WHY YOU MUST EXPLAIN!  With the London Olympics looming, there's been a smorgasbord of appalling and excellent communications skills on public display. The early gold medal winner in the appalling category is Nick Buckles - a man who has lived up to what his name promises. Mr Buckles is the chief executive (for now) of the security contractor G4S which has had to admit that its contractual obligation to provide 10,000 Olympic security guards won't be met. When called before a parliamentary committee to answer some obvious and predictable questions, Mr Buckles acknowledged that his company's provision of only 4,200 of these staff was a "humiliating shambles". As discussed in the last ezine, telling the truth and showing humility are to be commended in such circumstances. But when admitting to something damaging or saying something controversial you need to couple it with a more positive message. This could be to say what you're doing to fix the problem - or putting it in a wider context. Mr Buckles totally failed to do this when asked a killer question by the committee about whether his company would still be claiming its management fee of £57-million on the project which it clearly hasn't properly managed. Controversially Mr Buckles said it would all be claimed - not something which went down well with committee members or taxpayers.  Mr Buckles had no justifying message or apology to accompany this answer - which is why he comes out of the exchange so badly.  Whether you are going to appear before a parliamentary committee - or you have to face challenging questions from prospects, customers, staff or financiers - there are techniques to ensure you come out better than Nick Buckles. The next open session of "Give Great Answers To Tough Questions" is scheduled for Friday 7 September in Central London. And the next open session of "Perfecting Your Elevator Pitch" runs later the same day. Details of the soon-to-expire early bird offer are at: http://www.michaeldoddmedia.com/presentation_training.php

KEEPING IT IN PERSPECTIVE    Meanwhile one man who has been around the running track and the media track more than a few times is doing a better job at putting the London Olympics in perspective. Gold medal runner and now Olympic organising supremo Sebastian Coe has made a couple of excellent fightbacks at a time when sections of the media are hunting just a bit too hard to find things going wrong.  Sebastian Coe winning gold in the Olympic 1500 metres in Moscow I was alerted to this when London's LBC Radio Station interviewed me to get my take on "news" that some Australian and American athletes had a delayed and circuitous coach journey from Heathrow Airport to the Olympic village. This was being portrayed in some quarters as a massive scandal rather than an unfortunate minor mishap. I predicted on air that the athletes (at least the rugged Australian ones) would get over it pretty quickly. And I advocated that - given the rare privilege of being in a city which is hosting the Olympics for the third time - we folk in London should guard against seeking out the teeniest things going wrong and blowing them out of proportion. Sebastian Coe did a much better job than me of making this same point the next day. "Out of 100 journeys, one coach driver missed a turning" was the way he successfully took on the "tall poppy syndrome" which seeks to unfairly drag down successful people and institutions. He went on to highlight the scale of the task facing Olympic organisers, saying "This is the ability to stage in 19 days in this city 26 simultaneous world championships." Lord Coe has sewn a bit of confusion by imprecise answers about whether the sponsorship rules will allow people to wear Pepsi shirts to an event backed by Coca-Cola, so he hasn't won communication gold yet. But he is showing some early medal-winning form in the Olympic media stakes. TURNING AROUND PERCEPTIONS OF YOUR SCHOOL Schools can get a rough time in the local media. Often this can be quite unfair, if one of the laws of bad journalism takes hold. The law states the first duty of the media is "to reinforce existing prejudices". The consequence of this is that where schools make a heroic and successful effort to turn around poor standards and results, it can go unrecognised. I've had the privilege in recent years of working with over a hundred head teachers and other education leaders to show them what they can do to more effectively convey positive impressions through the media - and to put things in perspective when something goes wrong. One school in particular has stuck in my mind for achieving a massive and rapid reputational turnaround. It's the Freeston Academy, located in the former mining area of Normanton in Yorkshire. When I visited the school last year it had just learned that plans for a large and much-needed building programme had been scrapped as part of government cutbacks. But despite this, there remained an overwhelmingly positive spirit in the school, demonstrated by the impressive work in all subjects spectacularly displayed on the classroom and corridor walls. However the achievements and spirit within the school weren't being reflected in the newspaper coverage outside. This reinforced a view of some parents in the potential catchment zone that the school hadn't improved since their time at the place, and that they therefore wouldn't want their own children to go there. So the school feared a drop in enrolments which would lead to unaffordable cuts in funding. I