understanding authenticity
Think about the way you speak to someone you know very well. You probably have a few inside jokes and verbal shortcuts that you both understand. When you speak to a stranger, you unconsciously drop all of these. You will quite naturally speak to your boss or client in a different way to how you speak to your children. And yet it is still authentically ‘you’. We think that learning how to speak to an audience with authenticity works in a similar way.

We have found that the best speakers are a little more polite, a little more formal, a little slower and a lot clearer in showing their thought processes as they speak. There is a balance to be struck between being relaxed on a stage and having enough energy to keep focused on the interaction between speaker and audience.

Putting it into practice
We don’t have a ‘cookie cutter’ approach to churning out public speakers in our own image, but we are often asked for tips, advice and guidance. Put these pointers into practice, and you’ll find that soon they become second nature, and more importantly, you will find yourself adapting them to suit your own authentic style.

• Relax your body before you step into the limelight. You might still have nerves – but that’s ok, use them to give your performance a bit of ‘pep’.

• Audiences are usually on your side, so assume they are open to what you say without resorting to jokes.

• Treat your speech like a conversation. Ask questions of the audience and wait for people to think of an answer.

• When you make a particular point or punch line, deliver it to one specific person. For the next point, choose someone in a different part of the audience.

• Don’t be afraid of pauses: they give the audience time to consider what you’ve said and if you’re comfortable with a moment of silence, the audience will be too.

• Check back, make eye contact, see if people are nodding. If you fumble an explanation, go off script to clarify.

• Dress well.

Audiences, as we have said before, are not passive. We think it is a big mistake to treat them as if they are going to absorb everything you say at face value. The authentic speaker is one who can make the audience see the world from a different viewpoint – and not one that they necessarily agree with. You cannot do this if you try to disguise who you are.

The reason for focusing on authenticity last is because it is often the element of the speech that is considered last. We approach a speech asking what the audience wants, what the content should be, and how we command the stage for the time we have on it. Authenticity is about doing the internal work, having the confidence to know ourselves and put ourselves on display.

We hope our 3 Golden Principles of Public Speaking will help you with your next speech or presentation.

Watch us talking about them on Enterprise Nation TV below:

The essential reference book that provides answers the 50 biggest questions on how to deliver brilliant speeches and presentations is available on Amazon.

Find out more and download a free sample chapter of Insider Secrets of Public Speaking.

This article appears on PS Programmes website as well as Nadine Dereza’s website.

Nadine Dereza is the co-author of the best selling Insider Secrets of Public Speaking.

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Authority is a tricky one, and the one that we always worry will be misinterpreted. For the avoidance of all doubt, ‘authority’ is not battering your audience into submission, a heavy-handed know-it-all attitude, or the prompt removal of dissenters. Authority is about conveying two things in your speech or presentation:

1. Being in charge of the material

In many ways, this is the easy thing to get right simply by making sure you’ve done your homework. Time and again, we have noticed that speakers are so much better when they leave the script behind and directly address the audience, even if their spoken sentences are not as beautifully formed as the ones written on paper. Key facts and figures can live on a card or PowerPoint as a reference, but audiences aren’t usually there to watch someone regurgitate some numbers they have memorised: they are there to hear what the numbers mean.

Being in charge of the material means old-fashioned preparation: if you’re making a controversial point, ask a colleague or friend to debate with you beforehand. Do you believe in what you are saying? If you don’t, why should the audience? You have a choice in how you fill your time on stage, so take responsibility for what you are saying.

Although we are encroaching on the business of ‘authenticity’ – which is our subject next time – all three of our Golden Principles dovetail together.

2. Being in charge of the room

Audiences do not like ambiguity, and they don’t like not knowing what they are doing – so as the speaker, you must deliver clear directions (spoken or otherwise). When you speak, you have the spotlight, the platform and the microphone. In other words, you have the power, and with power comes responsibility. We think that this is really the core of people’s anxieties about speaking in public; once you accept this responsibility, you have come a long way towards turning the worst of your nerves into energy and focus for your performance.

A lot of the mistakes that people make in public speaking are to do with the discomfort they feel about being in charge of the room: apologising for nervousness, claiming not to have prepared anything (which is a massive insult to the people who are waiting to listen to you), reaching for the joke that is unrelated to what you’re talking about in the hope that it will buy you some audience sympathy… the list goes on. The audience has given you the authority to speak before you’ve even started, and so anything said to undermine this is giving precisely the sort of mixed message that audiences dislike.

Audiences, in the main, want you to do well. If you walk on believing this, you will unconsciously convey this message back to the audience. The same is true of the opposite: if you’re frightened of an audience, they will pick up on it, and begin to wonder what it is you’re trying to hide. Being on stage is like facing down a wild animal, first show no fear. Sometimes this is tough, but no tougher than being a tiger’s lunch.

A complete lack of humility, however, is difficult for people to swallow. The answer? Manners. Having good manners on stage is the balance that you strike with being in charge. Thanking people for their contribution and remembering to say ‘please’ when you ask for a show of hands are obvious indications of good manners. The mindset that we always use is to imagine that the room in which we are speaking is (albeit temporarily) our home, and that the audience are our personal guests. Guests expect their hosts to call the shots, lay the ground rules, and take responsibility for showing them a good time.

In conclusion.

So having authority on stage comes from the old-fashioned principles of stagecraft. The established actors’ habit of wiping your nose and checking your flies before you go on stage is a tip we can all use, remembering that it sits on top of a solid foundation of preparation. So long as you know your stuff and can adopt the principles of being a good host, having authority on stage can make speaking in public less nerve-wracking and more enjoyable. And speakers who enjoy themselves are the most engaging of all.

We’ll be looking at our other final Golden Principle, Authenticity, next time. Meanwhile, the essential reference book for anyone who needs to stand in front of an audience to speak is still available at Amazon.

This article appears on PS Programmes as well as this website.

Nadine Dereza is the co-author of the best selling Insider Secrets of Public Speaking.

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Only last week, an esoteric book on the art of performance was pressed into our hands, written by a very well-known entertainer currently preparing for a season in London’s West End. Careful reading of the book (currently available from Amazon at £139.99) revels that our three Golden Principles of public speaking are echoed in its pages, though they are directed at a specific sector of professional entertainers, and aren’t put in quite such explicit terms as you’ll find in our more modestly-priced volume.

We are resisting the urge to make ‘Insider Secrets’ ten times more expensive and much harder to get hold of.

So let’s start by looking at one of our three golden principles of public speaking – THE AUDIENCE. What have we been talking about with our clients this year when its comes to thinking about the audience?

Putting the audience first is the best way to not only tackle nerves, but also to make a start on deciding what to actually do in a meeting or on stage.

Nerves, the perennial issue that we face with coaching clients, are a self-fulfilling prophecy: you don’t want to look nervous, and so you focus on hiding it – which only makes it more distracting and unmanageable. Even speakers who don’t look nervous can worry about it. Recently, a speaker finished a brilliant and confident presentation, and told us immediately afterwards she felt nervous throughout. What could she do about her nerves? We counselled that if the 200 audience members (including a couple of professional speaker coaches) couldn’t spot her anxiety, perhaps it wasn’t a big problem after all. Getting the problem into perspective and changing the focus was, we felt, more useful than spending a long time tackling something that wasn’t, at the end of the day, making any difference to the speaker’s performance – except in her own head.

Another speaker really was having trouble controlling his nerves, and the audience knew it. From the back of the room, you could see that this was a nervous person, and so our approach was rather different. Rather than trying to fool the audience (which is a guaranteed way of neither relaxing nor connecting with the people in the room), we suggested that he told an anecdote about a situation in which he felt uncomfortable. The speaker’s next speech opened with a story about clashing cultures, and his genuine nervousness was interpreted by the audience as a neat bit of acting embarrassed by the faux pas he was describing. The speaker’s evident discomfort added to the storytelling, the audience was won over and on his side, and the speaker relaxed into the rest of his speech.

We often see speakers tackling their nerves head-on and telling the audience that they feel awkward in the spotlight – which at least avoids the problem of trying to hide their growing anxiety. Many people do this and although it isn’t always a bad approach to take, if you’re putting yourself out there as an expert or a leader, it takes away some of your authority which can be difficult to win back, so it isn’t something we recommend.

This focus on the audience’s reaction is a reality check for all of us who speak in public. Many performers would say that they couldn’t enjoy themselves if the audience didn’t have a good time too – so take care of the audience before you worry about yourself.

This leads us into content – another big worry for speakers. What are you actually going to talk about?

We took a call from a writer who had been asked to speak after dinner. Our questions…Who was at the dinner? Why were they there? Why had she been booked? They were all answered with ‘I don’t know.’ Our next conversation on the following day was a lot more constructive: she’d been in touch with the organisers and found out there were 80 local business owners, it was their regular networking event, and the last speaker had been a local politician who had been partisan and dull, so they wanted someone to be provocative but not divisive. Immediately we were able to start thinking about what the audience wanted: a few interesting anecdotes (interesting, not necessarily funny), which would spur some conversation, something about customer experience which the writer had some expertise in, and above all, getting off stage before everyone found their phones more interesting than the speech. Our speaker threw in the idea for presenting some jokey made-up awards to people she knew would be in the audience and up for a laugh – and her ‘after dinner’ turn virtually wrote itself.

When the speaker thought about herself, she had no idea what to say. When she thought about the audience, she realised that she had all sorts of fascinating and insightful experiences to share that they would enjoy.

Having a conversation with the audience is really what it is all about. If you were speaking to one person you’d moderate what you said to engage and hold their interest. An audience is no different, and while there is some truth in the line about not being able to please all of the people all of the time, putting their needs first takes you a long way down that road.

We’ll be looking at our other Golden Principles in the next few weeks. Meanwhile, the book that shows you how they work in real-world situations is still available at Amazon.

This article appears on Nadine Dereza’s website as well as PS Programmes.
Nadine Dereza is the co-author of the best selling Insider Secrets of Public Speaking.

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But wait up a moment: do female entrepreneurs need their own conference? Is this a group of people who need a step up? What are the particular needs of women entrepreneurs?

We take all those clichés about how men and women are different with a well-researched pinch of salt. Multitasking? Doesn’t exist apparently. Think Maths is a ‘boys’ subject’? Culture not biology is responsible.

However tempting it may be to say that women are better at networking and growing businesses through their social groups, think of the male-dominated Freemasons and Rotary Clubs and you’ll see that ‘who you know’ has been a part of the business landscape since the year dot. Entrepreneurialism, then, is more about mindset than happening to be a man or a woman, and on the face of it, the idea that women might make ‘better’ entrepreneurs than men is as ridiculous as is the idea that men make better entrepreneurs than women.

Forbes has some eye-opening statistics from the US about the differences between male and female entrepreneurs with the headline being that men will tend to get into debt to start their businesses, while women tend to be more conservative and use their savings. Women’s businesses fail at a rate just 2% above men’s, but on average their start up capital is US$24,000 lower. Women therefore tend to start up businesses that may be more agile, but also more vulnerable to running out of cash, that either grow slowly or fail – but don’t tend to have a line of creditors at the door.

The female entrepreneur is a far from endangered species, so why the Festival? Put simply, the event was laying a foundation stone for a long-term building project. Tomorrow’s boards are made of today’s entrepreneurs, and this is why the Festival is such a vital event. This report from Deloitte shows that while we wring our hands over the lack of women in top jobs in this country (15.6% of board seats in the UK are held by women) even the ‘success stories’ of Scandinavia are far from perfect. Norway’s 36.7% of board seats held by women is still some way off a 50-50 split, and although Denmark is the country with the sixth-highest number of women on its boards, not one of the boards analysed in Denmark had a female chair.

Between the ’top jobs’ and the entrepreneurs are everyone else, with women who have both a career and a family sometimes described as ‘having it all’ – a more than slightly pejorative term, in which ‘all’ doesn’t presumably, include ‘sleep’.

But back to the question posed at the top of this blog: who should your first hire be, when you start a business? The answer was provided by fellow Festival speaker Julie Creffield, who made her blog Too Fat To Run into a business and campaign to promote healthier living. You may have seen the #AnyGirlCan poster campaign, which show the few public images of normal-looking women looking happy without the need for a product or an unlikely-sounding face cream to put a smile on their faces.

Julie is a walking (or rather, running) inspiration for anyone who has tried to live a more active lifestyle in the face of modern life which has us all spending too much time occupying our brains while our bodies remain sedentary, and her style is to mix her own experience with research and straight, practical advice. And so although her ‘official’ subject is health, happiness and obesity, we felt that one of the most useful takeaways from Julie’s speech was the advice to hire a cleaner as soon as the fledgling business can support one.

The line got a laugh from the packed Colston Hall, but it concealed a deeper truth: when a business starts up it’s essential to keep on top of it. Anyone who’s been self-employed will know that the temptation to do the cleaning rather than the invoicing can be strong. How many entrepreneurs have ended the day with a sparkling kitchen while their bills go unpaid? How many kitchen table businesses have folded because that table needed clearing before the kids got home from school?

When you’re self-employed, the assumption is that you have the opportunity to do the housework, even if your business has needs. The words in ‘home office’ are in that order for a reason. If your start-up is a low-budget, spare room affair, the perception is that it matters less if it fails. And that selling-through-your-friends hobby that turned a small profit and fitted in between baby feeds isn’t quite profitable enough now the babies have grown up. Running a home and running a business are comparable, and you have to know which to prioritise and when to do it. There’s a compelling case, if you want your business to succeed, to outsource your laundry at the first opportunity.

Whether you are male or female, your first hire ought to be a cleaner: after all, he or she may be an entrepreneur too. And you never know who else they clean for…

This article appears on Nadine Dereza’s website as well as PS Programmes.
Nadine Dereza is the co-author of the best selling Insider Secrets of Public Speaking.

Photo credit info: Image by Nina Allwood www.lifestyledistrict.co.uk

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PMQs is always exciting, particularly when a new leader makes their first appearance and stamps their style on proceedings. Cameron said he wanted to ‘put an end to Punch and Judy politics’ – what, seven, eight years ago? However he might as well have made that promise while dressed up as a policeman tug o’ warring a string of sausages with a wooden crocodile. Jeremy Corbyn, the new Labour leader (though some would say very much ‘Old’ Labour leader) went some way to making good on this ambition when he took to the dispatch box for the first time to put Cameron on the spot.

You can watch the showdown for yourself here.

The problem with Punch and Judy politics is that the Punchiest politicking of all happens at PMQs – and it’s also the most popular of all the parliamentary proceedings. There are some who are riveted to the Commons Transport Select Committee, others who thrill to the Private Members’ Bills, but it’s PMQs that are Westminster’s Super Bowl (minus the pom-poms).

