We’re often asked how our Zoom and Teams meetings and training sessions here at ACM are funkier than most. So here’s the answer! Our chief geek (and media and communication coach) Richard Uridge runs through the kit we’ve put together to make our online courses visually stimulating.
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The first in the “Z to A of Presenting” (because why start at A when everyone does)? In this Halloween-themed episode Richard Uridge explains how a simple sticky can help you keep your audience engaged. Watch to the very end if you want the full, scary surprise.
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Original writing is just that. Something new. Something that’s never been written before. And, by extension, something that’s never been read before. That’s not to say it’s any good. Original writing can be crap.
So why on earth would we want to use copy and paste? If the writing we’re copying is, indeed, crap we’re just adding to the dung heap. And if it’s any good we’re, at the very least, guilty of being unoriginal.
Whilst they have their uses those two keyboard shortcuts stifle creativity. So use them sparingly. Or, as this article in the Guardian suggests, be more like the actor Tom Hanks and use a typewriter instead.
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We advise clients on our emergency planning and crisis communications courses to gaze at the horizon and draw up a list of bad things that could happen. And then, in the name of preparedness, to map against that list the key messages their nominated spokespeople would deliver via the media should those things happen. Saves a lot of time and effort scrabbling around for what to say and who to say it mid-crisis.
Most come up with the obvious: floods; fires; financial irregularities. Many have now added pestilence (aka Covid-19) to their Four Horsemen of the Corporate Apocalypse risk registers. But I’d wager not one organisation anywhere has a plan for what to do when their reputation takes a hit from a six foot rainbow-coloured monkey with bare breasts, buttocks and a clip on willy. I mean why bother? It’s not going to happen is it? Too off the wall…
Except that’s exactly what happened to a local authority. Said primate turned up at a reading event for children. Yes, for children! And I don’t mean randomly or mischievously gate crashing proceedings uninvited, causing red faces out of the blue as it were. I mean actually booked to appear in all its semi-naked glory. So you can imagine it caused quite a heads-must-roll kerfuffle, quickly spilling over from social to print and broadcast media. Politics being what it is the affair even trended on Twitter for a time giving the council’s head of communications pink kittens (if you’ll excuse the mixed animal metaphor).
I won’t add to the council’s embarrassment by naming it here. My purpose is simply to ask: what’s the lesson – beyond the trite expect the unexpected?
Strikes me that although the specifics of the case are so bizarre as to be wholly unpredictable, it does fit into a category that one could loosely call offence caused but not intended. The mayor having a wardrobe malfunction at a civic function might also fit into this category along with a council flyer containing a double entendre that the sub editors missed. The idea is you work out in the planning phase what to say in these kinds of cases. Then at least you have a working set of generic key messages that can be tweaked to fit the specifics. Quicker than starting from scratch.
So here are my generic key messages for OCBNI (horrible acronym alert – offence caused but not intended) situations with suggested quotes for the specific situation in italics:
*I’d be inclined to omit the bit in brackets depending on the tone of the interview/interviewer and the nature of the audience.
This article originally appeared on my LinkedIn profile but with the word penis redacted because I didn’t want to cause offence! But, of course, if I have here I am truly sorry…
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One of the downsides of self-guided online learning is that without the live interaction of face-to-face training you can’t ask your trainer questions as you go along. So we’ve launched a new service at ACM Training called “Ask the Owls” to complement our Thinkific courses. The idea is you ask questions about media, communication and professional development issues and our experts (the owls) do their very best to provide the answers.
Here our media trainer, Richard Uridge, answers a question emailed to asktheowls@acmtraining.co.uk by a delegate on one of his courses who wants to know if it’s possible to be ready for an interview in under five minutes.
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Whether you’re sitting a self-guided course at your own pace or taking part in a live trainer-led session, asking questions during online training is (or at least seems to be) a whole heap harder than it was in the days of face-to-face learning. So our AskTheOwls service is designed to make asking questions simple and bridge the gap between old and new delivery methods.
In this short video our media and comms expert (owl), Richard Uridge, answers a question emailed to asktheowls@acmtraining.co.uk by a university professor who’s often asked to comment on issues that aren’t quite her area of expertise and wants to know if giving an interview in these circumstances is a good or bad idea.
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A lot of presentation skills trainers are saying we need to be much more animated presenting online via Zoom and MSTeams than was the case when working face-to-face. In this short clip I argue against such an approach. I reckon the skills of an online presenter are more like those of a screen actor than a stage actor. Smaller, more suble movements and facial expressions are the key. Not grand gestures for the people in the cheap seats at the back of a theatre auditorium. Why? Because you are in their face. Or certainly no further than an arm’s length away.
Step away from the PowerPoint. Close the Keynote. When you’re preparing a presentation – online or face-to-face – resist the urge to start creating content too soon. It’s a receipe for failure. And a mistake too many of us make.
Here I am murdering the English language and inventing at least two new words in my mission to help us all become better presenters. We should think of ourselves as storytellers and structure our presentations in the same way as a writer constructs and unputdownable book.
“If your presentation doesn’t work for your audience it won’t work for you.”
Richard Uridge, ACM Training