spent a day at the school working with the inspirational head teacher, Dr Gill Metcalfe, her senior staff and governors. We practised how to deal with conversations with sceptical parents and pupils, and how to convey positive points in media interviews. Freeston team members threw themselves into the task of coming up with positive messages they wanted to convey - and building a "Treasure Chest" of stories which they could use to illustrate their points in conversations and interviews. They came up with the idea of making "message cards" with punchy slogans such as "The right attitude brings the right results". These were backed up with examples on the reverse of the card with specifics about former pupils such as: "Louise Whiteley has started a course in Biological Science at Girton College, University of Cambridge, after achieving A-star in her A levels. She recently completed a 12-day trek in the Himalayas as part of her world challenge community project." Dr Metcalfe is pictured here with some of her students holding up the cards which were distributed throughout the Normanton community.    Freeston Academy now has an expanding collection of dozens of positive articles which have been run after learning how to write effective press releases and produce attention-grabbing photos. "Basically it's a mindset change," says Dr Metcalfe. "No longer do I think of media contact as an inconvenience, but as something I feel more confident to tackle and try to make it into a positive for our Academy. "The impact of our campaign is being seen in an increase of twenty students, plus a public perception that the school is definitely on an upward trend." So Gill Metcalfe's advice to other schools: "I would suggest having your Treasure Chest of good news stories always and hand, and be ready with a positive attitude to seize the moment." BOOSTING YOUR CHANCES IN JOB AND UNIVERSITY INTERVIEWS There's one more thing schools can do to boost the prospects of their pupils. And that's to equip them with skills to shine out in interviews for their first job or that university place. Having sat on selection panels for university places, it can be quite disturbing to watch how some pupils shoot themselves in both feet - while others can make a lot of themselves notwithstanding less-than-impressive results. My colleague in the training world - Jane-Emma Peerless (pictured below) - reports much the same story in the business scene after conducting countless job interviews.    Together we can help schools maximise their pupils' prospects by showing how to prepare their CVs and covering letters - and how to showcase themselves at their best in those challenging early interviews. Just as with media interviews, presenting yourself at your best is a learnable skill which can boost prospects hugely. And practice interviews - and real ones - become far more comfortable when you know what you're doing.  PRESENTING BETTER THAN GEORGE Showing yourself at your best is also something we do in sessions of "Presenting with Confidence, Impact and Pizzazz". The next open session this month is now full - but places are available in the following one on Thursday 4 October. Details are towards the foot of the page at: http://www.michaeldoddmedia.com/presentation_training.php But however bad your presentation skills might be, you can at least be encouraged that there's always someone who makes more gaffes than the rest of us do. Here's a compilation of the presentational "mis-speaks" of former president George W. Bush - including some you probably haven't seen before.  Don't you miss him! Everyone on the presentation master classes is guaranteed to come away better than George. Keep smiling, Michael

WHENEVER POSSIBLE, ANSWER THE QUESTION. British TV watchers have just witnessed one of the most excruciating examples of a "car crash" interview. The victim was Treasury Minister, Chloe Smith, who floundered throughout an eight-minute cross-examination with one of the world's greatest interviewers, BBC rottweiler Jeremy Paxman. Some might say Jeremy's a bit soft by Australian standards, but he's ruthless nonetheless and has a well-practised line in disbelieving looks in order to put his interviewees under extra pressure - as you can see.   Ms Smith by contrast is a telegenic thirty-year-old Conservative politician who was enjoying political success at a remarkably early age. And to her credit she by-and-large maintained her physical composure throughout her Paxmanisation - though a couple of little coughing bursts signalled some internal stress. But the actual content of Ms Smith's answers - relating to a deferral of a petrol tax rise - were universally regarded as completely hopeless and unconvincing. You can watch here - if you're tough enough to withstand something which really should have a health warning. The vital learning point is that the crash was entirely avoidable...especially as the minister was effectively being interviewed about what was good news for British motorists (albeit arguably not so good for the fume-choked environment). Lesson One is that Ms Smith was the wrong person for the government to put forward to be interviewed. As became gruesomely clear, Ms Smith was too junior to be seriously involved in making the decision, so she was sent out as something of a lamb to face the beast. The real decision-makers - the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Prime Minister - were far better placed to answer the obvious questions... had they been courageous enough