When I run media relations training seminars, whether for groups — like senior Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials (Department of Homeland Security) or a Maine boatbuilders alliance – or one-on-one with nonprofit and private-sector executives, we talk a lot about AIM, which stands for audience, intent and message. For the Homeland Security types, that means role-playing in situations that evolve from a press release about a new initiative to a “crisis” over, say, a riot in an immigration holding facility.

   That’s the way many of us think about the news media – a bunch of reporters asking questions about a potentially explosive situation. But there’s more, as I saw with the boatbuilders. Preparing for a big show in New York, they wanted to know what questions they might encounter from the press. I put them through a series of one-on-one interviews and press conferences. Out of that exercise they shaped some new marketing messages, points that I told them would appeal to a journalist looking for a “news hook” or fresh ideas that would make a story or broadcast something more than routine coverage of a boat show.

  The same goes for a media relations training session with a nurse who had come up with a combination of aromatic oils that eased the nausea of chemotherapy and pregnancy. Her marketing pitch was straightforward – or so she thought until I started asking questions that any reporter, whose professional toolkit always includes skepticism, would ask. The result: She walked away from the media relations training with a more focused picture of sales-oriented business communication.

   Remember: Most reporters (myself included) don’t get into the business to accumulate wealth. They do it because they’ve got a powerful curiosity about the world around them. That leads to questions, the sort of questions that could help you focus your marketing message.   

Dave Griffiths does freelance writing and freelance editing, as well as training in media relations, business writing, communications skills, presentation skills and business communication. His website is http://www.davegriffithscommunications.com

“According to most studies, people’s Number One fear is public speaking. Number Two is death. That means to the average person, if you go to a funeral, you’re better off in the casket than doing the eulogy.” ~John Steinbeck, novelist

  Was Steinbeck talking about you? Is that an accurate reflection of your self-confidence when it comes to presentation skills or public speaking? If he was, I’ve got some advice: Think about a speech as a conversation between two intelligent people who care about effective communication. I find that when I take that approach, I’m not an actor all alone up there on a stage. Instead, I’m more of a partner in a dialogue that takes on energy and depth thanks to partners who listen and work with me.

  In a conversation, avoiding eye contact would be rude, wouldn’t it? So why would you lower the lights and keep turning away from your partner to look at a PowerPoint presentation on a screen behind you?

  I’ve already ranted about PowerPoint (see the July 13 posting below), so there’s no need to be so negative again. Any good conversation is two-way, a give-and-take, a natural form of communication skills that benefits both parties. Of course, with a speech, you have to start out by doing most of the talking. But everything you say should be directed at encouraging questions from audience members and a conversation among them. If you start by standing up and speaking, then find yourself facilitating a lively discussion, congratulate yourself. You can add public speaking to your growing list of communication skills.

Dave Griffiths does freelance writing and freelance editing, as well as training in media relations, business writing, communications skills, presentation skills and business communication. His website is http://www.davegriffithscommunications.com

“I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see and what it means.” Joan Didion, author

  You have to appreciate that insight. The third pillar of effective communication skills — along with audience awareness and editing/revising (quality control) — is the premise that writing is thinking. Once you grasp that advantage and put it to use, writing is no longer the intimidating exercise wherein you plaintively wonder, “How do I start?” or “What do I say next?” Now it becomes an opportunity to find out how smart you are and display that intelligence to your readers.

  Writing is the gift of time. Let me offer an example from the world of business communication. Suppose you work for a software company. You’re lingering at the coffee pot. Suddenly, your boss looms into view. She’s wrestling with a request from a difficult and demanding client (XYZ Inc.). She asks your opinion.

  “Uh-oh,” you think. The boss is pouring coffee. She doesn’t have all day. Don’t blow it. You blurt out something about having met one of XYZ’s senior managers at a reception and you think that approaching them about a new tweak in your firm’s latest software might answer their needs. Your boss stirs in a spoonful of sugar, nods and walks away. Knowing her, within the hour she’ll ask the same question of several of your colleagues.

  That all-too-brief encounter leaves you in a dither that lasts for days. Why didn’t I tell her about the solution that worked for another client six months ago? Why didn’t I mention that email I got from an old college buddy who just left XYZ? What was I thinking?

  Imagine the boss sending you an email detailing XYZ’s request and asking your opinion. Now you’ve got time to think it through, don’t you? Now you’ve got a chance to shine, a chance to display the communication skills of a consummate professional.

Take care,

Dave

Dave Griffiths does freelance writing and freelance editing, as well as media relations training, writing training, presentation skills training and business communication training. His website is http://www.davegriffithscommunications.com

Hello. That’s right. Down with PowerPoint and all such technology that gets between the speaker and the audience. Effective business communication – which I teach via writing training and presentation skills training and media relations training — begins and ends with a physical connection.

  Sure, these days you can learn virtually anything over the Internet, but if you want to really embrace a subject and get all you can out of an experienced instructor or speaker or presenter, wouldn’t you rather watch him or her as you listen? Wouldn’t you appreciate the chance to raise your hands and ask questions? Isn’t it much more stimulating to build from that one-on-one into a host of questions and ideas shared with the rest of the audience? Live spontaneity can seed some creative collective thinking. 

  So what does PowerPoint do to that on-site physical connection? All too often, it dampens the effect of your message. The lights go down, diminishing eye contact. The speaker turns away from you to read from the screen, which is often filled with deadly boring charts and print too small to read unless you’re sitting close to the front.

  There’s much more when it comes to presentation skills training and effective communications skills, but I do want to say one more thing. My distaste for PowerPoint doesn’t extend to all props. If you move from the podium to a whiteboard or flip chart to jot down salient points as you make them, your listeners follow you with their eyes. You’ve involved them in your message. They get the point.

Take care,

Dave

Dave Griffiths is a professional writer and editor, and he does freelance writing and freelance editing, as well as media relations training, writing training, presentation skills training and business communication training. His website is http://www.davegriffithscommunications.com

Greetings once again. As I noted in a recent blog, reporters and the editors and TV producers who drive them can be an obnoxious lot — nosy, impatient and often competing fiercely to yell out a question aimed at pinning down some poor politician or bureaucrat or coach or overpaid athlete in a glare of unwelcome publicity.

Well, it’s all true. There’s no denying that. It’s what we do. And we’re not out to make anyone look good, either. As the humorist P.J. Rourke puts it, “Journalists aren’t supposed to praise things. It’s a violation of work rules almost as serious as buying drinks with our own money or absolving the CIA of something.”

Sounds harsh, doesn’t it? But there’s an element of human nature to that behavior. When I do media relations training, especially if I’m focusing on effective communication via presentation skills training in mock press conferences, the trainees who act as reporters get a huge kick out of nailing the guys or gals gripping the podium as they try to answer shouted questions.

But remember this: The most professional of journalists — and I include by far most of that lot I’ve known in 35 years — are driven by one powerful motivation. What tops their agenda is not “getting” someone or pushing a certain political point-of-view. No, what spurs them is promoting themselves. That’s their real agenda — promotion, more pay and recognition from their peers. And they won’t achieve that if their work is sloppy, biased and inaccurate.

When you think about it, that description fits a lot of jobs, doesn’t it?

So keep in mind the famous dictum of 19th-century New York newspaper editor Charles Dana, who wanted his reporters to look for the “man bites dog” story, not its mundane opposite.

What are your thoughts?

Dave

Dave Griffiths is a professional writer and editor, and he does freelance writing and freelance editing, as well as media relations training, writing training, presentation skills training and business communication training. His website is http://www.davegriffithscommunications.com