The blog was lucky enough to meet David Maister while David was still writing his first books about managing and promoting service businesses.
Maister was then at Harvard Business School and had come to Montreal to run a two day workshop for the WORLDCOM Group of which the blog’s firm was then a member. This by the way was not the telco WORLDCOM group but was a network of independent PR companies around the world.
Something the industry has needed for many years – a longitudinal study of public relations practice around the world – is going to be launched later this year.
The study will be a joint venture by the Global Alliance for Public Relations and Communication Management (GA) and the Strategic Communication and Public Relations Centre at the University of Southern California (USC) Annenberg School for Communications and Journalism.
It’s easy to be ambivalent about presentation training because of its tendency to homogenise outputs. At its best it helps people package their thoughts in effective ways and make speeches more comprehensible and enjoyable for audiences. At its worst it makes speakers sound like rejects from some Dale Carnegie school.
The blog is appearing on a panel at the mUmBRELLA360 (http://mumbrella360.com.au/) conference next week June 5 and 6.
We are part of a panel called First Against the Wall: surviving the media revolution. Other participants are Kate Mills, Fairfax; Sam Walch, AFL Media; Richard Carr JWT; and, moderator Vanessa Liell of n2n communications. After a teleconference last week which involved a preliminary chat about what we might talk about it was interesting to see the extent of disagreement and agreement on various issues. The blog was also flattered by mumbrella’s plug for the blog but a bit dismayed by their knowledge of PR history. (http://mumbrella360.com.au/panel-to-discuss-how-to-survive-the-media-revolution-3453).
Passion, sincerity and authenticity make for a good speech as the blog mentioned (22/5/13) in the context of the recent Anzac Day speech by Dr Brendan Nelson, Australian War Memorial Director, which rather failed to display any of those qualities.
There are also a number of technical rhetorical devices, known from ancient times, which also help although over-use of the formulas can make speeches seem too formal and contrived. The history of these techniques, and speech-writing generally, is discussed in more detail on this site in the review (under Articles and Reviews) of Don Watson’s book Recollections of a Bleeding Heart.
Recently the blog heard a speech delivered in which the speaker spoke without notes, had a well-ordered and well-thought out presentation and interspersed it all with evocative (indeed potentially moving) quotes from historical figures. Was it a good speech? Well actually it was very ordinary.
The speaker was Dr Brendan Nelson, Australian War Memorial Director, at the Wheeler Centre’s April debate on whether Anzac Day was more puff than substance. The blog previewed the debate (24/4/13) in an item. The video of the debate can now be seen at http://wheelercentre.com/videos/video/intelligence-squared-debate-anzac-day-is-more-puff-than-substance/ so readers can judge for themselves.
The current US controversy about the IRS targeting political groups obscures a number of important issues. First, using the IRS to target political groups – particularly liberal or leftist groups – has been the norm for much of the 20th and 21st centuries. Second, while the IRS actions are outrageous, whatever the groups’ political leanings, the waters have been muddied by the way various conservative groups have recently been exploiting the Supreme Court’s decision to allow open slather on corporate and other funding of political action campaigns. Third, the increasing lack of clarity and transparency in US election and campaign funding.
The release of the latest Australia Bureau of Statistics (ABS) Census data puts into context why many PR and ad campaigns fail – they are simply not directed towards the real Australia.
Despite some efforts from government and an increasing number of advertisers who use more realistic images in ads, too many campaigns still focus on the traditional nuclear family and ignore the profound changes going on in Australia. You can read the Census data in detail at www.abs.gov.au but most people would have focussed on the initial Census release media coverage and its angle – the average Australian is a 37 year old woman with two children who is likely to work in a sales position – which might mean that iconic representations of lean Australian males in Akubras will disappear the way that market segment actually largely disappeared a while ago. Yet what is most interesting is the growth in categories which don’t fit the stereotype promulgated by, for instance, political campaigning.
One of the most prominent individuals in the fight against the Google Books project, the historian Robert Darnton, has also been a key proponent of a major free alternative – the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA). The first stage of the project is now up and running and available at http://dp.la/.
Sanity in politics?
Perhaps there is some sanity in parts of the Anglosphere. Well at least the beginning of it. Both parties in the UK, mainly Labour but also the Tories, have finally woken up to the fact that Germany might be a good source of information about how to run a successful economy.
For much of the past few decades the conventional wisdom in the US, the UK, Australia (and some places like Chile under Pinochet) was about the unparalleled benefits of de-regulation, encouraging the finance sector and generally behaving as if Hayek and Thatcher were not a theorist and politician respectively but the author of a sacred text and a messiah come to proclaim it. However, according to de Spiegel there is a growing interest in the UK about what they have got right in Germany. The following was published before the recent Queen’s Speech, which seems to have been concept tested in a few bars full of tweedy men and horsey women somewhere in the Home Counties, but it might be an indicator of a new approach. http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/britain-increasingly-regarding-germany-as-an-economic-role-model-a-898399.html