to have faced the Paxman experience themselves. Lesson Two is that Ms Smith could have made life a lot better for herself if she had obeyed one devastatingly simple lesson: Just tell the truth. The first of the questions she was unwilling to give a straight answer to was remarkably easy. When was she told of the decision? Sure, it may have been a touch embarrassing to have to admit that she was so low in the hierarchy that she was only told on the day of the announcement. But still, far better for her to get this out of the way in one go and take the sting out of it, rather than come up with a pack of pathetic obfuscations. Best practice media advice is to answer the question - or give a powerful reason why you can't. Once you've done this you then effectively have a license - under the normal rules of conversation - to go on and make a positive point related to the question. It will be fascinating to see whether Ms Smith takes this advice next time - if her political masters ever let her near Mr Paxman again.

GIVING GREAT ANSWERS TO TOUGH QUESTIONS     If you'd like to discover how you can best answer your nightmare questions - from Jeremy Paxman, your clients, your prospects or your staff - then there is a solution. I'm running an open session in Central London on Friday 7 September. You, your colleagues and Ms Smith are entitled to book and come along. And on the same day you can also have the option to take part in a session on "Perfecting Your Elevator Pitch" A bad elevator pitch might be something like "I'm Chloe and I get chopped up on TV when my bosses aren't brave enough to appear themselves". A really good elevator pitch can help you stand out from the crowd and win new clients by highlighting what you can do for people better than anyone else. A well-crafted, well-delivered pitch helps you come across impressively during those sometimes nerve-wracking introductions at networking events. It also helps you shine in less formal situations. After one of these sessions, business leader Gary Jeffries emailed to say "I've already putyesterday's learning on pitching over the telephone to good use, by making successful calls to two key prospects and securing the meetings I wanted to." Details of both open sessions are at: http://www.michaeldoddmedia.com/presentation_training.php HOW NOT TO DO IT - THE AUSTRALIAN WAY If you're one of those people who thinks any publicity is good publicity, then here's reason to think again. This is the latest news on Australian Trade Minister, Craig Emerson, who I knew when I was working as a political correspondent in Canberra in the 1980s. At that stage Craig was an environmental activist who went on to become an economic advisor to Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke. But it's only now that he's really made his indelible mark on the world. In what looked at the start like a bog-standard political interview, Craig Emerson suddenly started to dance and then to sing. The song was Craig's response to a claim by Opposition Leader Tony Abbott that the government's new carbon tax would wipe Whyalla - a South Australian steel-making town - off the map. His song was a parody version of the 1970s hit "Horror Movie" by the Skyhooks.   (OK you can be forgiven if you don't remember Skyhooks.) Now you might think that Craig Emerson's karaoke-style performance was merely a moment of madness. But if it was, it was a planned moment of madness. Craig had got his staff to set up a beatbox to provide the backing music - and had even gone to the trouble of seeking permission from one of the old Skyhooks members to utilise the song. And he'd written some fresh lyrics with the line "No Whyalla wipe-out there on my TV." The result is a glimpse of political theatre like you've never seen before. The video has now gone viral...but Craig Emerson has received no shortage of political flak. The most severe has come from the Shadow Treasurer, Joe Hockey, who says he's appalled by the behaviour. "This guy is meant to be our representative on the international scene," Mr Hockey declared. "And he is treating as a joke the concerns of everyday Australians about something he has done. I can't believe he is still on the front bench." In fairness I should point out this is the same Joe Hockey who when serving as the government's Workplace Relations Minister a few years ago went on TV dressed as a wand-waving Shrek and dancing with a pink tutu to Abba's Dancing Queen.   At the time, Joe Hockey explained that one away by saying "People will suggest if you're going to be taken seriously you shouldn't be doing these things. But that is the nature of life, really. I am who I am." It all makes my years in Canberra - where the high point was Bob Hawke bursting into tears at a press conference - seem rather lacking in colour. PRESENTING WITH PIZZAZZ Meanwhile there's no excuse for a lack of colour in your future presentations - despite the fact that my July open session on presentation skills is now full. A new open session of "Presenting with Confidence, Impact and Pizzazz" is now scheduled for Central London on Thursday 4 October. Bookings can be made at: http://www.michaeldoddmedia.com/presentation_training.php By the end of the day it's expected that your speech-making will sparkle. But in the light of recent Australian political experience, all singing, dancing and the parading with pink tutus will be banned. Keep smiling, Michael

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

GETTING PROVEN RETURN ON INVESTMENT.