It remains to be seen whether Corbyn sticks to letting the public ask the questions. It’s a mixed bag of a strategy. The strong advantage of it – is that the Prime Minister cannot adopt his usual tactic of rubbishing the opposition – because he would then be rubbishing a voter. Cameron will have to at least give the question a certain level of respect. Some reports say that Corbyn had over 40,000 emails from the public to pick from – and at least a couple of those should satisfy William Hague’s formula for a ‘no right answer’ question.

For a leader who has been described as ‘unelectable’ in a Westminster bubble, who they themselves have been described as divorced from real life, this is a very clear message from an Opposition Leader under siege from a hostile press. ‘You do have a voice,’ he is saying to voters, ‘and come polling day, you make up your own mind.’

The downside is that for many, PMQs is the most regular moment in the spotlight for the Leader of the Opposition. If he carries on using a JPQs strategy, Corbyn risks not only disappearing behind others’ questions, he could also be seen as being an ineffective political presence. So long as the PM responds respectfully to the question, the weekly outing could be a walk in the park for Cameron. Corbyn will win himself no favours if he fails to land a few punches back on the Government. And what if Corbyn wants to change his strategy and asks questions of his own? He risks looking disingenuous – or of using the voters’ questions as a gimmick.

There is another problem. We elect our representatives to speak on our behalf. Corbyn may tout himself as a man of principle (and that’s why so many people voted for him) but is this displaying leadership – or following the tides of his post bag or inbox?

One of the reasons why PMQs gets the ratings, is that it is dynamic. British politics are by nature adversarial, and sticking to a script is not a good strategy. By using questions from voters, Jeremy Corbyn essentially handcuffed himself to a script, which left no room for rebuttal. The best public speakers often struggle with a script in front of them as this cuts them off from the audience by preventing them from responding to what is happening in the room. As one of the PS Programmes coaches said to a speaker recently, ’speaking someone else’s words is like being in a double act where the other person is invisible but in charge.’ Good actors can make a script come alive in the moment. When speakers manage the same trick, it shouldn’t be noticeable. At PMQs, it was noticeable.

In short, whether or not Corbyn uses voters’ questions next week could be the decider. If he does, he will have to stick with it. If or when he does drop the idea, he can expect another drubbing in the media.

Not that bad press seems to be his concern.

This article appears on Nadine Dereza’s website as well as PS Programmes.
Nadine Dereza is the co-author of the best selling Insider Secrets of Public Speaking.

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Whether you’re speaking at a conference or spearheading a political campaign, you need to be aware of these takeaway moments. Politicians like a sound-bite (‘Education, education, education’ anyone?) but the best wordsmiths of all create pictures that stay with the audience. Think about Churchill with nothing to offer but ‘blood, toil, tears and sweat,’ or even ‘it’s the economy, stupid’ – a sort of boiled-down wise answer to a naive question. Coined in 1992, it’s being wheeled out to this day in the run up to the US Presidential Election

Few politicians have more than one defining characteristic, so when Ed Miliband failed to shake off a resemblance to the human half of Wallace and Gromit, inelegantly eating a bacon sandwich turned out to be a photo op he couldn’t recover from.

Sometimes a single picture redefines a situation.

The tragic and heartbreaking photograph of Aylan Kurdi’s body washed up on the beach was, for many, the point in the Syrian crisis that the mood changed. A quick look at the front pages of the national press before and after publication of the picture show how this affected the way the news was reported, when immigrants became refugees, which in turn prompted a grassroots aid effort, and shocked European leaders to temper their voter-friendly ‘tough on migrants’ stance with some human compassion.

Those of us with children were also caught in a quandary: could we protect them from seeing the picture? Should we? And how do parents explain something as complex as the refugee crisis to their children when their own understanding of it might not go much beyond the pictures?

Whether to publish or not to publish was something the Guardian considered carefully.

The media – both print and broadcast, are increasingly playing catch up to citizen journalists who distribute their content via the internet. If people are accessing information online, the decisions made by editors in newsrooms are becoming less and less relevant. This online content is the stuff that alerts us to tragedy and need, and the better part of human nature reaches out to help those who cannot help themselves. These are the same pictures, however, that cause radicalisation, the growth of terrorist organisations, and spark the sorts of situations that refugees are trying to escape.

Of course the press should be free. But there comes a point when the facts get lost under an avalanche of data. The internet allows users to spread their search wide – too wide, in fact. So often people look for sources that confirm what they already believe, and the evidence for that is the growth of creationism in the United States – a view that fifty years ago was profoundly niche but which is steadily growing if not in popularity, then certainly in noisy social media memes.

Too much data renders the viewer exhausted. The latest disaster can become wallpaper for all but the most compassionate. When something terrible happens closer to home, the locals often appear on the television to say that ‘this sort of thing doesn’t happen around here,’ even though they read about this sort of thing happening in other places over their cornflakes every day. But suddenly, this crisis is different. It’s different because it now has a name. And although Aylan Kurdi was not the first child to die in this developing situation, he also won’t be the last. But he was the one who was photographed. Let’s not also forget his brother Galib and their mother, Rehan, they too suffered the same fate as Aylan.

Donations to the Red Cross can be made by clicking on this link.

This article appears on Nadine Dereza’s website as well as PS Programmes.
Nadine Dereza is the co-author of the best selling Insider Secrets of Public Speaking.

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To put a twist on the old advertising slogan, we didn’t make a drama out of a crisis, but we did manage to make a PowerPoint presentation out of several bad news stories that struck a chord with our audience.

It’s a well-established approach to speaking at a conference: take your general points, research for industry-specific examples, and always be on the look out for things that contradict your tried and tested principles. Oh, and try to avoid clichés (full marks in this case for not mentioning Fawlty Towers). During the research and build of this particular presentation, it became clear that hotels and venues had a particular issue that standard Crisis Media Management sessions didn’t really cover: the ubiquity of online customer reviews.

Before Nadine and Ian began their presentation, Jonathan Bradshaw from Meetology opened the day’s proceedings with an energetic and provocative look at some of the research that’s been done on human interactions. What are the nudges that can get someone to say ‘yes’ to a deal or change their mind about something? Jon offered some great practical insights, such as the finding that people are more likely to agree to buy when they’ve been given a warm caffeinated drink, or give more money to a charity tin rattler who is standing at the top of an escalator. The take-home message from Jon’s presentation was that there are lots of things you can do to make a positive impact on an interaction, whether it is for business or pleasure (Jon himself left us in no doubt as to what scents we should be picking up next time we have time to kill in a departure lounge).

Picking up on some of these themes, Nadine and Ian were able to talk about some of the big themes (and subtle ‘pushes’) around Crisis Media Management. Whilst it’s fair to say that the obvious examples of this are big stories on big media (think of the Costa Concordia dominating the front pages of the newspapers or Nick Varney, CEO of Alton Towers owner Merlin Entertainments being given the hairdryer treatment from Kay Burley on Sky News), the PS Programmes team were pleased to find that their section on responding to bad TripAdvisor reviews chimed with so many of the other presentations at the Conference. Condensing a day-long course of crisis media management training into a 45-minute presentation with audience interaction was always going to fall short of being comprehensive, but not only did audience responses reassure the team that the content was useful, it also gave PS Programmes food for thought when designing future training days.

In a session called ‘Why Bad Reviews Are Good For Business’, Thomas Landen of Renivate talked through some of the facts and figures that are appropriate for hotels and venues, but which should raise eyebrows for anyone who has a customer online (hint: everyone). For example, 72% of travellers who complain on Twitter expect a response within an hour. Would a customer have different expectations if they were buying, say, a toaster rather than a holiday?

Thomas next showed that customers are searching for businesses in social media rather than Google – and sites like Facebook push results to the top based on the experiences of our friends, not simply the best fit for that individual search. So if you’re looking for a Chinese restaurant in Chester, or a hairdresser in Hartlepool, the ones your Facebook friends rated should come up higher on the list than those rated by strangers.

It’s worth thinking carefully about online reputation, because your definition for what counts as a crisis might change: according to Thomas’s figures, a hotel room that is scored 4.1 on TripAdvisor can expect to earn £45.99 more per night than one rated 3.9. And for every 1 point increase in rating, bookings increase by 14.2%. That 0.2 score makes a big difference to the profitability of a hotel, and it may only take the attitude of one member of staff to tip the balance in either direction. Does that count as a crisis? Even if you think that it doesn’t, is the resulting loss of revenue any different from a bona fide disaster?

Between the three presentations, a clear strategy was unwittingly set out for delegates: Thomas showed the potential cost of failing to address reputational damage. Nadine and Ian gave some pointers of what to do in an emergency situation. And Jonathan provided helpful advice on building better relationships before and after such an event.

A few days after the conference, Nadine was sent a copy of a 1974 speech – ‘Think Strawberries’ given by James Lavenson, president of Plaza Hotel – we are indebted to Maarten Tromp of Silversea for the tip – and what a relief that it chimes with some of the advice outlined in Insider Secrets of Public Speaking – proof, if it be needed, that some things don’t get old. Mr Lavenson talks about transforming receptionists, waiting staff, bell hops and cleaners into salespeople, and turning around the attitude from ‘if the guest wants something, they’ll ask for it’ to ‘always offer an opportunity to spend more’. It was regarded as ahead of its time when he originally said it, and although some may see it as old hat now, it’s still a lesson yet to be learned in some quarters. Read his obituary in the NY Times and in the light of the HBAA Conference, wonder what fun he would’ve had with TripAdvisor.

The conclusion we can draw is that there are crises and there are crises: your company might find itself in the eye of an old fashioned media storm, with board members being doorstepped, unwary colleagues speaking out of turn, and customers telling you they’ll never darken your business again. More insidious, though, is the low-level social media grumbling that turns off new customers and repeat business and eats away at your margin. And who causes these grumbles? Frontline staff who face the customer. You can have all the strategy you like, but if the people on the ground don’t care about the customer’s experience one way or another, you’re going to find the points dropping off your score before you can say ‘hashtag’. The top of the company can prepare for media crises, but the bottom of the company is going to be directly responsible for how the social media reviewer reports back to their peers.

This article appears on Nadine Dereza’s website as well as PS Programmes.
Nadine Dereza is the co-author of the best selling Insider Secrets of Public Speaking.

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Sustainability doesn’t necessarily sit happily with venues. On the first day of the holiday, walking into the bathroom, the last thing you want to see as you leave your cares behind you, is the little printed note reminding you that your fluffy new towel comes at an environmental cost. Five star luxury is contrary to a green lifestyle. If you want to hug a tree, holiday in a tipi.

But conferences are work, and work isn’t a holiday, even if the bedroom looks over a golf course. PS Programmes’s own Nadine Dereza was chairing the Global Sustainable Events Summit this year at the QE11 Centre in London, addressing just the sorts of issues that the events industry is facing.

There were two main themes at the Summit: Leadership and Practical Actions. The two are related: you can’t make changes without strong leadership to drive those changes forward – and action without direction may do more harm than good. So let’s look at these a bit more closely:

Leadership

One of the buzz words of the Summit was our old friend ISO 20121, an evolution of the less-catchy British Standard 8901 Specification for a Sustainability Management System for Events. The pronunciation of ISO 20121 (‘eye-so twenty twelve one’), nods clearly in the direction of the London Olympics, and speaker Daniel Ritterband represented by Speakers Corner
closed the Summit with a strong emphasis on leadership. After all, Daniel was responsible for the 2012 Olympic marketing and communications, as well as being a leading figure in the campaigns of both David Cameron and Boris Johnson.

From the very beginnings of London’s Olympic bid, ‘sustainability’ went hand-in-hand with ‘legacy’, and Daniel demonstrated that CSR (corporate social responsibility) has moved from being a trend to the mainstream.

Positive Impact themselves are showing leadership by – among other things – throwing their weight behind an industry-wide pledge to reduce carbon emissions. The pledge is currently in draft form, with the opportunity for event organisers to have their say in the run up to December’s UNFCCC COP21 Climate Change conference in Paris.

So how do people become leaders within the area of sustainability? Education is crucial, and as a first step, Positive Impact offers training in this area.

Chris Hines, for many the stand-out speaker of the day, also provided by Speakers Corner, was a great example of grassroots activism tapping into the bigger picture. Spearheading the ‘Surfers Against Sewage’ campaign, Chris has helped put the quality of the UK’s coastal waters on the political agenda in a way that’s relevant, powerful and dare we say it, cool (not that we are arbiters of cool).

Practical actions

Taking us back to the ‘good habits’ analogy at the top of this blog, one of the practical actions recommended by Positive Impact was to make sure attendees eat properly through events – which means fresh and healthy food, not just bulk pastry to fill people up and gallons of caffeine to keep them going through the afternoon. Goodness knows it can be hard to walk past the hotplate of bacon to reach the porridge counter at a breakfast buffet, but we all know it’s worth doing.

At the conference, delegates were able to hear from event industry insiders talking about the practicalities of hosting large-scale events. Chelli Easson talked about the challenges and opportunities of implementing ISO 20121 in the run up to the Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games, and Ben Chambers of Eve Trakway reminded us all that it’s festival season with his discussion of practical sustainability at the Glastonbury Festival (which goes beyond getting mud out of your sleeping bag).

But perhaps most movingly, Nadine conducted a Skype interview with Furba, a trek leader in Nepal, whose livelihood disappeared in the aftermath of the recent earthquake. As uneven as the Skype connection was, his mere presence was enough to create a big impact on the delegates in the room. With hundreds of thousands of survivors traumatised and homeless, and entire villages flattened across the country, this was environmental impact on an unimaginable scale. Incentive travel, which formed the majority of Furba’s work, is yet another aspect of the industry for us all to consider.

Sustainability is growing up, and not before time. Action needs to replace words, and hopefully we have seen the back of the days when retired politicians get paid six figures to travel the globe in private jets to tell hard-working audiences not to have their two weeks in Spain.

From the conference, we had a clear vision of the next steps for the industry. Sharing success isn’t just about feeling good, it’s an important way of making people realise they are not just one person switching off a light – small actions can have a big impact.

It’s also important for leaders to identify themselves, have a plan, measure progress and educate themselves and their teams. Effective communication is essential for this. Sustainability – and the environmental movement in general – has a habit of working in big numbers, enormous statistics, and at a scale most people cannot easily understand. If you want to get your business and your people on the sustainability bus, you will have to take a leaf from Chris Hines’s book and sure you are telling stories with heart, rather than repeating doom and gloom statistics which make people feel powerless.

