The MediaCoach

Hi John,

This week I was at Wanstead Library at an event organised by the Wanstead Tap (thanks Dan) and Newham Bookshop (thanks Viv). It was one of the best on-stage chats I have seen in years.
Two folk icons from musical dynasties - Peggy Seeger and Eliza Carthy - spoke about the business of performing, travelling and living through music. It was magnificent. Here are a few lines from Peggy's book:
"You reveal yourself the minute you go on stage. You present who you are, who you have been, and how you want to be thought of. Your behaviour on and off stage tells all to the practiced eye - if you have one persona on stage and another off, that can be tricky, for if these two entities do not work well together they will trudge on like a tired marriage, or one will begin to dominate, or both will make you wonder who you really are. The audience is cannier than you think. They will only be fooled if they want to be fooled. But sometimes they may not know if they've been led down this path or that path until it opens into the clearing when we can all sit down and have the picnic."
Marvellous. Buy the book. It's a wonderful read.

Keeping with the theme of books, I think it is vitally important to preserve our bookshops. One of my local ones, The Newham Bookshop, is having to move from its home after 40 years following redevelopment plans. Luckily they have found a new shop only two doors down, but they need help to make the move. They have launched a Crowdfunder campaign to raise the £25,000 needed. Please help if you can. Thanks.

Every week, I select a MediaMaestro and MediaMug. Sometimes I receive great nominations, and this week my good pal Jeremy Nicholas made two great suggestions. He also has a great ezine and a wonderful comedy show coming up in December - sign up for his wisdom, and go and see him too!

Back to books. I am immensely pleased for Deborah Henley, who has just published her book "Your Leadership Story". I played a small part in its development, and was very honoured when Deborah asked me to write the foreword. Hear all about it in the Media Coach Web Radio Show. There is also a wonderful song from Mick Terry. Go to the iTunes Archive of the MediaCoach Show
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The MediaMaestro award goes jointly this week to two wonderful communicators, both in their 90s, who passed away. Harry Leslie Smith was, in his own words, "Not an academic or a historian. I am just an old man who is a living bridge to your history." He was a tireless campaigner for the NHS, for the poor and vulnerable, against Brexit and Donald Trump, repeatedly on the side of right and good and reason and justice. We also lost Baroness Trumpington, who in World War Two, worked in naval intelligence at Bletchley Park. In a long political career, she was mayor of Cambridge, a Conservative whip and served as a health minister in Margaret Thatcher's government. But she found fame and a place in the nation's heart late in life, flicking a V-sign at a Lord King during a House of Lords debate. What a loss.

The MediaMug Award of the week goes to an Irish football team - BallyBrack FC. They faked a player's death to get a match postponed (I am not making this up). A club official announced the death of Spanish player Fernando Nuno La-Fuente in a traffic accident. Moments of silence were also held before other matches in the Leinster Senior League.The player concerned knew nothing of the scam until he got home from work to find out that he was being commemorated by other teams. He phoned his mother to confirm that he was not in fact dead. An official at the club has resigned, but that may not be the end of the matter!

FIVE THINGS TO DO BEFORE EVERY SPEECH

There are dozens of things you could do before you deliver a speech. Here are five that you must never miss.

1) Check the venue, timing and topic. When I say "check", I also mean "re-check". Always make a call a day or two before you travel to an event to make sure that the details you have are still valid. It can and does happen that an organiser may make some changes at the last minute, and forget to tell a most important person - you.
2) Have several copies of your presentation. If you're using slides, send a copy in advance, upload a copy to the cloud, take a copy on a memory stick, and have a hard copy too. If you're using notes, have hard copy and electronic copies too.

3) Rehearse out loud. Saying the words in your head is not the same as saying them out loud. You need to know how they feel as you say them. Ideally, record your rehearsal in audio and/or video and play it back to check how it looks and sounds.

4) Anticipate delays and plan to arrive early. There are lots of reasons for arriving early, maybe even the day before you speak. You have time to relax, meet the audience, get a feel for the venue and run a technical rehearsal.

5) Meet the introducer. How you are introduced sets the scene for the opening of your speech. Always make sure you speak to the person who will introduce you and hand them a short introduction. Don't let them make it up!

LISTEN WITH YOUR BODY

When you are being interviewed on TV, the camera will often be on you, showing your reaction, while the question is being posed. The viewer will make a judgment about whether you are really listening, whether you are irritated by the question, and whether you know what to say, just from the way that you look. It often tells much more about people than what they actually say.

Of course, you need to listen to the question so that you can answer it in a professional and competent manner. You should also make sure that you look as though you are listening, too. Here are a few tips:

Stillness and respect is what it's about.

IS TWITTER USEFUL FOR SPEAKERS?

Should you be concerned if your audience is tweeting rather than watching you with rapt attention? I realised the other day that I joined Twitter back in April 2007, eleven and a half years ago, so it's high time to consider how useful it's been for me.

Firstly, I find it a great way of doing research. For me, Twitter is the collective brain of the planet, and I can discover the answer to almost any query in minutes. Yes, I have to verify the answers, but several tweets suggesting a similar solution are generally a good guide.

Secondly, it's a great way of building a reputation. I run regular twitter clinics under the tag #prclinic, answering reputation questions. This demonstrates my expertise, helps people, and also shows me what are the hot topics in reputation management.

Thirdly, there's audience engagement. I ask my audiences to put phones to silent (set phasers to stun for the older Star Trek fans) and simply to tweet about my speech. Of course, I take care to use phrases in my speech that are very tweetable. I also take questions at the end of my speech via Twitter, often from outside the room (often from outside the country) because of the Twitter buzz created.

Groucho Marx was a comic genius, even when hosting a game show, as this wonderful clip shows.

You may need some advice.

The information in this ezine may be freely re-used in any online or offline publication, provided it is accompanied by the following credit line - "This information was written by Alan Stevens, and originally appeared in "The MediaCoach", his free weekly ezine, available at www.mediacoach.co.uk."