MEASURING THE RETURN ON YOUR INVESTMENT

There's one thing people who book keynote speeches and communications master classes are really keen on these days. It's knowing they're getting an impressive return on their investment - both financially and on the time their people put into boosting their skills. I've been refining a method that demonstrates to participants that it's worth the time and money. It involves measuring the progress of participants during the session. The method requires participants - whether in a big conference audience or in smaller workshops - to write down "secret scores" for their colleagues' communication performances. This applies to whether we're working on boosting their presentation skills, their media interview performance, their elevator pitch or their ability to give brilliant answers to tough questions. Just as in some of those so-called "reality" TV shows, the scores are given from 0 to 10.   However unlike the numbers from these judges on Strictly Come Dancing, the raw scores in our sessions typically remain secret. What we do is determine two "secret scores" for each person - measuring their performance near the beginning of the session and again towards the end. However we only allow the judges to reveal the DIFFERENCE between the two scores - not the actual scores themselves. In this way no one has to openly declare whether they thought the participant was atrocious or brilliant on either occasion. We just want to measure how much the participants improved. I've run this with hundreds of participants now - and the typical improvement is about three points out of ten. This means that if their initial score was six and they move up to nine, then they've improved by fifty per cent in the session. But we have had some quite astronomic improvement results...with several participants scoring an eight point increase during the session. Admittedly, to improve as much as this, their opening performances have tended to be pretty awful. It's been chilling to see the mistakes which people routinely make - from defaming big personalities, to accidentally rubbishing their own products, to saying stupid things which they insist they haven't said until we play back the recording to show them. But the initial low-scorers are always delighted to get the winner's prize as the biggest improver. They feel so much more competent and confident when their ratings - as determined by their colleagues - demonstrate that they've lifted their game dramatically in a short space of time. The most memorable of these was a participant - let's call him "Cecil" - who initially started off his answer to a tough question quite well. But he didn't know when to stop. The more Cecil continued, the more he became entangled in irrelevant, diverting detail and diminished the force of his answer. When we showed him how to decide an end-point in advance - as you would with the punch line of a joke - he improved astronomically. Cecil's answers became focused, persuasive - and actually interesting. In master classes typically everyone involved comes away with their own personal improvement score. In interactive keynotes at conferences - where there's less time available - we typically have two or three people on stage to perform. We determine the audience's judgement of the improvement by a show of hands - getting someone who is good at numbers quickly calculating the average leap forward. The audience gets a snap shot of the kind of inspirational improvement that's possible in a short space of time. And unlike those reality TV shows, no one gets voted off the programme!