Above all, it seems that advocacy is the number one factor for promoting sustainability: climate change isn’t something individuals can tackle by themselves – so why should one person change their behaviour? Advocacy helps people understand that their small actions are part of a bigger picture. Sustainability is no longer simply a ‘nice to have’; it is the foundation of creating an event, and on which the industry leaders of tomorrow will thrive. As Daniel Ritterband said, sustainability is the future. The current events industry can lead the way – or expect to be overtaken by a whole new industry that will leave out of touch companies far behind.

This article appears on Nadine Dereza’s website as well as PS Programmes.
Nadine Dereza is the co-author of the best selling Insider Secrets of Public Speaking.

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During the film, the fundraisers find themselves at the sharp end of a smear campaign by the right-wing, anti-gay tabloids. The lead actor Ben Schnetzer, playing activist Mark Ashton, reads out an editorial which you’d hope was a product of the writer’s imagination but which was in fact published in The Sun, headlined ‘Perverts support the pits’. Whilst one character flinches from the word ‘perverts’, the other responds that the LGBT community has a long history of taking insults and turning them into affirmations. And so the ‘Pits and Perverts’ fundraiser was born, cash was raised, Bronski Beat was danced to, and if the strike wasn’t won, then at least the village survived the battle.

When you’re fighting a PR battle, a sense of humour can get you further than going through the ‘correct channels’. We were thinking particularly of Sir Tim Hunt, Nobel Laureate, and unfortunate owner of the following words:

‘Let me tell you about my trouble with girls … three things happen when they are in the lab … You fall in love with them, they fall in love with you and when you criticise them, they cry.’

Rather like Jurassic World’s dinosaurs, there is a sense that these sentiments should have died out long ago – and yet here they are, causing unexpected havoc in the 21st century.

We watched footage of the speech, and to us it looks as though his tongue was lodged pretty firmly in his cheek. Never mind what was said afterwards in self defence, the context to us seems clear. When it turns out that Prof Hunt met his wife in a lab, some cried ‘hypocrisy!’ We call ‘context’. It was a closing remark to a room of women scientists and science journalists. Much like a black comedian telling jokes about being black, or a gay comedian telling jokes about being gay, Prof Hunt was a man telling jokes about being a man.

Was it funny? The audience reaction suggests they didn’t ‘get’ it, and the professor’s real mistake – now clouded by kicking the social media hornets’ nest of people who can register how offended they are with a mouse click – was attempting a joke to people for whom English was a second language. Taken at face value, and in black and white, the meaning may well be completely opposite to the one intended.

Certainly when we heard a politician repeating Prof Hunt’s words in order to remind us of exactly how disgraceful they were, the sheer absurdity got a laugh – and politicians are notoriously bad joke tellers, especially when retelling a joke they want to assure people isn’t funny.

Anyway, it’s being sold to us as a terrible sexist remark that so far has cost him his job and drawn attention to the glass ceiling for women in science. The first is a personal disaster for Prof Hunt, and given that his area of research was key to cancer research, it might turn out to be a personal disaster for us too. The second thing is more positive. Hey, you can’t fix a problem if you don’t know that the problem exists, and we are all more aware of the problem today than we were before he opened his mouth. But do we think the message of his speech – of what, an hour? – made to women scientists and women science journalists, was ‘women should stay out of science’? Of course not.

There are several learning outcomes from this affair. The first is that jokes are dangerous. Gerald Ratner was making his joke about the products in his shop being ‘crap’ for years and getting away with it – until he addressed the Institute of Directors Annual Conference (approx. 4 min 10 secs into footage) and actual customers who happened to be wearing the stuff got wind of how he felt. Ratner was out of a job, and his shareholders were out of pocket. Pleased to say that Gerald has been back on the speaker circuit for a while and is in fine form with a great story to regale.

Second, Twitter and other social media ebb and flow with the mood of the times. Twitter may have been where Prof Hunt was tried and executed for sexist remarks, but it’s also the home of sexist remarks, trolling of female celebrities and cyber stalking. We have to ask if Twitter really matters. Is it too easy to kick up a storm by retweeting a bit of outrage without checking the full facts first? (Yes.) Is Professor Hunt’s faux pas already the online equivalent of yesterday’s chip wrapper? (For you to decide.)

The other thing we have learned is that women scientists have a better sense of humour than the average journalist. Decked out in hazmat suits and rubber gloves, the world’s scientists who happen to own a pair of X chromosomes have been tweeting pics of themselves with the hashtag #DistractinglySexy.

At this point, check your reaction: the whole debacle is an excellent example of what scientists call confirmation bias – or in layman’s terms, seeing what you are already looking for. If you think that Prof Hunt is a sexist dinosaur, then you will interpret his comments in that way, but you will have to ignore that Prof Hunt ended his speech by welcoming new talent (not specifically male) to take over as he approaches (perhaps prematurely) the end of his career. If you think that feminists over-react and have no sense of humour, then see what Mary Beard has to say about it..

Compelling an eminent (and now, contrite) scientist from his job seems like an over reaction. We think a more suitable punishment would be to keep him on the lecture circuit, on the condition that every other slide on his PowerPoint is a #DistractinglySexy scientist in goggles. Oh, and he reads our book, Insider Secrets of Public Speaking. The chapter on telling jokes especially: if you’re not a natural joke-teller, approach with caution. The best jokes are almost always true, or contain an element of truth. Try to tell the joke against yourself. And for heaven’s sake, if it’s a hot button topic, handle with #DistractinglySexy gloves.

This article appears on Nadine Dereza’s website as well as PS Programmes.
Nadine Dereza is the co-author of the best selling Insider Secrets of Public Speaking.

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The unseemly squirming away from responsibility by people whose buck-stopping is supposedly justification for their salaries is a far cry from Thomas Cook’s high-minded origins as an organiser of days out for temperance societies in the North of England. From a company founded on the strictest of principles, and today a stalwart of the holiday industry, a focus on the bottom line may prove to be the company’s undoing.

The big question has to be that if found guilty of wrongdoing by the actual courts – the trial by media is pointing in the direction of the gallows – what impact, beyond a fine, are Thomas Cook likely to feel?

The answer lies in the hands of the customers themselves.

Long before FIFA top brass had their collars felt by the FBI, and Sepp Blatter handed in his resignation, there were calls for a boycott of the businesses sponsoring the Qatar World Cup. Internet memes of the sponsors’ doctored trademarks and logos which satirically highlighted the human rights abuses of the workers building the new stadia flooded social media. If FIFA has no shame, and they don’t, then perhaps the sponsors would; or at least, a boycott would make them think about who they were getting into bed with. A quick look down the list of sponsors, however, doesn’t give us much hope that this will be an effective boycott: corporate malfeasance surrounding the Qatar World Cup looks like a parking ticket next to some of the stuff these businesses have been up to – and still kept their place as market leaders.

This is a depressing thought, because we all know that industry makes the world go round, and if we want to make the planet a better, fairer and habitable place, we have to get industry on board to make it happen. As things stand, the planet and the people who live on it are being squeezed until the pips squeak. And we, the consumers, are opening our wallets for the privilege, even if the real price is being paid by someone living at the wrong end of a polluted river.

It comes down to individuals – or rather consumers – making informed choices about the products they buy. And we don’t live on a flat earth: if you care for animal welfare, you might decide to dine somewhere that has the seal of approval from the RSPCA, which might make McDonald’s your lunch stop of choice. But that’s just the UK: does McDonald’s insist on similar accreditation in other territories? When we buy a product or service, do we really run a skeptical check on the CSR record of the provider, or simply click on the lowest-priced option?

We consumers are not helpless, as even the biggest corporate behemoth is powerless in the face of an army of closed wallets. If voter apathy is a problem, consumer apathy is worse, and most of us are guilty of it, our trolleys brimming with fair trade bananas and rainforest alliance coffee, alongside mangoes and socks of more dubious provenance.

The Thomas Cook affair may mark a sea change in attitudes: it isn’t every day that alleged corporate irresponsibility makes the front pages. It’s a brave decision of the papers which broke and ran the story to expose a company that must surely be one of the press’s big advertisers.

There is a sense that the wheels of justice may slowly be moving in the right direction. After too many years, the inquest into the deaths of the Shepherd children is finally underway. Giving evidence, former Thomas Cook boss Manny Fontenla-Novoa repeatedly responded to questions with the stock phrase, ‘I decline to answer that’, which goes to prove that the best legal advice money can buy won’t always give you the answers you should be giving.

This article appears on Nadine Dereza’s website as well as PS Programmes.
Nadine Dereza is the co-author of the best selling Insider Secrets of Public Speaking.

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Women have enjoyed a sudden resurgence at the political front line after five years of Messers Cameron, Clegg and Miliband, and more lately, Farage. Nicola Sturgeon – who could have been a minor player today if the Scottish independence referendum had been held this autumn rather than last – saw her stock rise sharply after the leadership debate, Natalie Bennett had a bumpy ride when she stumbled over an early start and tricky statistics, and Leanne Wood spoke up for Welsh independence. The leadership debate no longer looked like three white men quibbling over income tax percentage points; it started to look representative of the electorate.

Although there is much talk of David Cameron promoting women into his new all-Tory cabinet, we can’t work out whether this is because women have been under-represented previously or women in power is what excites newspaper columnists. Either way, he is only reflecting the makeup of the Commons in which 29% of the MPs are women. Though some way off a balanced 50-50 split, it’s worth remembering that the number of women candidates in the election as a whole was only 26.1% , so when it comes to elections, women are punching above their weight. We’re not going to get into the debate about all-female shortlists (not right now, anyway), but clearly getting more women standing for seats is the way to move this forward.

The next parliament, we think, is going to be crucial in how many women stand in the 2020 poll. Early indicators are looking good – and it’s not only about making the workplace ‘friendlier’ towards women; it’s about how the political landscape is becoming a more hostile environment over all, and how women are better placed to cope with it.

The media likes to have nice strong characters, and Ed Miliband’s treatment on the front pages is a very good example. Labour supporters would routinely get uppity that their leader wasn’t being presented in a nuanced light, that the ‘real’ Ed wasn’t allowed a chance to shine. PRs and campaign managers know that a strong enough caricature can be powerful enough to colour our view of the real person: stumbling as you walk off a brightly lit stage and into the darkened wings is something that could’ve happened to any of the leaders as they left the Question Time platform. Unfortunately, it happened to Miliband, and while anyone else could’ve laughed it off, it only underlined the Labour leader’s reputation for gauche awkwardness.

Nicola Sturgeon has also been at the sharp end of the satirist’s pen in being compared to a Scottish variety act. And take this opening paragraph from the Daily Mail:

‘It’s one of the most striking style transformations in British politics. SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon has left her boxy jackets and severe suits in the past – and she proved her new style credentials with a stunning appearance yesterday morning.The 44-year-old looked particularly glamorous on her way to BBC’s Andrew Marr Show in a fuchsia column dress that flattered her slimmed-down physique.’

The writer, who perhaps sensibly hasn’t given their name, declines to tell us what Mr Marr was wearing, what it cost, how his hairstyle suited his face or whether he’d lost a bit of weight recently.

Although it’s tempting to get upset by this sort of thing, it’s more useful to count to ten, take a breath and notice that it’s all rather old fashioned and a sign that this paper is sometimes out of touch with real people. And then remember that this is the same paper that ran stories about how Nick Clegg was losing weight in the run up to polling day – so everybody is getting the same (unfair) treatment. Politics has always taken the mickey out of how people look: ten years ago, all the jokes made today about Eric Pickles would’ve been divided between Ann Widdecombe and John Prescott.

Many aspects of political life are unfair, with damned if you do/damned if you don’t situations being set up on a daily basis. Despite the old line that ‘politics is show business for ugly people’, image is becoming more and more important. In a complicated world, and with more minority parties having more of a say in government, deals between parties and cooperation are going to be more important than adversity and bullying. And that, to us, looks like just the sort of politics women could do very well at.

This article appears on Nadine Dereza’s website as well as PS Programmes.
Nadine Dereza is the co-author of the best selling Insider Secrets of Public Speaking.

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Although we’d be cautious about calling the UK election, others have been downright reckless with proposing various combinations of parties that they confidently state will form the next government. We still think it’s too hard to call, but if you reckon the weight of a party’s news clippings is more important than their content, you should put your money on an SNP / UKIP coalition. Your money, mind, not ours.

In any case, we are always wary of looking into the future, because if it’s difficult to make accurate predictions, it’s even more challenging to make predictions that people will act on. We once went to a financial conference about eighteen months after the 2008 crash. One of the speakers on a panel was explaining broadly why the crash had happened. An audience member, a trader, put his hand up: ‘Why didn’t you tell us this two years ago?’ There was a murmur of assent among the audience. The speaker’s response: ‘I did, but you were so busy making money hand over fist, you didn’t listen to me.’

Fortunately you don’t have to peer into the entrails of an unlucky chicken to predict what the commentators will say on the morning of Friday 8 May, as the last of the constituencies call their result. Whether a voter makes their mark after a close analysis of the manifestos, or because they like the look of one of the leader’s kitchens, or stay home because a comedian told them not to vote anyway, it all comes down to story.

What do we mean?

Stories are how we make sense of the world. We take random events and join them together and give them meaning. Statisticians make a living by stripping away all this meaning, and telling us a counter-intuitive truth, devoid of all the curlicues / twists our ape brains are determined to contrive. You flip a coin ten times, and each time it comes up heads. What are the chances it will come up heads next time? ‘Very likely’ – says one gambler, ‘it’s on a run of heads.’ The next gambler disagrees and says, ‘Very unlikely: it’s tails’s turn to come up.’ The statistician will say that, assuming it’s a fair coin, the chances are always 50:50, thus disappointing both gamblers. Whichever one of them wins will have their story validated, and it may well be a story they stick to until the day they lose their house on the spin of a roulette wheel.

Let’s take a political example. Ed Miliband’s critics are divided between those who think he is a hapless Mr Bean-type character, and those who think he’s a ruthless political animal who ‘stabbed his brother in the back’ over the party leadership. It’s very hard to have both of these characters inhabiting the same person, but it’s immediately apparent that his critics will always have plenty to go on: if Ed talks tough, he gets cast as Caligula; if he encounters a bacon sandwich, it’s Mr Bean again.

What does this mean for the rest of us?

