The curse of tiny microphones

The rights and wrongs of what Andy Gray and Richard Keys clearly did say to each other about a female assistant referee are for others to judge.  What concerns me is the saga’s lesson for Presentation Skills, in that it highlights once again the curse of ‘tiny microphones’.

Now I don’t even know what kind of microphone picked up the conversation that has already cost Gray his job, but the failsafe rule for broadcasters is that you can never be sure of having a completely private conversation while in a studio environment.  For presentations in the business environment I advise people to opt for a lapel mic whenever possible because you can then speak without having to worry unduly about microphone technique; in fact it’s so unobtrusive that you forget you even have a mic.  That, unfortunately is also its biggest danger point – we have all heard back stage whispers or even flushing toilets being broadcast loud and clear to everyone when microphones have been left on.  And if you have ever used such a device you will know that they are fiddly to turn off and it’s even quite hard to be sure you have succeeded in switching it off.

This is one of the many topics that I cover in Presentation Magic, my forthcoming book on Presentation Skills (incorporating the Rules of Magic)  and I am now cursing tiny microphones myself because when I submitted the text to Marshall Cavendish in early January I thought I had a nice topical angle on the subject.  Remember, I said: 1) there is no ‘off mic’ facility with lapels mics and, most of all: 2) switch it off as soon as you have finished.   Those of us in the UK, I continued, now have an easy way to remember this – we simply think ‘Don’t do a Gordon Brown’; I then go to explain to my foreign readership how our former PM came a cropper over a voter he described in the apparent safety of his car as a ‘bigoted woman’.

Sadly it seems that few lessons have been learned, even by those working in front of microphones all day.  Those tiny little mics are so beautifully unobtrusive that we really do forget about them.  Maybe the only way to be completely safe is to appoint your own ‘Microphone Minder’!

‘Quite a lot’ to learn about Presentation Skills from Paul Daniels’ wig sale

What can Paul Daniels’ wig sale teach us about Presentation Skills?  ‘Not a lot’, you might think, except that any kind of male wig is best avoided, especially when you’re in the public eye.  Let’s face it, of all his illusions, Daniels’ hair was always the least convincing.

As Public Relations Officer to The Magic Circle, I was caught up this week in the media interest that surrounded Daniels' decision to add one of his wigs as a lot (notalot? – no, we’ve already done that one) on an eBay auction of his old magical props and equipment.  The Sunday Telegraph spotted Tweets by Daniels that were designed to alert magicians to his latest sale.  In a bid to make a story out of this they quizzed me extensively on Friday afternoon and again on Saturday morning as to whether this broke The Magic Circle’s secrecy rules.  Neither my insistence that it did not break the rules, nor Daniels declining initially to comment, stopped them striving to make the story stand up.  Then, early on Saturday afternoon Daniels made a rather mischievous move – he added one of his old wigs to the auction and posted a picture of himself wearing it. 

Spotting this, I texted the Sunday Telegraph to alert them to the latest lot.  NOW there is a story, I said, hoping to deflect them from the secrecy angle, but knowing it was really more tabloid fare.  By this time The Sunday Telegraph had commissioned a political cartoon on the topic and a lighthearted leader comment so they weren’t going to back off.  Furthermore, it was getting a little late for Sunday deadlines, so the wig angle crept into the story as a bit of an afterthought. 

I thought the tabloids would jump on this and my Sunday afternoon would be spent fielding calls.  In fact, everything remained quiet and it stayed that way on Monday, with bids for the wig reaching no more than £53.  Finally, on Tuesday the media woke up to what had been under their noses for some while and the story ran in the Daily Mail, the Sun, the Star and many others, with the wig as a lead and some of my original comments about the magic props tacked on at the end.  William Hill were even offering odds on Lay Gaga wearing the wig at the Grammy Awards. By Wednesday afternoon bids for the wig had moved into the four-figure bracket.

Clearly, there are plenty of PR handling issues here, but I am mainly focused these days on Presentation Skills.  I always say to the people I am training that you need some kind of a ‘device’ that attracts attention initially and then fixes a distinct memory of you in the minds of your audience.  This device, I say, can be very simple and I point to Michael Grade and his red socks.  When he went to America he was unknown and he soon realized he needed a way to fix himself in the minds of his targets, so he took to wearing red socks.  This was considered at the time to be a rather eccentric Brit trait so it was distinctive.  And it did the trick; he would call people and his British accent would get him over the first hurdle.  Then they would say: “I know you, you’re the guy with the red socks”.  Job done! 

We’re talking differentiators here and the need for such a device becomes particularly acute when you are pitching for business.  As I moved from the PR world into the training arena I did some work advising clients on their choice of PR consultancy and as a starting point I recommended they visit several contenders in their own offices.  That way my clients could get a feel for the people and culture at different consultancies before inviting a small selection to visit their own office to make a pitch.  My clients dutifully came to town and called in to see the consultancies on my list and I then called the next day to hear their initial reactions.  What invariably happened was that they remembered one person and one fact from each place they had visited and then got everything else muddled up!  The reason for this was that, realistically, there was little to differentiate one offering from another.  Had one of them employed a simple device to ‘fix’ themselves in the minds of their potential new client they could have been ahead of the game. 

