HUNT FOR THE TOP BUSINESS SPEAKER.

AND THE WINNER IS...  Excitement mounts as the quest begins to find UK's Business Speaker of the Year 2012. A close study of the rules reveals - amazingly - there isn't anything which bars Australians from entering. So I've taken the first step towards winning, which is to record a 60-second video clip speaking to a camera. My glamorous producers and directors at Osmium Films have kindly put it on Youtube: My theme - and that of the seven-minute speech I deliver if making it to the finals - is about the importance of communication in today's business world. Of course winning a tough competition like this is a collective effort. In return for a potential mention in the acceptance speech, here's how you can help: 1. Check out the Youtube clip and, if you're really carried away, "like" it. 2. Email me comments about what you think should be in the scintillating seven-minute version which is required for live delivery if I make the finals. 3. If you're a better business speaker than me (you know who you are!) then please don't enter the contest. 4. Book me to speak at your conference, company or dinner so I get plenty of practice. SPEAKING OPTIONS FOR YOUR NEXT EVENT If you're deeply moved by this final point, the speaking options for your conference include: # GIVING GREAT ANSWERS TO TOUGH QUESTIONS: Preparing your people to deal brilliantly with nightmare questions from your customers, prospects, suppliers and financiers. # BECOMING INSPIRATIONAL BUSINESS COMMUNICATORS: Allowing your people to understand the impact they have on all those they interact with - and getting their message across with punch. # HAVE I GOT NEWS FOR YOUR COMPANY: Ensuring your people know what to do if something bad happens. This can involve pre-prepared mock news footage of your worst media nightmare - or something slightly less serious - hitting your organisation. # MASTERING THE MEDIA WITH BALLS: Equipping your people to boost the organisation's media profile by spotting good stories you might not be aware of - and discovering how to respond to journalists, bloggers, tweeters and undercover reporters they encounter: Mastering The Media With Balls # TALES AND TIPS FROM SIX CONTINENTS: Bizarre stories and advice garnered from things going wrong while working as a journalist and communications advisor around the world. This is for after-dinner speaking slots, and includes encounters with the East European communist secret police while working as a foreign correspondent before, during and after the collapse of the Berlin Wall.   NINE-YEAR-OLD MARTHA BEATS THE BIG WIGS The past few days has seen a ripsnorting story emerge from the back blocks of Scotland - which underlines the growing power of social media. It also shows the potential benefits of media training, which enables people inside an organisation to see for themselves - before it's too late - how their actions will come across to the outside world. I suspect that the leaders of Argyll and Bute Council haven't had any media training - or they weren't paying attention when they did it. The council leaders have been forced into an embarrassing but predictable climbdown after they took aim at nine-year-old Martha Payne.Martha's crime was that she was writing a blog illustrated with arrestingly stark pictures she takes of her daily school meals. In the finest traditions of balanced journalism, Martha didn't always condemn the meals and was even known to award them 10 out of 10 on her "Food-o-meter" system. But there were times when she slammed the meals - and her pictures (one reproduced below which we hope Martha won't mind us showing) indicating the offerings at Lochgilphead Primary School sometimes appear less than scrumptious.   The council banned Martha from taking pictures of her lunches - ungallantly accusing her of making "unwarranted attacks" on the meals "which have led catering staff to fear for their jobs". With the help of an outraged Twittersphere, Martha's photography and her "Never Seconds" blog lives on. The number of hits on her blog has soared past 5-million. The council has now done what it should have offered in the first instance - invited Martha and her schoolmates to work with a celebrity chef to improve the school meals while promising to overhaul its communications department. Here's hoping some really effective media training for council boffins is included in the mix. ADVANCE MEDIA TESTING YOUR POSITION Seeing yourselves back on a big screen when answering questions about your actions has a supremely useful - and at times sobering - effect. One of the things it shows is that it's not always just a matter of saying things in the best possible way...though that certainly can help a lot. Sometimes the media training process shows up the fact that an idea, policy or practice is fundamentally wrong. I realised this in one of my first media training projects some years back where I was invited in to a fancy Central London studio to ask the bosses of an energy company whatever I liked. My natural instinct was to ask them questions predominantly from an environmental perspective. Part way through the first studio interview the chief executive called for the cameras to stop. He said the company clearly needed an environmental policy - something they didn't have. He and his leadership team then took time out of the session to hold a meeting to discuss the formulation of such a policy. The media training was declared a success - because they discovered that it wasn't just a matter of having the right pre-prepared phrases for the camera. The upper echelons of Argyll and Bute Council have just learned this the hard way...as voters like Martha's now famous Dad may remind them in the next council election.  A PRIZE FOR THE LOSER Having said this, I have started to almost feel sorry for the council leader Roddy McCuish as he gives grovelling media interviews apologising over how his team got it totally wrong. One sign that he is feeling rather dispirited by the experience is the way he's standing in television interviews. His arms are straight down by his sides in something I call the "Firing Squad" position - as if he's tied up ready to be shot (as pictured here on tv).   When you're talking on TV or addressing to a live audience, it looks so much better to have your arms up and apart with your hands open rather than down straight by your sides. It may sound trivial, but how you look and how you sound when presenting to audiences matters hugely. People judge you - consciously or unconsciously - very quickly on such matters, and if you don't get the body language right it impedes your ability to get your message across. So in thanks to the grisly entertainment which Roddy McCuish has given the world, I'm happy to offer him a free place on "Presenting with Confidence, Impact and Pizzazz" on Monday 30 July in Central London...if he's prepared to make the journey south. For everyone else, the early bird offer on this open course is still available until the end of this month at: http://www.michaeldoddmedia.com/presentation_training.php By the way, lunch is included - and on the basis of the last two open courses I've run at the Royal Institute for British Architects - it will pass any Food-o-meter test. In fact, Martha is welcome to come, photograph and blog about it. Keep smiling, Michael