If you’re going to have a public profile, you’ve got to be in control of your own story. People will take what they want to from the information you put out there, and if you’re going to be two dimensional, make sure they are two dimensions you can live with. People either hated Mrs Thatcher because she crushed the unions and unleashed the City – or they loved her for precisely the same reasons. Complexity may be helpful: we feel we know David Cameron better than Ed Miliband, so it’s harder to put him in quite the same narrow box as the Labour leader. Likewise, ask any Brit who the next president of the USA will be, and they’ll likely say ‘Hilary Clinton’ because she is the one they have either heard of or know best.

This article appears on Nadine Dereza’s website as well as PS Programmes.
Nadine Dereza is the co-author of the best selling Insider Secrets of Public Speaking.

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The problem with blanket coverage, is that it can make you want to crawl under the duvet – and the people who appear on the ballot papers aren’t immune to this. At election time, you’ll also find rhetoric out in full force, and politicians love to use arguments that appear much more attractive and convincing than they ought to be. So here we present our list of things to look out for.

SOUNDBITE FEVER
When someone has said a ‘soundbite’ too often, they forget the meaning of the words and let muscle memory take over. Watch what happens when they slow down, get interrupted or have to think about what they are saying – the look of panic that steals into their eyes and they hear their own words as if for the first time.

Everyone is desperate to be on-message: ‘A house divided against itself cannot stand,’ said Lincoln before the Civil War. A modern, watered down version of this is that parties have to be unified, even if they give the impression of behaving like a herd of cats. So expect to see interviewers and political rivals alike trying to trick candidates into stepping off the tightrope of their party’s manifesto in an unguarded moment.

DOWN THE BARREL
Ed Miliband tried this in the Leadership Debate: rather than answering the question to the interviewer, he looked down the camera lens as if to speak directly to the viewer at home. It was terrifying.

Why?

Not everyone is ‘allowed’ to look into the camera: newsreaders, quiz show hosts, presenters: yes. If you are doing a ‘down the line’ interview: yes. Pretty much everyone else: no. Looking into the camera can give you a sense of authority and status, but if you over play your hand, you risk looking presumptuous, as though you are invading the viewer’s home. Television captures the relationships between people in the studio talking to each other. Looking into the camera is ‘breaking the fourth wall’ and it can look decidedly out of place.

APPEALS TO AUTHORITY
Tony Blair turned up to support Ed Miliband, which is a great illustration of why this can work, and also why it can’t. If you think Tony Blair is the best prime minister this country has ever had, his endorsement of Miliband is a huge boost to the Labour leader. If you don’t like Blair, his endorsement won’t impress you much.

There are many more subtle versions of this: how many times has a politician said that ‘the figures don’t add up’? (Which figures? And who is wielding the calculator?) See also ‘research’: there are plenty of researchers out there with a vested interest – and it’s often possible to cherry pick the best figures. In the cut and thrust of debate, it’s almost impossible to quote sources in full and have a nuanced argument, and picking the good figure out of a mass of bad news is human nature (which for the sake of argument we’re applying to politicians too).

Celebrity endorsements also come under this category: expect a fair few entertainers to threaten to leave the country if one party or another gets into power: though this is a threat more often made than acted on.

AD HOMINEM
Attacking a person’s character is in the box file marked ‘dirty tricks’ but that doesn’t stop people using it in debate.

Financial chicanery is the gold standard for this technique: a criminal conviction is seen as ideal, but the whiff of underhand dealings is sometimes more subtle and more persuasive. This is the reason why the expenses scandal caused such a problem – politicians could scarcely complain about a feckless underclass ‘working the system’ when they were doing exactly the same thing themselves. The clumsy meeting of ‘legal’ with ‘moral’ (‘It’s legal, but it’s not right,’) makes the voter think again about who gets the cross next to their name on the big day.

This is also why Cameron, Clegg and Miliband have been so keen to be seen with their wives: outside of politics, the women have kept relatively down-to-earth, uncorrupted and sane.

As the debate hots up, expect tittle-tattle from disgruntled ex-girl- and boyfriends until polling day.

MAKING THE DATA PERSONAL
No more than a fortnight ago, we were recommending this course of action to a speaker. Statistics are great, but if you can illustrate them with a personal story, so much the better. Making data personal isn’t wrong – but you do need the data to back it up otherwise you just have an anecdote, and anecdotes are powerful, but not necessarily accurate statements of reality.

It was Joseph Stalin who said that ‘One death is a tragedy; one million is a statistic,’ and we voters have been represented as ‘Mondeo Man’, ‘Holby City Woman’, and various other one-size-doesn’t-fit-all stereotypes.

We might know a stereotype, but we are unlikely to think of ourselves as one.

Expect to hear all about sweet old ladies waiting for hip replacements, brave ex-servicemen on their uppers and, of course, ‘hard working families’ (which we think makes it sound like the children are forced up chimneys for a few extra farthings).

STRAW MAN
Misrepresenting the opposition’s view is fun, satisfying, and allows the politician to rail against his opponent’s supposed iniquities without troubling the truth.

The ‘right’ love to hack at public services like Norman Bates and the ‘left’ are sending out working parties to bolt a 56” flat screen TV to every asylum seeker’s penthouse apartment… of course they don’t but that’s no reason not to paint a colourful picture.

If a politician looks like they are having too much fun talking about the other side’s policies, check your antihistamines – there is likely to be a straw man close enough to bring on an attack of hay fever.

SLIPPERY SLOPE
If you sign up to Facebook, you will neglect your work, you’ll lose your home, and end up destitute and friendless. Fortunately most of us have enough of a sense of balance to get off Facebook once in a while – but balance has never been part of political debate. Sensible, measured policies can be construed as obvious disasters if taken to the nth degree.

The slippery slope argument is that alcoholics exist, and therefore, nobody should ever have a Friday night pint ever again. Keep your ears tuned for the political equivalent.

IF BY WHISKEY
Leaving the best until last, this is our favourite rhetorical device, and is, quite simply, appealing to both sides of the argument simultaneously.

The quirky name for this comes from a speech given by Noah S Sweat Jr. on the subject of whether or not the state of Mississippi should legalise alcoholic drinks. Here is the speech, edited heavily to be succinct whilst retaining the flavour of the original. The full version can be found here online.

‘You have asked me how I feel about whiskey. All right, here is how I feel about whiskey: If when you say whiskey you mean the devil’s brew, the poison scourge, the bloody monster, that defiles innocence, dethrones reason, destroys the home, creates misery and poverty, yea, literally takes the bread from the mouths of little children, then certainly I am against it.

This is my stand. I will not retreat from it. I will not compromise.’

Very difficult to pull off with credibility!

The next time you see a politician caught in the middle of an argument – or find yourself in a similar position yourself – think about these ticks and tropes. They might get you out of trouble, or highlight the trouble you are in.

This article appears on Nadine Dereza’s website as well as PS Programmes.
Nadine Dereza is the co-author of the best selling Insider Secrets of Public Speaking.

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Group training, though, is a different matter. We’ve delivered workshops to organisations and businesses from restaurants to financial institutions via universities, social clubs and entrepreneurs’ meetings, about which we are happy to sing like canaries.

Our workshop for Enterprise Nation last week is a great example of how bringing together a superficially disparate group of individuals can leave everyone better off. We were one of a series of inspirational business events – see the Enterprise Nation website for details of the full programme that support their aims of helping new businesses negotiate the road from the idea stage through start up and on to success.

What is the appeal of group coaching? The first is that although you always get a mix of people, the issues they have often overlap. Take the 6’5″ director of a company supplying security staff who attended the Enterprise Nation workshop: as an ex-bouncer, you could pop him in a situation most of us would dread – facing down an aggressive drunk – and he’d be squarely in his comfort zone. Pitching his business to potential clients, however, caused him sleepless nights. Compare the chef from a very successful catering company who was brilliant at creating good-looking and delicious plates of food, but who struggled to explain how.

There was one major issue that struck a nerve across the group: with our participants regularly facing examination by panels of bosses, potential clients and investors, how do you handle those difficult, curve-ball questions?

With difficult questions, we always counsel to stay in control, be honest about what you don’t know, and end on a positive note. Depending on how important the answer is, you may answer with the qualifier, ‘I’m not sure, but I think that…’ or have a straightforward, ‘I don’t know, but I can get back to you.’ Admissions of ignorance are usually stronger positions to take than fudging an answer that some of the room knows to be wrong, the others discover is wrong when they look up the facts for themselves, and which nobody trusts while you’re saying it. Everyone is allowed gaps in their knowledge, and admitting to it up front, stops these gaps from polluting the rest of your speech with uncertainty. Finishing on a positive note (especially for a negatively worded question) is also helpful: ‘What are your faults?’ is the classic interview question, and if you can spin this in an up-beat way, you’re well placed to work the same magic on tricky questions that come over the footlights. We stand by our opinion that most audiences want you to do well, and think it worth pointing out that a question designed to trip you up is not the same as a question that is merely difficult: you are meant to be an expert after all. In either case, try not to take a tough Q&A session too personally.

Handling an intimidating Q&A is one of those skills that feels entirely separate from the day to day business of doing your job. The fact is that time and time again, we encounter people who are brilliant at their jobs, but in order to take their career to the next level, have to overcome the hurdle of telling others about it.

When clients notice that their issues are the same as the others, there is a strong bonding feeling within the group. They begin to help each other, share their learning and make connections that flourish beyond the confines of the session. We always tell clients that they won’t leave the session as polished professionals, but they will have a better understanding of what excellence looks like, and how to progress on their journey towards it. Making contacts within a group is a great way of setting up mentoring relationships (to put a very formal tag on an informal arrangement).

The other appealing thing about group coaching is that each session has its own vibe. PS Programmes sent someone down to a community college his week to run a workshop for young people who had been expelled from various local schools. Given this group’s track record with the teaching profession, some might find this an intimidating collection of people to stand in front of, but we are not the teaching profession. The group was made up of 16-to-18 year olds who had the sort of backgrounds that needed to be overcome: drugs, abuse, mental illness and every other social problem imaginable. Comparing and contrasting this to the coach’s last job with this age group – at an £11,000-a-term private school – made for an interesting conversation back at PSP Towers: the private school students were more confident, forthright and comfortable discussing ideas; the community college students laughed more, needed more signposting but were every bit as respectful, interested and involved. The questions they asked weren’t markedly different to the ones asked at the private school – or the ones asked at Enterprise Nation, come to that.

It is the lot of the coach to work always with people whose knowledge in a particular area is far superior to the coach’s. Our job as speaker coaches is merely to give them a nudge in the direction of our expertise: communicating that ability to an audience. Everyone has a story somewhere that can move, motivate or inspire an audience. The only person who can tell it is the person who owns it. As coaches we help people discover their stories, dust them down, and frame them to best effect. And our first step in achieving this is sometimes in allowing our client to believe that their story is deserving of an audience.

Our next public speaking workshop at Enterprise Nation is on Thursday 28 May 2015, booking for this event has just opened.

This article appears on Nadine Dereza’s website as well as PS Programmes.
Nadine Dereza is the co-author of the best selling Insider Secrets of Public Speaking.

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Last week, Ian Hawkins and I spoke at a Communications event for UK Registrars Group at the Museum of London. Our workshop, Three Golden Rules of Public Speaking, received the feedback that it was ‘fun, engaging and memorable’ – which is precisely what we were aiming for, aided and abetted as we were by three brave volunteers who we invited onstage to share their experiences.

One of the reasons that people are nervous about appearing onstage is that taking the limelight is a big responsibility. We often use the analogy of driving a car to describe public speaking: when you start out it feels like there is a lot to learn, and the best speakers have, like experienced drivers, good habits that they almost don’t think about. Sticking with this analogy, the audience are like passengers: if they feel the driver is not in full control, or inexperienced (or worst of all, drunk), they are not going to have a relaxing journey.

What helps with your nerves as a speaker (and for the audience’s peace of mind) is to pay attention to the little details that make you look in control. When the speaker strides onstage, arm extended towards the host, shakes hands and stands confidently in the centre facing the audience, you know they are in charge. When the speaker struggles on, drops their notes, forgets to shake hands and fumbles with their glasses, you know the next few minutes are more likely to be chore than charm. How you walk on can make a big difference. How you walk on can make a big difference. When the person who is handing over to you asks (and they should) how you would like to be introduced, ‘as briefly as possible,’ tends to be the right answer.

What if you’re the first person to speak? We’ve always liked the introduction that we first heard from Ben Elton (though he can’t have been the first to use it) which was very simply: ‘Ladies and gentlemen will you please welcome me – Ben Elton.’ Delivered from the off stage mic, the response gives you a pretty good indication on what the audience is going to be like before you start proper. If your style isn’t quite as blustery, you can just walk in and give a friendly but business-like ‘Good morning… and welcome to…’ which gives people enough time to stop talking to each other and give you their focus. The main thing is to do whatever you’re comfortable with, do it with conviction, and make all your messages positive. ‘Well done on braving the snow and ice,’ is better than ‘sorry about the weather’ (over which you have no control) and look like you’re pleased to be there, or else the audience will soon wish they weren’t. If there has been a change of plan, focus on the achievement of people pulling out the stops, don’t harp on about the brilliance of the speaker who couldn’t make it (while the hero who has stepped in at the last minute is listening in and thinking ‘hello?’).

What might seem little things create expectations for the audience, and expectations can begin before the audience has even sat down. You want audiences to have positive rather than negative expectations. We recently met a comedian putting together a new open mic night at his local university. The poster announced ‘amateur comedians’. Could, we gently asked, the word be changed from ‘amateur’ to ‘up and coming’? There is nothing wrong with amateurism, but in a performance setting, it is a word loaded with connotations.

Whatever the circumstances, once you’re on, you make the space your own. Move things to one side if they are in your way and they are easy to put back again (we once saw Joan Rivers at a corporate awards ceremony uproot a small shrub from an on-stage display and hand it to Manager of the Year in lieu of a trophy). Rise above bad circumstances: if you don’t mention them, they become backdrop. If you draw attention to them, you’re signalling that they are in charge not you.

The same goes for your mistakes: if you make mistakes, be in charge, own them and learn from them. Green Party Leader Natalie Bennett’s infamous interview on LBC made headlines for being a truly abysmal broadcast performance. In our public speaking/car driving analogy, this was a 60-vehicle pileup across three lanes of motorway. The response? Ownership. And MP Caroline Lucas delivered a faultless bookend to the whole affair: ‘I’d far rather be talking about this than having to defend Jack Straw or Sir Malcolm Rifkind [both accused of impropriety this week]’ she said, which quickly became the default response.

The take away lesson is clear: losing control of your mouth is a setback but not a career-ending disaster – IF you put it in proportion, avoid apologies and (most importantly) learn your lesson.