And that’s what Paul Daniels finally achieved by adding his wig to his eBay auction.  For three years he has been busily selling all kinds of magical apparatus on eBay without anyone paying much attention.  Now the world at large knows that he is an active EBay seller and they will remember the fact – and talk about it – for some time to come.  Furthermore, it also achieves what a really good differentiating device should – it says something about the person or organization concerned.  Arguably Daniels wigs said rather too much about him in the days that he actually wore them.  What the wig sale says now – in addition to attracting attention and fixing a memory – is that here is a man alive and well and prepared to share a laugh at his own expense.  And this comes at a time when – with magic back on prime time TV for the first time since Daniels’ last shows in 1994 - perceptions of the man could easily have been more along the lines of ‘sad old has-been’.  Good on you Paul! 

William & Kate miss a vital trick in construction of their big ‘Presentation’ on April 29

The Royal Family is really all about Presentation Skills and they tend to be rather good at big show pieces – because they have stuck to the same formula and had hundreds of years of practice – but fare less well at all the communication that goes on between the big events.

One of their biggest showpieces for many years comes up on April 29^th with the Royal Wedding.  This is the Royal Family’s big opportunity to stake its claim to a relevant role in the 21^st century.  As such, it has potential to make much greater impact than anything we do in 2012 to look back at the 60 years of the current monarch’s reign.

The big day itself is, however, just the icing on the cake.  As I always say to the business people I coach in Presentation Skills, Construction is just as important as Delivery and, indeed, Delivery becomes so much easier and more effective if proper attention has been paid to the Construction process.

So all the work they are doing currently will be vital to the ultimate and lasting success of the Royal Wedding and thus far they are doing rather well on the Construction process. 

•    They appear to be keeping things relatively simple, with plans such as Kate Middleton’s arrival by car rather than glass coach serving to underline that. 

•   They have anticipated issues such as the cost of the wedding in the midst of a recession, with suitable comments from official spokespeople and a clear and early indication that the two families will be shouldering many of the costs.   Furthermore, this has been done without overstressing.

•   They are demonstrating a fair degree of independence from the protocol mongers at Buckingham Palace, which brings some fresh air to the process and added conviction to what they say.

•   They have even cleverly anticipated the inevitable – in this case memories of, and comparisons with, Diana.  The revelation that Prince William had given Diana’s ring to Kate initially caused a slight shock, but in retrospect it was a good move.  I say to those I am coaching: if there is something that is inevitably going to be on the minds of your audience, then address it upfront so as to clear the issue out of the way and move on.  While memories of Diana will inevitably be looming in the weeks ahead and on the day itself, we are already past the ‘awkward’ stage – there is no ‘elephant in the room’.

All that said, there is one simple and highly effective strategic opportunity that they have failed to grasp.  And it is going to haunt them more and more as we get closer to the date and for some time afterwards.   As soon as the wedding was announced commentators were confidently predicting it would be held on Friday because that has always been the way with Royal Weddings.  And sure enough, that proved to be correct, the only slight surprise being that they were wisely going for a fairly early date. 

The moment the date was confirmed, however, debate started as to whether it would – and indeed should - be a public holiday.  Times have moved on since a big Royal event automatically triggered a day off and we have the big matter of a global recession to deal with.  It’s all too easy to come up with vast calculations about production lost, the legality of being able to enforce a day off, and much more besides.  All kinds of anomalies will emerge and those working in the Royal Palaces are already reportedly feeling disgruntled because they will not be getting the day off.  The government needed to make a quick announcement about the extra Bank Holiday and they seemed rather on the back foot as they made largely unquantifiable suggestions about it being a great morale booster for everyone in the UK, as well as a tonic for our tourism industry.

To compound the potential for unrest about the extra Bank Holiday – and we have only seen the start of it so far – quirks of the Easter calendar mean that we are going to be simply bombarded with holidays from late April onwards, with some children not even going back to school until May.  This really should have been the deciding factor – William and Kate could have made it so much better for themselves – and the rest of us – if one of their welcome breaks with tradition had been to plump for a Saturday!  We could still have joined in their celebrations but without all the moaning and groaning that I can just see coming over the horizon.

BBC excels in presentation of Miriam O'Reilly ageism story

From a presentation point of view the BBC has handled the Miriam O’Reilly ageism story in exemplary fashion.

·      It showed great openness in giving plenty of coverage to the story, to the extent of broadcasting live from O’Reilly’s press conference.

·      It offered an unqualified apology – “we got it wrong”, together with an offer of work in the future.  Those moves went a long way to taking the wind of the O’Reilly team’s sails at the press conference.

·      The apology came direct from Alan Yentob, no less.  What’s more it came very quickly – clearly the BBC has learned some lessons here.

·      Footage of O’Reilly broadcasting was juxtaposed with that of her successors, allowing viewers to draw their own conclusions.

·      Crucially, the opposing view was left in hands of respected broadcaster and ageism victim Nick Ross.  Again, he was readily available in a timely, clear and rather charming manner.

It’s good to see the BBC planning and executing the presentation of a difficult situation so well. It’s also reassuring to see a tiny bit of mischief creeping in.  Somehow, the big blow up of Miriam O’Reilly that they used as a backdrop in news reports seemed rather more wrinkled in appearance than many of the alternatives that must have been available!