YOUR CHANCE TO HAVE YOUR IMPROVEMENT MEASURED If you haven't had your communications improvement level measured, then there's the opportunity to do so on Monday 30 July. This is when I'm running my once-a-year open session on "Presenting with Confidence, Impact and Pizzazz". The 9.30am to 5pm session runs in Central London at the Royal Institute of British Architects.   Details on the early bird offer are on the website at:http://www.michaeldoddmedia.com/presentation_training.php And yes, there's a prize for the participant with the biggest improvement score on the day! AND HERE'S THE WEATHER - LOTS OF IT After years of study, I can declare the key difference between Australia and Britain. In Australia typically a drought is declared after three years without rain. In Britain typically a drought is declared after three days without rain. So here in England we've had all sorts of dire predictions because the springtime weather has been all over the place. Earlier this year a drought was declared to be "gripping" most of England and resulting in water use restrictions affecting twenty-million people. March was declared the driest since 1953 and the third warmest since records began. Then we had April downpours, resulting in the wettest April in a century - which was also the coldest for 23 years with freak snowfalls in parts. Many of the water usage restrictions were lifted. And in May we've just had a series of superb "barbecue summer" days - the kind Shakespeare might have been envisioning when he wrote "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day..." So "topsy turvy" has been a much used word in the weather forecasts. Now it may be that global warming is at the root of what we've been experiencing - and I'm amongst those who can see that there's a growing body of evidence to support this theory and the human hand behind it. But some perspective might be in order. Springtime weather in Europe has long been notoriously changeable and unpredictable. While living in Germany I picked up an expression "In Avril das wetter macht was es will" - In April the weather does what it wants. I've been whizzing around the UK mainly by train in the last few weeks. And I can report that, despite the much-discussed meteorological "catastrophes", from Yorkshire to London and out to Bristol and over the border into southern Wales, there's a verdant landscape with flourishing wild flowers which appears to be in magnificent condition. Here's a typical English countryside scene.   In contrast, this is what a real drought-hit landscape looks like in Australia.   And here's a snatch of magnificent Yorkshire with a carpet of bluebells in the company of beacon head teacher and education guru Alan Yellup who invited me "oop north" to work with Wakefield's leading teachers.    So relatively speaking, much of the UK landscape appears to be in good shape at the end of spring - despite a strain of human thinking which will declare disaster at the earliest opportunity.  CHANGEABLE WEATHER - AN AUSTRALIAN PERSPECTIVE  Australia's cultural tradition (yes, there is such a concept) has recognised this doom-laden tendency in verses by bush poet and Catholic priest, John O'Brien. It's called "Said Hanrahan" and it deserves a hearing in the northern hemisphere in these days of volatile weather changes and prophets of doom. Hanrahan - one of the many Australian immigrants from Irish stock - represents life's eternal pessimists. He's known for his catch phrase "we'll all be rooned" (that's "ruined", for those who don't speak the lingo of the Aussie outback) which he lets loose at every opportunity. As O'Brien passed away in 1952, I can safely reproduce his poem below without fear of copyright infringement. I hope you enjoy it - even if you're an optimist. Keep smiling, Michael SAID HANRAHAN "We'll all be rooned," said Hanrahan,   In accents most forlorn, Outside the church, ere Mass began,   One frosty Sunday morn. The congregation stood about,   Coat-collars to the ears, And talked of stock, and crops, and drought,   As it had done for years. "It's looking crook," said Daniel Croke;   "Bedad, it's cruke, me lad, For never since the banks went broke   Has seasons been so bad." "It's dry, all right," said young O'Neil,   With which astute remark He squatted down upon his heel   And chewed a piece of bark. And so around the chorus ran   "It's keepin' dry, no doubt." "We'll all be rooned," said Hanrahan,   "Before the year is out." "The crops are done; ye'll have your work   To save one bag of grain; From here way out to Back-o'-Bourke   They're singin' out for rain. "They're singin' out for rain," he said,   "And all the tanks are dry." The congregation scratched its head,   And gazed around the sky. "There won't be grass, in any case,   Enough to feed an ass; There's not a blade on Casey's