This article appears on Nadine Dereza’s website as well as PS Programmes.
Nadine Dereza is the co-author of the best selling Insider Secrets of Public Speaking.

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We always counsel that audiences are by and large on your side, and want to see you doing well. This should be the case on a stand up night – people have chosen to come out, paid to get in and should be in a convivial mood, after all – yet sometimes these audiences really have it in for an act. Why?

PS Programmes had a mole in one such club at the weekend, and, being in restless pursuit of excellence, took note of the goings-on. The first two comedians struggled. Really struggled. The room was a tricky shape, there were a couple of rowdy tables, one on the extreme left, one on the extreme right. The bar was at the back, open throughout, and people were chatting to each other while they waited to get served. There were heckles and noise, and a couple of groups of friends giving a disparaging running commentary to each other while the act struggled up front. It was all a world away from the polite attention of a conference audience. ‘I wouldn’t say it’s an unplayable room,’ said the first performer when we caught up with him afterwards, ‘but it’s tough, and they are not up for it tonight.’

So it was interesting to see the first act of the second section come on after the interval when the audience was, if anything, slightly drunker, more involved in their conversation, and digesting the food that had been brought out at the start of the night. The response of the audience to the acts of the second section were markedly different. Looking around, our spy noted the six noisy plumbers on the far left and the eight chatty blokes on the far right had stopped pointing inward towards each other around their tables and were directing their attention at the stage. The bar was doing business – quietly. There was no chatting at the back. Not everyone laughed at everything, but the act finished to big applause. The following performer was a musical character act, and also had the full attention of the audience – including from two people who clearly weren’t enjoying it, but crucially, they weren’t chatting among themselves and distracting those around them.

What happened? The glib answer is that the second two comedians were more experienced than the first two acts – but that merely raises more questions. What difference does it make? What did they do that the others didn’t? Fortunately our mole made notes, and the findings take us closer to revealing the mysterious quality of ‘stage presence’.

1. Status
Stage presence is really about status: as the focus of attention, you are taking the high status role. When a performer – or presenter or speaker for that matter – undermines their own status and authority, there is a power vacuum which makes the audience uncomfortable – or if they’ve had a few drinks, jump in to fill it.

The first act to win the room was wearing a suit, while the first two were in jeans and shirt sleeves. The fourth act was in costume. Before they got on stage, they were both playing the high status role with their clothing saying ‘I’m supposed to be here’.

Here are some interesting findings on dress:

We always advise that you should wear what is comfortable, but that doesn’t mean rolling up in your onesie. It’s not comfortable to feel that the audience is against you from the get go. It’s better to be in the position that you feel you ‘look the part’ – even if nerves mean you don’t quite feel it. Which brings us to…

2. Show No Fear
Easier said than done, we know, but audiences will feel uncomfortable about a performer who is displaying nerves. The audience want the person on stage to be in control. Looking like you are supposed to be there is a good start, and deep breathing before you go on will help to stop the voice from wobbling. We often use the analogy of driving a car to describe the hundred things that a good public speaker (like a good driver) does without thinking about it. Rookie speakers are like learner drivers – and the audience are passengers: the more experienced the driver, the more relaxing the journey. Our successful comedians were not in a rush to start, took the stage in their own time, looked around and engaged with the people in the room, which brings us to…

3. Eye Contact
A good speech should be a dialogue between the person on stage and the audience. The easiest way to establish rapport with an audience is to look at them, get eye contact with the furthest corners. The first acts of the night played only to the front of the room, who were engaged anyway – and lost the people at the sides and back. The third act did little more than look to the people in the far corners when he got onstage. ‘I’m watching you,’ he seemed to be saying, and had the expectation that they would listen to him. Through the third and fourth acts, both performers did a lot of reaching out to the furthest parts of the room so that the audience didn’t feel they were being ignored. There was nowhere for the audience to hide!

Here’s an interesting article from Forbes:

A cool, relaxed look will tell a potential heckler not to bother and head off the majority of problems at the pass. All heckles are attempts from someone in the audience to get one over on the person onstage. The higher status the performer has, the less likely it is that the heckler will try to match them. In most speeches you won’t have to deal with hecklers, but you might have people in your audience quietly dismissing what you say. What it boils down to is…

4. Authority
Being in charge isn’t quite the same as having status. Status is an unspoken contract: ‘I have the floor for the next twenty minutes’ is fine: status disappears when the performer doesn’t have rapport with the audience and out stays their welcome. This can happen very quickly. Authority is what keeps that status high. If you take a quick poll of what people think about the idea of going onstage to tell jokes, they will likely tell you that they wouldn’t want to do it. Our successful comedians projected a message with their demeanour before they opened their mouths to speak: ‘I’m supposed to be here, I’m relaxed, confident, and professional. If you are with me we will have a good time.’ There is a lot of talk of ‘winning the room over’ – which makes it sound like a battle of hostile wills. We think it’s more the case of getting the audience to want to like you – and then they will.

We often say that speaking in public is a key leadership skill – here’s an article that agrees the signifiers of authority on stage are the same as those in day-to-day interactions:

Conversations with both the acts afterwards revealed them not to be the sort of nightmarish egomaniacs that the above paragraphs might suggest. Which shows that you can put your ‘performance hat’ on for when you’re onstage. ‘They might seem like a nightmare audience at first,’ said one of the acts, ‘but it’s up to us to give them a good time. In many ways, at least you know where you are with that sort of audience. If they don’t like something, you soon know about it, so I guess they are more honest than a crowd that gives you polite applause when they didn’t really like what you did.’

Whether you have ambitions to tread the boards of the Apollo or not, watching comedy is a really good exercise if you want to improve your speaking: the problems that every speaker faces are amplified in the comedy club. Bad sound, bad lighting, a difficult room layout, too much or too little refreshment and myriad small factors may kill the laughs stone dead. A laugh is the most obvious sign from an audience that they are enjoying themselves. But the tricks of the comedian’s trade – rapport, nerve control, authority – will serve any speaker well, whether you are telling gags or sales figures.

This article appears on Nadine Dereza’s website as well as PS Programmes.
Nadine Dereza is the co-author of the best selling Insider Secrets of Public Speaking.

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The way you deal with an unusual audience isn’t to change the facts – just the way you present them. That said, as the finishing touches were being put to the PowerPoint presentation, nice clear graphs, powerful images and all, we did reflect that plenty of slides intended for adult audiences would benefit from the designer seeing them through the eyes of an eleven-year-old.

Children live in as fast-paced a world as we do as grown-ups, though hopefully, they don’t put quite so much effort into paying the bills. They have grown up in a world where the exponential growth and mobility computing power is something they take as much for granted as we do jumping in a car (which was equally as unthinkable a couple of generations back).

Technology is a clear growth area in the jobs market, and the jobs are going to go to people for whom working with tech is second nature: all those youngsters who are creating apps in their bedrooms are going to have the skills needed, as technology becomes ever more intuitive and invisible. Technology will play an increasingly important role in all careers, whether this is the construction worker receiving plans through a tablet or a teacher giving a lesson to a student on the other side of the planet. Industries that don’t use technology now will come to see it as a central component of the business over the coming decade.

In terms of languages, European languages are still likely to be useful, particularly Spanish and Portuguese with the rapid growth of the South American economies. Some parents have already been hot housing their children in Mandarin and Cantonese, but a recent edition of the Sunday Times seemed to be reading our minds when they put out a supplement that said the essential second language of the future was going to be computer coding. When Computer Weekly magazine agrees that ‘coding is the literacy of today,’ they are really acknowledging the ubiquity of computers in the world, and if you can’t talk code, your communication options will eventually become severely limited.

Renewables are another obvious area for growth. With the jury still out and grumbling over fracking – however safe it’s supposed to be – energy is going to be created closer to the point of delivery. We could fill pages on solar panel technology, but to get a feel for the direction the world is going in, look out of any train window as you go through the town and look at all the photovoltaics on the rooftops. Energy generation is getting domestic. The local window cleaner has bought a ladder extension, and is now offering to squeegee your panels for an extra fiver, which just shows how the trend has impacted on scientists in labs at one end of the scale and sole traders at the other.

If all this technology feels like a sure step towards the future as shown in Blade Runner, take comfort: the human touch is very much required for plenty of careers, especially construction, nursing, education, transport, agriculture and others. A quick word on dairy farmers, who have made the news recently with supermarkets using milk as a loss leader. The situation where farmers are being paid less for a product than it costs to produce it is clearly unsustainable, and if the supermarkets want to look beyond their next quarter results they will have to do something about it. Our bold prediction for the future is that supermarkets will become recognised by the consumer as part of the farming process, legislation will get tighter at the consumer end, and the whole business of food production and delivery will become more transparent and collaborative. Watch this space for developments (by the time it comes around, this blog will be beamed directly onto your retina).

A major factor in the future jobs market that is of particular relevance to young people and their parents is a shift in our attitudes towards learning. The introduction of tuition fees has forced young people to reevaluate their choices: when it was free, university was a natural next step if you were academically bright enough. Now it costs thousands of pounds and takes three (fast moving) years out of your life, it looks less attractive: is it worth it? Looking at all the options – learning on the job, apprenticeships, internships and starting your own business – the answer is now not so clear-cut. One trend that is likely to emerge is that there will be more short-term courses that focus on a particular business sector or interest. Individuals will need to take even greater responsibility for acquiring and updating their skills. And updating is the key word here: how relevant will the degree you took at 21 be when you’re applying for a job at 65?

Let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves. What will the working world look like in 2025 and beyond?

It will still be the case that humans will prefer to be managed by other humans: the computer may, infuriatingly, say ‘no’, but with the boom in consumer comments going online, small businesses will be aware that their reputation can be severely damaged by a bad review on whatever their industry equivalent of trip advisor is. Only a human being can look another in the eyes, say ‘sorry’ and mean it.

If knowledge is outsourced to hard drives, what are the skills that the workers of the future have to focus on? We’d argue that it has to be about human interaction. A computer only works as hard as it is built for. Human beings can be motivated or discouraged. Leadership and team working will become every more important, and the creative industries will need fresh ideas to fuel a demand for content.

Suddenly 2025, when our audience of nine- to thirteen-year-olds will be in the world of work, doesn’t feel very far away.

You could be forgiven for thinking it is already 2025 when you walk through the sleek, modern atrium of King’s Place, where PS Programmes delivered presentation skills coaching for the Green & Fortune team this week. The book launch for Insider Secrets of Public Speaking was held in the beautiful Battlebridge Room at the venue, so we were delighted to be back there particularly as its such a light and airy space, and perfect location to put ten of their team through their presenting paces. Public speaking is all about humans communicating with each other, and we found out about how the Rotunda restaurant sourced all their meat from their own farm in Northumberland. It might seem old fashioned to know the name of everyone involved in the process of serving a steak, from the waiter who brings it to the table all the way back to the farmer the farmer, but it felt like this might be the direction the restaurant trade is heading: people care about welfare, quality and service, and people can provide all of this in a way that a robot can’t.

We were also impressed by the Operations Manager who told us that the company employs some 100 people, and that she knew them all by name. No doubt their spreadsheet stores the information even more efficiently, but that is a lot less impressive than somebody having it in their head. We left after the session thinking of the youngsters considering their careers in 2025 and thought: management will doubtless undergo fads and revolutions in the next decade, but being good with people – and communicating your message – is always going to be an invaluable skill.

This article appears on Nadine Dereza’s website as well as PS Programmes.
Nadine Dereza is the co-author of the best selling Insider Secrets of Public Speaking.

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The library is, of course, much more than a collection of books, and we’ll come to that in a second. For now, let’s look at the books and what books they are. Members of the PS Programmes team have, for one reason or another, been frequent visitors to the British Library in London recently, and rather than just topping up their caffeine levels in the cafe, have instead enjoyed the delights of the Sir John Ritblat Gallery: Treasures of the British Library.

In a city that is brimming with 101 free things to do, the Treasures of the British Library Gallery, for us, is right up there as one of the best attractions in London. Think of the greatest minds in history: Shakespeare, Mozart, da Vinci to name just a few. You can walk from one original work to another in the time it takes to read this blog. Handwritten manuscripts, books from the very dawn of printing, even Scott of the Antarctic’s diary of his mission to the South Pole, open to the famous, final, tragic page.

All these examples couldn’t be further away from your local library’s dusty large-print copies of Mills & Boon ‘classics’ (although the British Library could probably deliver those too – if you dare have the audacity to ask).

You can in fact see many of the fascinating items housed in the British Library online right now with only a few quick keystrokes in the search engine of your choice. You could even print them out on a good printer and hang them on the wall. But it wouldn’t be the same, would it?

According to a British Library report highlighted in the Daily Telegraph: ‘the more screen-based our lives, it seems, the greater the perceived value of real human encounters and physical artefacts: activity in each realm feeds interest in the other.’

Those of us in the live events and conference business have known this for a long time: the speed of bandwidth and the ubiquity of computers have long been cited as nails in the coffin of live events, but for all the conferencing software, FaceTime and Skype products out there, the press-the-flesh, look-you-in-the-eyes, do-you-mind-if-I-join-your-table conference is very much alive and kicking. Authenticity, as we always counsel, is what people crave, and a world full of on-screen reproductions only makes us hunger more for the real thing.

So how is the description of the British Library as ‘a collection of books’ an understatement? Well, among the library’s many facilities one that is particularly close to our hearts is the Business and IP Centre (BIPC). Housed on the first floor of the Library in St Pancras, London, the BIPC is a hub for exchanging ideas and expertise, a sort of entrepreneurs’ support group and advice stop in one.

We asked one BIPC regular, Dr Noel McWilliam, who runs integrated renewable systems development project, Mitravitae, how he would describe the role of the British Library in his area of work: ‘It’s absolutely vital,’ he said. ‘From initial conceptualisation, modelling and feasibility studies, market research, financial analysis, product development, business and IP planning and execution, BIPC has proved to be an amazing and singularly unique resource.

Dr McWilliam added: ‘Meeting other people face-to-face – fellow entrepreneurs and experts on different aspects of business – has ultimately given me the support to see the project through, which I wouldn’t have had otherwise. In particular, they made finding an IP attorney really easy.’

The online world is less than a hands-on experience, but more than a shop window, as a look at the Discovering Literature: Romantics and Victorians project demonstrates. Using the best of the Library’s collection with supporting material, it’s an immersive exploration of the era, from first drafts to advertisements (don’t knock the literary credentials of adverts – Salman Rushdie and Fay Weldon both cut their teeth in the trade!). Using the website is time well spent if you can’t make it to the Library itself – though it will make you wish you could.

Like Scott of the Antarctic’s diary or Handel’s doodles, going beyond the computer screen and getting up close to ‘real deal’ originals remains vital whether your business is in the early stages of start up, or is an industry leading brand.

This article appears on Nadine Dereza’s website as well as PS Programmes.
Nadine Dereza is the co-author of the best selling Insider Secrets of Public Speaking.

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Bad news is always bad, but there is such a thing as delivering bad news well. We won’t go into details, but one of the news stories over the break was that families of the victims of the recent AirAsia plane crash saw unpixelated images on television that shouldn’t have been shown. (Tony Fernandes, CEO of AirAsia featured in photo). Meanwhile, employees of City Link only found out the company had gone bust when they watched the news on Christmas day. And in the Malaysia Airlines MH370 incident earlier this year, concerned relatives were informed by text message that there were no survivors. It looks bad in a headline, even if the intention was to get information out to an appreciable number of people as fast as possible.

So although we wish you the best in 2015, no year is without its ups and downs. The chances are that in the next twelve months you’ll have to tell someone something they don’t want to hear, and it’s worth having a crisis media plan in place before the crisis strikes.

Ignorance isn’t bliss

The story can quickly become, ‘If you knew this all along, why didn’t you do something sooner?’ From the moment you learn of something, the clock is ticking. Know what the consequences will be if you delay – will a quick response help more people? Or will a more considered response be appropriate? The risk of relaying information as soon as you get it is that you look to be out of control, so try to show that you’ve got a grip on things – even if it’s the non-specific – ‘We are exploring several solutions.’

Know who you’re talking to

If you’re announcing mass redundancies, the way you tell the press will not be the same way you tell those who are directly affected. Remember that if you are talking to a group of people, each individual is likely to take the news in a different way, so you should try to be as inclusive as possible. You need to separate the emotions from the facts, try to lay things out clearly, and if you are talking to people directly affected by the news, begin to explore next steps.

Talking to the media means that your message will be edited down and used to tell a story in the smallest space possible, so draft press statements carefully and unambiguously, as individual sentences may be repeated and become the ‘official version’ in the minds of the audience.

Have solutions

There might be a way out of the problem – or a way of mitigating the losses. Giving team members a feeling of involvement is one of the most effective ways of giving job satisfaction, and if you involve people with finding solutions and coming up with ideas, they will see the crisis as something they have some control over, rather than being the passive victims of it.

Keep in mind that, from personal experience, a solution presented too soon after the problem will often be dismissed while the audience is still coming to terms with the bad news. It may be wise to say that solutions are being considered, and then come back to present these once the news has sunk in.

Explain why

The big questions anyone will ask are Who? What? Where? When? – and Why? Without the Why? you can’t expect people to understand and move on.
It all goes back to storytelling, which is all about taking a series of events and linking them together. If you say what happened without adding a ‘because’, the people you are talking to will draw their own conclusion – and it won’t necessarily be a conclusion favourable to you. It’s like being at school and your maths homework – show your workings out so that others can understand why you have made particular decisions and taken particular actions.

If it isn’t written down it didn’t happen

Bad news should be followed up with a written statement. Facts have a tendency to get blurred and misremembered in emotional situations, so it’s important that you have a benchmark of facts available to all the people who need therm.

Behind the scenes, keep a written record of what happened, when you knew about it, and what you did. Keeping minutes of crisis talks might not be the first thing to spring to mind when faced with a disaster, but when the dust has settled, it might be crucial to untangling a situation.

Follow up

Finally, if you have committed to helping people through a crisis, make sure that you do so. As the full impact breaks, you can expect some tough times, but if you help people back on their feet again (and are seen to do so) it will be remembered and appreciated by those who matter.

‘Treat others as you would wish to be treated’ is not a bad mantra to keep in mind. If in doubt, as yourself what your hero would do – and then do that. Small gestures sometimes matter as much as the big picture, so listen and consider what you can do for others – without over-promising.

We often say that public speaking is an act of leadership, and this is never more obvious than when you are communicating in a crisis. A polished performance is no substitute for effective action, but without good communications, your actions may go unappreciated, misinterpreted or disregarded.

This article appears on Nadine Dereza’s website as well as PS Programmes.
Nadine Dereza is the co-author of the best selling Insider Secrets of Public Speaking.

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By his own admission, Mark’s mind was elsewhere. Most of us have been in the middle of saying something when the brain starts working along a completely different narrative: ‘It’s really important I impress this person. I’m making a fool of myself. I’m saying things I’m not thinking through. What am I saying? Isn’t it amazing that I can still form sentences with my mouth while I’m thinking this?’ And then there is no disguising the panic in your eyes as mouth and brain finally divorce and live, amicably but separately, in different countries having little to do with one another and getting on with their own affairs.

Then there was ‘The Cough’. Some people ‘um’, others ‘er’, Mark squeaks out a little cough. It’s particularly excruciating because it is a clear indicator of someone being totally out of control of their nerves. John Freeman, best known for his interrogation-style interviews, died this week. Freeman’s interview with Tony Hancock has been singled out as the point at which the comedian tipped irretrievably over the edge into alcoholism. He would’ve made mincemeat of Mark. Watching Mark stumbling through a pitch, we were yelling at the screen: ‘Get one of your team mates to take over while you pull yourself together!’

Anyway, he won – just. And even if you think that going to pieces so fast people get hit by shrapnel is charming at first, the gloss wears off after a while and it really isn’t compatible with being the sort of arrogant über-businessman that The Apprentice has conditioned us to expect. Performing under pressure is about focus: know what it is that you have to do. Whether it’s a speech, a pitch, or standing on the starting blocks of the 100m Olympic finals, if your mind is elsewhere, you won’t be at your best. Mark’s big mistake was spending all of his preparation time ‘bigging’ himself up and talking down his rivals rather than getting familiar with the actual product. In a pitch situation, quiet confidence is more persuasive than delivering a half-remembered TED talk: Bianca may have come second, but she knew how to put thought, time and effort into her pitches, a lesson Mark learned just in time to save his skin in the final, (with the weak cough mainly under control).

On the subject of friendly rivalry, we’ve been scoping out the presentation advice out there, and found several results for the search ‘100 public speaking tips’. Good luck with remembering all of those when you step up to the podium. To perform at your best, less really is more. Nick Hewer made his name with a raised eyebrow here and a pursing of the lips there. Part of Nick’s charm is that he isn’t trying to prove himself all the time: those who do aren’t focusing on their audience, they are thinking about themselves.

Mark may well follow in the footsteps of previous Apprentice winners (and Nick and Karren Brady for that matter) and go on the corporate speaking circuit, in which case he will definitely have to sort his nerves. If he wants to still be making money from speaking after the next Apprentice winner has been chosen, he’s also going to have to deliver a message more compelling than ‘I’m great’, in which case we can suggest no finer addition to the wish list of Mark, or indeed anyone who needs to know how to get a brilliant idea over to a skeptical audience than our very own Insider Secrets of Public Speaking. With three guiding golden principles (Authenticity, Authority and Audience) and a host of practical applications, it’s the ultimate guide to mastering the essential transferable skill: proficiency in public speaking will serve you well whether you are being interviewed, leading a team or pitching an idea.

And so PS Programmes is putting up the shutters for a couple of weeks after a busy and productive year. To friends, readers and clients past, present and future: have a wonderful festive break and here’s to a happy and prosperous New Year!

This article appears on Nadine Dereza’s website as well as PS Programmes.
Nadine Dereza is the co-author of the best selling Insider Secrets of Public Speaking.

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There are a few things we have been discussing that we think are going to make a big difference to enterprise, and sure enough these were covered in depth during a day intended to give a boost to those attending.

The most important thing is that big organisations create a friendly working environment for smaller ones. Cabinet Office Minister Francis Maude has already set the target that by May 2015, 25% of all government spending should be through small businesses. Government currently spends £230bn every year on products and services so when Lord Young re-affirmed Cabinet Office’s aspiration as the opener to the event it appealed to everyone in the room.

The problem, however, is that ‘small business’ is defined as a business of up to 49 employees. We’ve been in some pretty substantial small businesses and although we applaud the government’s commitment to directing 25% of total spending to them, don’t hold your breath that Number 10 will be getting their windows cleaned by Barry the Mop from ‘down the road’ any time soon.

It’s not until a company has more than 250 employees that a business is classed as ‘big’, which means that the overwhelming majority of businesses in the UK are SMEs.

But things are moving in the right direction. Another issue that affects SMEs, present company included, is prompt payment (or lack thereof). PS Programmes make a point of responding to invoices sooner rather than later, and we were delighted to learn that we weren’t alone: Jenny Nolan – SME champion at Fujitsu – spoke of being a signatory organisation of the Prompt Payment Code. Again, a crowd pleaser, as everyone has had experience of a large organisation suddenly becoming a faceless brick wall as the due date comes and goes.

On this theme, Sue Colbeck, Head of Procurement (pictured above), Aintree University Hospital NHS spoke on selling to NHS Trusts. Sue wins the PS Programmes Award for ‘Speaker of the Day’ (it’s a mince pie with our logo on) with her clear, concise and warm style. One of the key points of our book Insider Secrets of Public Speaking is finding out what the audience wants and making sure they get it. Sue spoke about how small businesses can best navigate the NHS minefield, her talk was peppered with great tips, and there was plenty of note taking in evidence. It’s this sort of practical advice that really makes these days worthwhile to those attending: one tweak to a pitch might win the business and change the fortunes of a company.

This, along with the online procurement catalogue G-Cloud (described by Stephen Allott, Crown Representative for SMEs, as ‘the Amazon for government’) has revolutionised the way government buys IT services. Evidently, the public sector contracts world is awash with bid writers who spend all day every day pitching for government contracts in the sort of language that would give Sir Humphrey a headache. Clearly these services will be beyond many SMEs, who ought to welcome the G-Cloud’s offer of a slightly flatter playing field.

‘Presentation Team of the Day Award’ (they are sharing the PS Programmes mince pie) was, for us, on the sales space/ pop-up revolution – a great double header with Transport for London (TfL) and Appear Here talking about short-term retail space lettings. Appear Here bills itself as the leading marketplace to book short-term retail space. It was the instrumental organisation that worked with TfL in the redevelopment of the retail spaces at Old Street Underground station. Smaller, more affordable spaces are key to enterprise and give fledgling businesses a chance to put out some roots. These pop-up spaces, combined with card readers that can take payments for goods and services through a mobile phone are truly revolutionising the retail experience. We remember a time when HMV had two big stores on Oxford Street, and a concession in Selfridges. Now they have pulled their horns right back to their ‘original’ space by Bond Street. At the other end of the scale, well-reviewed food vans are moving into pop-ups, and pop-ups are expanding. No other industry comes close to the start-up failure rate of the restaurant trade, so any route that takes such an enterprise and grows it organically rather than remortgaging the house and hoping for the best has to be a good idea.

Finally, good news (we hope) for all those SMEs hoping to pitch their business to the government with the introduction of Contracts Finder. This is the government’s new, all singing, all dancing service, which lets SMEs search for information about contracts worth over £10,000 with the government and its agencies. Philip Sinclair from Cabinet Office presented on this, and although £10,000 might initially look like the arena in which big businesses are more comfortable, almost all government contracts are for five and six figures. If you find you are just shy of the threshold, your next step really should be to examine your offer and see what you can change to get the government interested.

SMEs like nothing more than a challenge. This open approach, coupled with the government commitment mentioned earlier really does open the door for the SMEs who haven’t had a look in until now.

Now that’s a nice little something for the Christmas stocking…

This article appears on Nadine Dereza’s website and PS Programmes website

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Is there a difference between freelancers and entrepreneurs? Entrepreneurs are portrayed as being bombastic risk-takers, while the soft-spoken freelancers get on with creating intellectual property. Our experience is more along the lines that the success stories – whether they call themselves freelancers or entrepreneurs – are people who first and foremost make things happen. Visiting a school brought home the thought that league tables worry so much about defining success by exam grades, that we risk forgetting some of the brightest entrepreneurs get by on this can-do attitude.

At the National Freelancers Day #NFD2014 event, organised by the Association of Independent Professionals and the Self Employed (IPSE) and hosted by legendary broadcaster Sue Lawley (pictured above with Tom), delegates were treated to a keynote speech from business journalist Declan Curry and a panel debate with LBC’s Nick Ferrari, Enterprise Nation brainchild Emma Jones MBE, Minister for Skills, Enterprise and Equalities Nick Boles MP, Shadow Small Business Minister Toby Perkins MP, and David Morris MP. David was a last minute addition to the panel, prompted presumably by David Cameron’s announcement earlier in the day that Mr Morris is the government’s newly appointed self-employed ambassador.

High on the agenda for most of those attending was the question of how to make life as a freelancer more straightforward: there was a real appetite for tax breaks that don’t take more trouble to claim than they are worth. As many freelancers outsource their accounting as soon as they can afford to, making money easier to deal with should be a priority. The other key trend in self employment is that although many businesses started at the kitchen table, a good number of collaborations now mature in coffee shops. As one woman told us: ‘When I was employed, my old office was so big, it had its own Starbucks. Now I’m self-employed, Starbucks is my office.’

For our money, there is a major impediment to young people considering self-employment, and that is the whole issue of whether or not someone decides to get a degree. The PS Programmes team is lucky enough to be of an age where going to university or a further education college after leaving school was an unalloyed great idea. Today, eighteen year-olds are seriously asking whether that piece of paper is worth three years (or more) of study, thousands of pounds of loans to pay back, and all to compete in a market where having a degree, apprenticeship or vocational qualification is the norm rather than the exception.

There is a reason why we keep returning to the statistic that 40% of undergraduates want to start their own business, yet less than 1% of graduates actually do it: most businesses start with a couple of people coming up with a good idea, building a product, selling it, and growing organically. The Institute for Fiscal Studies says that today’s students leave university with an average debt of £44,000. How many fledgling entrepreneurs can dedicate time to getting their businesses off the ground while they’re servicing that sort of debt? Answer: the rich ones.

All the major political parties have got their hands dirty over this issue: the Liberal Democrats went back on their election promise, the Conservatives put the prices up and it was Labour who introduced the idea of tuition fees in the first place. Unfortunately they have created an ideal scenario for the bright-but-broke to think that university or further study might not be for them. Graduates, at the perfect age for leveraging their social networks, fresh ideas and energy, are instead having to take jobs to pay back the sort of money that used to get you a decent flat.

Don’t be lulled into a false sense of security by the likes of TV’s The Apprentice and Dragon’s Den: the entrepreneur is at risk of becoming an endangered species.