place   As I came down to Mass." "If rain don't come this month," said Dan,   And cleared his throat to speak - "We'll all be rooned," said Hanrahan,   "If rain don't come this week." A heavy silence seemed to steal   On all at this remark; And each man squatted on his heel,   And chewed a piece of bark. "We want an inch of rain, we do,"   O'Neil observed at last; But Croke "maintained" we wanted two   To put the danger past. "If we don't get three inches, man,   Or four to break this drought, We'll all be rooned," said Hanrahan,   "Before the year is out." In God's good time down came the rain;   And all the afternoon On iron roof and window-pane   It drummed a homely tune. And through the night it pattered still,   And lightsome, gladsome elves On dripping spout and window-sill   Kept talking to themselves. It pelted, pelted all day long,   A-singing at its work, Till every heart took up the song   Way out to Back-o'-Bourke. And every creek a banker ran,   And dams filled overtop; "We'll all be rooned," said Hanrahan,   "If this rain doesn't stop." And stop it did, in God's good time;   And spring came in to fold A mantle o'er the hills sublime   Of green and pink and gold. And days went by on dancing feet,   With harvest-hopes immense, And laughing eyes beheld the wheat   Nid-nodding o'er the fence. And, oh, the smiles on every face,   As happy lad and lass Through grass knee-deep on Casey's place   Went riding down to Mass. While round the church in clothes genteel   Discoursed the men of mark, And each man squatted on his heel,   And chewed his piece of bark. "There'll be bush-fires for sure, me man,   There will, without a doubt; We'll all be rooned," said Hanrahan,   "Before the year is out."

NATIONS DIVIDED BY A COMMON LANGUAGE

There are many wonderful things about America - which I've just been reminded about during my speaking mission to Kansas City in Missouri. Amongst them is an enthusiasm to meet customers' needs supremely well in shops (though this doesn't spill over to the hugely less impressive world of US Airways where, strangely, the concept of customer service has yet to be discovered). American shop assistants will routinely try everything to come up with exactly what you want. And if they don't have it, they will go to great lengths to tell you how to get to the right shop that does stock it. Americans I met on the streets happily pulled out their i-phones to show me maps, give detailed directions and even look up bus timetables. But one has to recognise that Americans have a different way of deploying the English language. Early in my visit - before I tuned into the latest quirks of America-speak - this was a routine conversation I had in the excellent the Kansas City Intercontinental Hotel at The Plaza. "Could I have milk with my tea please?" "Yessir. Would you like 2 per cent milk?" "Well actually I take a bit more milk than that. I reckon I have about 6 or 7 per cent milk?" "Sorry sir, we only have 2 per cent milk." "Well can you please bring the milk in a jug and I'll pour it myself so that I get exactly the right amount." What I eventually came to discover - with the help of some American interpreters - is that "2 per cent milk" is the standard US term for what is known elsewhere as "semi skimmed milk".  2% milk The moral of the story is that communication is often more difficult than people think. One of the constant requirements is to get inside the head of your specific audience so that you can see the pictures they have in their minds and adopt their language to relate to them. But the constant references to "2 per cent milk" raise another, more troubling question. If they're only giving you 2 per cent milk, what on earth is the other 98 per cent made up of? THE TITANIC - IN KANSAS CITY Being a landlocked metropolis, you might think that Kansas City would be the last place to have an interest in the one-hundredth anniversary of the sinking of The Titanic. But some of the passengers on the ill-fated journey were heading for a new life in the Midwest. Interest is consequently so strong in Kansas City that there's a massive exhibition of recovered Titanic artifacts in the magnificently restored Union Station - the second largest train station in America with a highly decorated 95-foot high ceiling from which hangs three 3,500-pound chandeliers (Americans don't like metric). Alas, given the US obsession with the car, the station now only sees around four trains passing through each day. However this means there's plenty of room left for other things, so a large part of the station is now turned over to Titanic photos, early movie footage of its construction in Belfast and the personal belongings of those who did and didn't make it across the Atlantic. When you enter the exhibition you get a ticket in the name of a particular passenger. As Americans clearly recognise true breeding, mine was an Upper Class ticket for the wealthy Macy's department store partner, Isidor Straus, who - with his wife, Ida - was returning to New York in 1912 after a European holiday. At the end of the exhibition you get to find out what happened to your original ticket holder. Sadly, Isidor Straus didn't make it. And neither did Ida. As a woman, Ida was entitled to get into a lifeboat and nearly did. But she refused to climb aboard when her husband - a mere male - was not allowed. So after declaring to her husband "Where you go, I go", Ida and Isidor sank together to the bottom of the Atlantic. Fortunately, a hundred years on, a slightly lighter side is emerging to the tragedy of the Titanic. This is because the Union Station is also home to the Irish Museum and Culture Centre. And mindful of the damage the Titanic's sinking might do to the reputation for Irish ship-building, they've made up T-shirts with the iconic four funnels going under. The caption reads: "She was fine when she left Ireland". And indeed she was...with the statement fitting neatly into the Michael Dodd communications credo: "Only tell exact truths". Here below, a perfectly formed world-class male model poses in the T-shirt before a backdrop of the Titanic's grand staircase.   Kansas City's Salute to Sydney Apart from the train station, the other architectural point of note in Kansas City is a tribute to my home town, Sydney - the Kauffman Centre for the Performing Arts. Some correspondents on Trip Advisor and elsewhere confuse it with the Sydney Opera House because of its gracious sails. Locally they'll tell you it's known as "The Sydney Building" - and some will try to tell you that the designers of the Sydney Opera House actually copied it. Unfortunately for them, my glamorous assistant Ms Google has discovered that the Kansas City version was only completed in 2011. The Sydney Opera House was officially opened by a certain Mrs Windsor back in 1973. But the Kansas City hosts of our speaking delegation were sufficiently proud of the building to take all the conference participants for a giant dinner at their performing arts centre - and the food and ambience were indeed impressive. Here below a passing Sydney celebrity - who happened to be wearing an Australian Broadcasting Corporation 2BL "T"-Shirt - was prepared to wave to the massed cameras for the benefit of readers of this ezine.   THE POWER OF STORIES - YOUR OPPORTUNITY TO SHINE Kansas City witnessed the debut performance of my new conference keynote "The Power of the Stories". It tells how people who really changed the world - from the Buddha to Jesus Christ, from Martin Luther King to Barrack Obama, from Steve Jobs to Bill Gates - had one particular thing in common...they made things happen, in part at least, by telling stories. The keynote also shows how the human brain is programmed at an early age to tune into stories - otherwise known as fairytales - including beautiful princesses who kiss ugly frogs...such as this particularly obnoxious Australian cane toad.   The frogs of course then turn into handsome princes - or, even better, into handsome democratically-elected statesmen. They then live happily ever after of course. If you're interested in changing the world through stories - or in taking your presentations to a new level - you can book now for the open presentation skills master class on Monday 30 July in Central London. Details of the "Speaking with Confidence, Impact and Pizzazz" are atwww.michaeldoddmedia.com/presentation_training.php For those attending, any anxieties you have about presenting should die happily ever after. ONLY IN AMERICA - DRIVE THROUGH FOR ANYTHING Amongst the things Missouri is famous for is its claim to have the world's first drive through fast-food restaurant. The concept was supposedly invented by a guy called Sheldon "Red" Chaney who opened "Red's Giant Hamburg" for those driving the famous Route 66. The odd name "Hamburg" has been attributed to a measuring error made while making the sign - as it was cut too short to fit the more obvious name "Hamburger". But Missouri has now gone way beyond mere drive through food. All over the state are drive through banks - where you can withdraw your money without having to get outside your car...something Americans love. And on a journey out to the city of Independence - home of President Harry Truman - I discovered something even more extraordinary...drive-through religion. As seen below, you can drive through to get information about the Baha'i faith. This has made me think that perhaps I should be offering my communications master classes in a drive-through form. I'm sure this won't take off in Britain, Belgium or Australia. But in America, it could be the next big thing. Keep smiling, Michael