This article appears on Nadine Dereza’s website and PS Programmes website

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Awards include the ‘Olive Cordell Skills for Life Awards’ for both Tutor and Student of the year, as well as a number of others recognising innovation & contribution, outstanding teams and individuals across the UK. Over 70,000 students study with the WEA every year, and the Awards recognise the most inspiring stories of the transformational power of education. I am particularly impressed by the Confidence in Action group (they are featured in the photo) in the West Midlands that supports learners in living more independent and fulfilling lives: hearing about people who had previously struggled to use public transport now happily travelling by themselves, or visiting a coffee shop for the first time puts things into perspective. For those of us who don’t think twice about it, being unable to go for a coffee is unimaginably and intolerably limiting.

Confidence is a matter of degree. Scarcely a social occasion goes by when I am told that I am ‘brave’ because my job is standing on a platform and talking to audiences. The irony is that a lot of the jobs I can think of – from mechanic to GP – usually has far higher stakes than the misfortunes that can trouble a presenter. In my book (co-authored with Ian Hawkins) ‘Insider Secrets of Public Speaking’, we wrote of microphones feeding back, or the script appearing in the wrong order, which we take in our stride, but which to others would be a nightmare. We can all think of things we do that look easy to some, and appear to be an act of heroism to someone else.

The positive impact of WEA courses in the likes of literacy, computing and the arts spreads wider than the subjects themselves. Whilst we won’t deny that these are useful skills for adult learners, our interest in the organisation goes beyond mere upskilling of individuals in order to secure a promotion. Take computer skills: one such course proved to be a genuinely transformative experience for one elderly woman of our acquaintance. Housebound, she is as happy shopping for her groceries online as she was in a supermarket (happier: she no longer feels that she is keeping people waiting while she fiddles with her purse). Thanks to Facebook, she is better connected with the family that moved abroad in the 1950s than she has ever been, the annual Christmas phone call being replaced with a weekly video Skype. Getting old isn’t a walk in the park, she tells us, but the big issues for the elderly – isolation, dependency, loneliness – are mitigated by her willingness to master the mouse. These days, her far-flung grandchildren get an animated e-card on their birthday, plus a tenner via PayPal.

Consider that last year, almost 3,000 people joined WEA courses designed specifically for people experiencing mental health difficulties. Although the courses don’t pretend to treat the illness at base, the act of learning, community, and personal growth do help individuals tackle some of the difficulties surrounding their conditions, and in doing so make their lives more bearable.

One of the most rewarding things that anyone can do is to be useful to someone else, and this is where West Midlands Confidence in Action has been especially successful: three of the learners from the group are now volunteering as a direct result of the improvement in their confidence, one of them with the WEA. Another student from the group has recently completed a successful work placement at Marks and Spencer, and is currently preparing for a job interview. On behalf of the team at PS Programmes: we wish you the very best of luck, health and happiness. It is also a great honour to be asked to introduce and present the WEA Innovation and Contribution Award for 2014.

For information on how to support the work of WEA, please visit the fundraising page.

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Forbes themselves evidently aren’t entirely sure what to say about her, as on the event website, the line up of speakers all have a line of explanation under their names: Questlove, musician, Sean Rad, Tinder, even Malala Yousafzai is tagged The Malala Foundation. Monica Lewinsky, however, is just Monica Lewinsky. No explanation required.

So I got Ian, our man in Manhattan to ask around what the public thought about Monica’s return. ‘She must be looking for money,’ says one of the blue collar workers waiting on line for a coffee in a deli on 8th Avenue. ‘It’s a bit odd. Coming out of the woodwork. So to speak.’ And a taxi driver who arrived from the Punjab less than three years ago knows her name and clicks his tongue in a manner that oozes disapproval.

‘My name is Monica Lewinsky,’ she says early on in the speech. ‘Though I have often been advised to change it, or asked why on earth I haven’t. But, there we are. I haven’t. I am still Monica Lewinsky.’

Cyber bullying was Lewinsky’s subject, and her qualification for addressing the topic was that she considers herself to be the first person to have their reputation trashed online – and this in an unimaginably distant past, a time before Twitter, Instagram or even Google (a frisson of amused half-panic rippled through the room as the young audience imagined what such a prehistoric lifestyle might have entailed). Lewinsky’s downfall came in the heady early days of the internet, and you don’t need to spend all day on Twitter to know that the internet can encourage some pretty female-unfriendly views.

It wasn’t always like this. Women caught up in scandals that were written about in newsprint rather than pixels came out of their experiences rather better than Monica did. Celebrated brothel-keeper, Cynthia Payne, whose clients included politicians, celebrities and high court judges is a folk hero. When Lord Astor denied having an affair with Mandy Rice-Davis, in the fall-out of the Profumo Affair her response – ‘He would, wouldn’t he?’ – made us think rather more of her and less of him. And in John Major’s ‘back to basics’ government in the 1990s, the powerful men who strayed were the ones who were caught out and punished. It is since the internet took off, that infidelity per se stopped being a cause for politicians to lose their jobs.

Back to Monica: is this speech the beginning of a new, public chapter in her life? We watched the speech with a critical eye, and were struck by a couple of things. Well written and slickly presented, we instinctively felt the invisible presence of a fellow coach. If you’re making your first public appearance for a decade, you want to get things right, keep your message clear and tell your side of the story. The most powerful part of the speech was indeed her re-telling of the major events that occurred when the story broke – the threats from the FBI, the name calling in the paper. ‘How would you feel?’ is the unspoken question.

In ‘Insider Secrets of Public Speaking’ we have Three Golden Principles, and Monica Lewinsky nailed them in her speech:

Authority – speaking from a direct and unique perspective. Who, apart from Monica Lewinsky, is as qualified to discuss this subject from personal experience?

Authenticity – we see the story through her own eyes, and she isn’t afraid to show the emotional impact the experience has had on her.

Audience – Lewinsky makes direct appeals to the audience, acknowledges their experience, and gives them an action point to take away with them.

The one thing that we would have avoided was the apology at the top. ‘It is only my fourth time delivering a speech in public… So if I seem nervous, forgive me, because I am.’ The problem was that her speech was then delivered without an ‘um’ or an ‘er’ – the usual signifiers of nerves – in sight. There is such a thing as being too polished, and anyone looking for an ulterior motive might find this an contradiction a bit jarring. We will give Monica the benefit of doubt, with the apology reasonably well justified – she did move close to tears at one point – and she was sensible, having said sorry for her nerves once, not to do so again.

We hope that this is the beginning of a more public life for Ms Lewinsky. Her speech was not only from the heart, it was timely. For every celebrity who’s had their iCloud account hacked, or for every unfortunate schoolgirl being bullied on Twitter (a big story in New Jersey is currently breaking about exactly this) – Monica Lewinsky’s story is the one that puts things into perspective.

Finally, she addressed the critics who didn’t want to see her in public again: ‘There are those who say, Monica, why don’t you just shut up? Why don’t you just go away? They said it in June, after a piece I wrote in Vanity Fair, my first public words in over ten years. And they will say it today after this one, my first major public talk, ever, and they will say it tomorrow and the day after that.’

The reason why she shouldn’t shut up is because even if you think her affair with Clinton made her a ‘scarlet woman’ and a ‘home-wrecker’ (both of these antique phrases taken, incidentally, from readers’ online comments recently), it is right that we should see the public rehabilitation of someone who, in her words, regrets ‘falling in love with my boss in a 22-year-old sort of a way. It happens.’

She shouldn’t shut up because she is right when she says that online behaviour and bullying is often far more extreme than anything that happens face-to-face.

And lastly, she shouldn’t shut up, because it takes two to tango, and if one party in the affair can continue to have a life, why shouldn’t she?

This article appears on Nadine Dereza’s website and PS Programmes website

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Authors Nadine and Ian descended early on Kings Place to set up The Battlebridge Room, a beautiful room overlooking the Regents Canal. Aided and abetted by our PR guru Tom York and friend Katherine Eyres (whose can-do attitude was the perfect match to our couldn’t-do reality) we had the books artfully stacked, the film crew briefed, and the pull-up banners, er, pulled up.

With everything in place, we then had that terrifying moment of eyeing the dozens of wine glasses being methodically filled by a bartender and hoping that people would show up to drink them.

By the end of the hour, the concern about getting through the wine was overtaken by the concern of getting around to say hello to everyone, which of course we couldn’t. The best view in the room was from the stage: family and friends and colleagues and clients all gathered together to launch the book, and this contrived metaphor was all the excuse (if excuse be needed) for getting rising stars on the comedy circuit, Jollyboat, to kick off the evening with bare chested songs of a piratical bent.

Nadine and Ian took questions from the audience about public speaking, and we answered them by taking on board our own advice, and concentrating on our ‘Three Golden Principles’ that have formed the basis of all the tips we give in the book. And if book sales are an indication of how the Q&A went, we were on the right track.

Learning outcomes: you can get a laugh from an audience by mentioning the words ‘deficit’ and ‘Ed Miliband’ in the same sentence, and Ian, armed with a roving microphone, makes a reasonable substitute for Anneka Rice in her Treasure Hunt heyday.

Nadine’s son, James, demonstrated that beneath the cherubic eight-year-old exterior lurks a fledgling Alan Sugar, whose sales pitch – ‘Buy the hardback, it’s more expensive!’ – worked like a charm.

At the end of the night, we were delighted to pack the car with considerably fewer copies of ‘Insider Secrets’ than we brought to Kings Place.

So what happens now? The PR juggernaut continues with Ian guest speaking at networking events over the weekend and Nadine booked to appear on Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour this coming Wednesday.

If you’d like to be part of the journey of making ‘Insider Secrets of Public Speaking’ less of a secret, then follow Nadine (@NadineDereza) and Ian (@SmartMrHawkins) on Twitter for the latest news and updates and join in the conversation using the #ISOPS hashtag.

A selection of pictures from the night are available at Flickr

The book is available to buy from Amazon and reviews are a great help in keeping the momentum going on sales. Here’s the link: http://tinyurl.com/pokamot

If you know of (or find yourself watching) a speaker who you think could use some pointers, a recommendation of the book will be much appreciated. It could be the perfect Christmas present for the colleague, friend or prospective Best Man/Woman in your life.

Finally, we think ‘Insider Secrets of Public Speaking’ is good enough to earn a place on the shelves of every library in the country. Putting in a request at your nearest school, college or local library, will cost nothing, but will help inspire and nurture the employees and leaders of the future.

This article appears on www.nadinedereza.com and PS Programmes

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We conducted an online survey to dig a bit deeper into the established findings that public speaking frequently tops people’s lists of scary things. Worse than clowns, spiders, and even death. But why? What specifically are people afraid of? The answer was unequivocal: 72% of people questioned, dread standing in front of others and forgetting their words.

There is something primal about his fear. We know a very established comedian who has the occasional dream that he is onstage and cannot speak. What’s strange about him having this dream is that he has never experienced something similar in real life. ‘I’ve always got something to say,’ he told us, ‘getting tongue tied is just completely inconceivable.’

By forgetting your words, you are losing status, and people are perhaps most afraid of making a fool of themselves. Speaking from a stage feels like an artificial situation, and in such unfamiliar circumstances, it can be hard to know what to do. The audience is looking to you to lead the way, and being able to convey a message to an audience – whether they are your staff or your clients – can instil a profound confidence in your leadership abilities. If you get it right.

Ed Miliband is smart enough to know that modern audiences need more from a speaker than someone who can read his entire speech from autocue or a script. He attempted to connect with the audience, doing the big speech from memory, to try and show us the real Ed Miliband. Unfortunately, the real Ed Miliband seemed to have forgotten about the deficit.

The last time we checked the reviews for our new book on Amazon, the top comment made particular reference to the section in which we discussed memory techniques. Briefly, we cover using cue cards or notes and some mnemonic systems – tricks to help you remember a speech. Just recently, we saw post-it notes stuck strategically around the stage but out of sight of the audience to prompt the speaker.

Our friend Dr George Fieldman, a respected cognitive behavioural therapist, often treats patients with phobias. ‘The key to overcoming fear is to know what you’re up against, to demystify it, and to put in practical steps to change your attitude towards it,’ he tells us.

We believe that above all else, practice is key. You might not ever get rid of your nerves, but you can control them, rather than letting them control you. Going back to the theme of leadership, self control will help the audience to feel comfortable listening to you, and the real you will come across which in turn adds to your credibility and authority.

After all, it was Michael H. Mescon who said “the best way to conquer stage fright is to know what you’re talking about.”’

Our book, Insider Secrets of Public Speaking, is available on Amazon priced £14.99.

To meet the authors at the book launch in London on 8th October, drop us a line at info@nadinedereza.com 

PS Programmes deliver presentation skills, TV and radio media training and crisis media management, tailored to the needs of our clients. This article appears on www.nadinedereza.com and PS Programmes

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As with life, trust is also needed when speaking in public. A speech is judged on what people take away from it, and whether your stage time is a minute or a whole morning, there will be a feeling that lingers in the minds of the audience.

At the Global Trust Conference, Sir Bob Geldof delivered the closing speech. He left his notes on the lectern, and rather than giving the prepared speech, treated the audience to an hour of his reflections on Live Aid, Live 8, the past, the future, peppered with a few good jokes, salty language and digs at the people responsible for the banking crisis. What did we take away? We had spent time with a truly iconic figure, and had some insight into his thinking and broad inspiration for making this a better world.

Compare and contrast: a senior manager addressed a room of junior managers at a training day last March. The senior manager opened with, ‘I haven’t prepared anything,’ and then spoke for twenty minutes (the agenda said ten). The overwhelming response was that the senior manager delivered a massive snub to his subordinates, didn’t think them worth making an effort for and, above all, senior management in the company as a whole wasn’t listening.

It’s not about ‘star quality’: we’ve seen big names falling flat because they haven’t given the event (and by extension, audience) the effort they deserve. And we’ve seen unknown speakers steal the show.

One of the elements to successful public speaking is understanding the relationship a speaker has with their audience, and like any relationship, trust is important. Creating a moment of vulnerability onstage is a great way of getting the audience on your side, but this has to be done without disrespecting the audience. Bob Geldof was self-deprecating; whereas the senior manager insulted his audience. When a speaker apologises for their inexperience or for not being funny enough, or says something negative about the event (even something as apparently banal as ‘this microphone isn’t very good, is it?’) they are breaking the bond of trust that the organisers have provided content that is worth listening to.

Let’s take another great example from yesterday. Hollie Delaney was speaking about the corporate culture of Zappos, the US-based online clothing store where she is Head of People Happiness. During her speech, she illustrated the company’s commitment to employee health by putting up a slide that showed a photo of herself before she lost 85lb. It created a ripple of applause. Losing that amount of weight isn’t easy, and acknowledging the role of Zappos’s staff wellbeing policies, meant that a lot of the ideas she had been talking about had real world applications. How many employers in the audience suddenly thought about their absentee figures and wondered what they could do to help their staff live healthier lifestyles? It made something as apparently fluffy as ‘People Happiness’ suddenly important and concrete, and if Hollie Delaney hadn’t put herself out there, and trusted the audience to be on her side at a moment of vulnerability (would you put your weight on a PowerPoint slide in front of 600 strangers?), her speech wouldn’t be sticking in the mind 24 hours later.

The trust issue was one we tackled early in the Introduction of ‘Insider Secrets of Public Speaking’. We addressed the question directly: ‘Why do [our clients] listen to us? Why should you listen to us?’ If we couldn’t answer the second question, we wouldn’t have bothered writing the rest of the book.

‘Why should the audience listen to me?’ is a good starting point for any speaker: speak to your strengths, rather than your weaknesses. With the audience trusting you early on, you will find that risks you take pay off more often than not. You will reach the other end of the high wire, rather than bounce around in the safety net. Annoy your audience, and you’ll have a hard landing.

‘Insider Secrets of Public Speaking’ is available at Amazon

This article appears on http://www.nadinedereza.com/ and http://www.presentationskillsprogrammes.co.uk

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The Ice Bucket Challenge (IBC)is worth examining closely because it goes against some of the rules of becoming a successful social media meme. Remember the no-makeup selfie? No vindictive friends required – just a smartphone and an opposable thumb. You couldn’t second-guess this one. ‘Too much effort,’ the naysayers would’ve said a fortnight back. ‘Too much to set up and clean away afterwards.’ And as for the cause? ‘Too niche. ALS? Isn’t that what we used to call Lou Gehrig’s disease? It turns out even Lou Gehrig didn’t die of Lou Gehrig’s disease.’ And of course, they would’ve been wrong. It was after all Nils Bohr who said ‘Prediction is very difficult, especially if it’s about the future.’

One of the impressive things about the IBC is how it has quickly established itself as a fundraising effort for ALS/MND. When Macmillan suggested that some might like to take part and donate to their particular cause, the charity was accused of ‘underhand’ tactics, ‘hijacking’ and ‘muscling in’ to ‘take the focus away from the original cause.’ But a swift check reveals that the origins of the Challenge are mysterious and in one form or another has been used to support worthy ventures as various as fallen firefighters and the Special Olympics. There is no ‘original cause’, though in the public mind and in the pages of the press it has now become inextricably linked to ALS/MND.

One twist on the Challenge has had some traction: the Rubble Bucket Challenge, in which residents of Gaza, in the absence of drinking water to splash about willy-nilly, tip buckets of rubble over their heads to highlight their living conditions post air-strikes. What is more subtle is that after weeks of depressing news from Gaza, the residents are still plugged in to social media, still aware of what is going on in the world, reacting, and adapting. The lines of communication are still working where evidently the basic necessary water supply is not.

The value of the challenge, besides the money raised, is that it has provoked a strong debate. If this is the future of fundraising, what does it mean for advertising budgets and big charities’ PR machines? We’ve seen plenty of casting calls for ‘viral campaigns’ that haven’t had the reach of the Ice Bucket Challenge. If such a successful campaign even exists, it hasn’t gone ‘viral’ enough to reach us. There is the question as to whether a ‘viral campaign’ is something that can even be planned by a marketing department.

It has also sparked a lesser (but important) debate on the scarcity of clean water, and not just in Gaza. According to www.water.org, 3.4million people die each year from insanitary drinking water. Something to think about when you’re sweeping the ice cubes off the patio.

The Challenge has had its share of critics, but perhaps it is only working as well as it is, because it is raising money and awareness for a raft of causes and issues. It is hard to imagine a brand – which has to be controlling, proscribed and distinctive – gaining the same amount of traction. If ill will can be directed at Macmillan, what would happen to a brand of trainers or a soft drink?

It’s always easy to see why things were successful after they happen. We could add together a number of factors – the celebrity involvement, the public display of philanthropy, the wardrobe malfunctions and the swearing toddler (that last one is particularly worth a Google) – but we wouldn’t presume to predict next year’s Ice Bucket Challenge. Though we would risk a small bet on it becoming dubbed ‘this year’s Ice Bucket Challenge.’

This article appears on http://www.nadinedereza.com/ and http://www.presentationskillsprogrammes.co.uk

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Surveys – be they on issues of vital importance or profound triviality – are a seemingly endless source of intrigue: are you in or out of step with how others feel about the EU, do you hold the majority view on capital punishment or the favoured flavour of ice cream? Are your opinions reassuringly in line with others – or proudly independent? Does the rest of humanity shock you with their lack of taste and common sense, or have most other folk got it about right?

Following public opinion is a double-edged sword. Leaders who lean too heavily on focus groups are said to be wanting a clear ideology, while those who ignore public opinion are out of touch. Trying to strike a balance is a bit like keeping hold of a live salmon, especially when the answers you get can be self-evidently daft: in one survey, when asked to name ‘something made of wool’, the second most popular answer was ‘a sheep’.

What is the value of a survey, anyway? If they only tell us what we already knew, the results will only be published (if at all) under a sarky headline. When the results are surprising, we might need to do more to convince the reader that the figures haven’t been cooked. And sometimes the figures are dressed up to look more weighty than they are. Take this example from correlated.org: ‘In general, 42 percent of people would rather attend a small college than a big university. But among those who did not have their own room for most or all of their childhood, 64 percent would rather attend a small college than a big university.’

By the time you’ve mentally unpacked those sentences and worked out what they mean, you’re half way to thinking there might be something in the study. The research almost sounds significant. Until you think again, and realise that it really isn’t – that is assuming you’ve got enough time for the luxury of a second thought. Many statistics are presented at face value, and if you’ve ever heard two politicians debating, you will know that figures can be picked and chosen to agree with almost any point of view.

So, why are we launching a survey ourselves? Our survey aims to go beyond finding out that people are nervous about speaking in public and asking, ‘why are you nervous?’ One of the aims of our book, ‘Insider Secrets of Public Speaking’ is to help people overcome their fears with practical tools. Getting specific about the problem is, we think, the first step towards a solution. You can only take specific steps to tackle something when you know what it is: when you say ‘nerves’ do you mean ‘I don’t know what to do with my hands’?

You can help us to find out what it is about public speaking that people find frightening by going to our survey:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/86S2NGJ

As a thank you, we’ll invite you to our book launch in September; just remember to give us your details at the end of the survey. And watch this space for the results – whatever they might be.

This article appears on http://www.nadinedereza.com/ and http://www.presentationskillsprogrammes.co.uk

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Our mothers always told us to sit up straight and smile when meeting others, though even mums would baulk in the face of 24 hour rolling news, where you’re instantly judged on your public profile, and your personality is suddenly political. When a man can be pilloried for the indecorous eating of a sandwich, you may feel nostalgia for, say, the time when Churchill was incapacitated by a stroke, and it took his own ministers weeks to find out.

Image is a slippery thing: Boris Johnson is photographed stuck on a zip wire, and readers shake their heads with an amused chuckle over their cornflakes the next morning. Ed Miliband struggles with a sandwich, and a Labour MP in a marginal seat groans and turns to the situations vacant.

‘Authenticity’ is the watchword of our new book, Insider Secrets of Public Speaking (and here’s the first secret – it’s available on Amazon but keep it under your hat, because it hasn’t been officially launched yet). You can’t change what you are, and you shouldn’t fake it, so you just have to embrace it.

The first time Mrs Thatcher was called ‘the Iron Lady’ it was meant as an insult. The tag stayed with her all the way to her obituary headlines and beyond, and probably did more for her image than any number of voice exercises.

A good personal brand is infectious: ‘Boris bikes’ were really Ken Livingstone’s idea, but the sight of the present Mayor wobbling along in a helmet and trouser clips sticks in the mind. Here is the trick, with Boris: he doesn’t take himself seriously, but if you get him on the problems Londoners face, he becomes sincere, practical and thoughtful. ‘Your problem is important,’ he seems to be saying, ‘more important than my dignity.’ If it’s a trick, it’s a very good one.

Bullies only want a reaction, and so do the press, though the reaction they want is to sell papers. Ed Miliband’s admission that he may indeed look a bit like Wallace from the Wallace and Gromit animation is an attempt to get beyond not only his public image problem (which would be bad enough) but his public image of someone who has a public image problem (which is worse). If politics is showbusiness for ugly people, at least the (perfectly pleasant-looking) Labour leader should be pleased to resemble the recipient of so many Oscars.

Conclusion: it’s ok to know you’ve got a problem and it’s ok to fix it. But perhaps you’re not the best person to judge whether it really has been fixed or not: that’s a call for others to make. Don’t let on that you’ve hired an image consultant until they prove they’ve been worth their fee. And if you can carefully cultivate the image of someone who doesn’t care about their image, you’ve really hit gold.

This article appears on http://www.nadinedereza.com/ and http://www.presentationskillsprogrammes.co.uk

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We’ve been thinking about this recently, because we’ve been on a training roadshow, and a key element of the day is asking the managers of a large retail operation about what they think motivates their people. A good number of the managers get the right answer, but there is a sizeable minority who make the same mistake that Gallup found bosses tend to make.

Ok, we’ll put you out of suspense: the top three motivating factors for employees are, in reverse order of importance:

Third – help with personal problems
Second – feeling of being involved
First – recognition

If you have people working for you who aren’t in the office every day, communication is absolutely vital. Honest feedback on how you manage this feedback is a good indicator of how you communicate messages to clients and the public in general. Communication, within an organisation, isn’t something you ‘do’: how you communicate is a key part of your business ethos. Are you open and honest? Or are you secretive? Do you micro-manage information? Or is your door open so people can make up their own minds?

What questions might we ask about these remote workers to tap into these motivating factors?

Working from home is often a way of getting someone with a busy personal life – such as a carer, or someone with young children – to keep momentum in their career. These are people for whom things can change quickly. Do you know what is going on in their lives? Is every personal communication with them about bad news? How much flexibility are you able to give them? Are you able to anticipate problems before they happen?

Does the remote worker feel involved in how the organisation is run? Do they understand why they are doing things – or are they presented with a series of unrelated and mysterious tasks? Is there something that they do that annoys them – and that they don’t know is vital?

Finally, how do you reward (other than financially) exceptional service from the remote worker? Can you reach them on social media to say ‘well done’? Is your communication with them about their performance always only negative, or contact made only when they haven’t met expectations? How do you know when they’ve gone the extra mile? And how do you say a warm, personal, timely ‘thank you’ to someone who might be on a different continent?

At PS Programmes, we are committed to helping people improve their communication skills in meetings, in front of audiences and in the media. Remote workers present a special communications problem, and it’s a problem that goes both ways between the employer and employee. As more and more people work from home, how do we recognise, reward, encourage and retain the loyalty of people we rarely see? If the monthly wage is of less importance than our three key motivators, how do employers go beyond being numbers in a bank account and a list of tasks?

We don’t pretend to know the answers, but if you haven’t thought about the questions (perhaps you’re one of Gallup’s bosses who thinks high wages are the chief motivator) you might have a bigger problem than you realise.

It’s tempting, when you focus on the bottom line, to confuse cost with value. We have to remember that seated at another, far-off computer screen is a colleague with ideas of their own.

Support, communication, recognition – hard enough to do in the workplace. The employer who can do it for their remote workers is a rare breed.

This article appears on http://www.nadinedereza.com/ and http://www.presentationskillsprogrammes.co.uk

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Dividing the time zones on land is more straightforward than the problem of working it out at sea, and the 200th anniversary of the original Longitude Prize has been commemorated with a £10million award to whoever solves one of the big problems facing humanity here in 2014. The people have spoken and from a list of big issues from climate change to the search for extra terrestrial intelligence, suggested the money go towards finding a new generation of antibiotics as the ones we have are becoming less effective, leading to MRSA and others claiming lives.

We think this is a bit of a missed step. Not that MRSA isn’t a problem – but it’s being worked on by pharmaceutical companies who are used to spending money on R&D, and for which £10million is a drop in the ocean. It also misses the post that the Prize should go towards smaller, more entrepreneurial outfits. Drug resistant bacteria is a problem that needs to be solved, but it will only be solved in a well funded lab.

One major problem facing humanity is the issue of communication. As Karl Popper said, ‘no sentence is incapable of misinterpretation,’ and as the Voyager spacecraft hurtle out of our solar system, some dissenting voices are beginning to suggest that it might not be such a good idea to advertise the location of our planet in a rather unsophisticated manner to vast, cool intelligences that might be greater than our own.

Before we worry about little green people from outer space, we should think more about how we communicate down here on earth. It’s tough to pitch a friendly-yet-professional introduction to a conference when everyone speaks the same language, let alone when there are some in the audience from a different culture. The French, for example, have a word (‘comme’) which covers ‘like’ and ‘as’. You will appreciate there is a big difference between ‘working like a horse’ and ‘working as a horse.’ And that’s just the tip of an unknowable iceberg.

With big international conferences, there is one major hazard to crossing time zones: jet lag. It’s bad enough when an entire section of the audience keeps nipping out for triple espressos and even then falls asleep in a stairwell during the lunch break. It is perhaps even worse when the facilitator feels the icy hand of sleep gently pushing down the eyelids in the middle of someone’s presentation. Armies across the planet and through history have experimented with substances to keep soldiers alert and fighting for longer than can be expected of a normal body. How long before these products trickle down to the conference room?

To leave you with a little food for thought: ‘circadian rhythm’ is the fancy word for ‘body clock’. We wake when it’s light, sleep when it’s dark, and get hungry in the middle. Virtually every species on the planet has this 24hour rhythm of rest and wakefulness. We only have this because we have evolved on a planet with a 24hour day. Can you imagine the diplomatic nightmare we would face if we encountered an intelligent alien life form with a six-hour day? How will our diplomats cope when the Martians doze off in the middle of our welcome speech? How will the Venusians respond when our diplomats return to their beds eight times a day? ‘These humans,’ they will say, ‘how do they get anything done?’ (Venus has very long day, equal to 243 Earth days!!)

Perhaps the events industry need their own Longitude Prize. If we can solve the jet lag problem now, we may find the technology useful when we make contact with unknowably strange creatures from across the galaxy.

This article appears on http://www.nadinedereza.com/ and http://www.presentationskillsprogrammes.co.uk

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