I just tried (but failed) to catch up with the news by listening to The World Tonight on BBC Radio 4 at 10.00 p.m..
Twenty minutes into the broadcast and they were still banging on about the latest flu statistics, when a vaccine would be ready, government help lines, websites, etc., etc.
All of which could have been collapsed into a three-part list that would have taken less than 10 seconds to read out:
"There's more of it about, it's not very serious and a vaccine's on its way."
The story about Ronald Reagan that Gordon Brown told at the TED conference the other day wasn’t the only one that got a laugh from the audience (see previous post).
He also had one about singer Amy Whitehouse and Nelson Mandela. It was a neat example of the puzzle-solution technique illustrated last week with clips from Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher and William Hague.
Puzzle:“Amy Whitehouse said “Nelson Mandela and I have got a lot in common.
Solution:“My husband too has spent a long time in prison.”
But I was always taught that you shouldn't laugh at your own jokes, and this would surely have worked better if he hadn't done so.
A couple of days ago, Gordon Brown took time out from local problems, like today’s by-election, to make a surprise appearance at the TEDGlobal conference, and one can’t help wondering if the chance to give a lecture in Oxford marked the official start of his exit strategy into teaching that he was dropping hints about a few weeks ago.
You can see the whole of his TED performance at the bottom of this page and inspect a brief review of Twitter responses HERE.
Readers of my books will know that I give great emphasis to the importance of anecdotes in effective speeches and presentations, and there are two nice examples of this in Mr Brown's speech.
The first one came as he tried his hand at a bit of standup with this story about what Ronald Reagan is alleged to have thought of the then Swedish prime minister, Olaf Palme:
Then, right at the end came another anecdote involving a contrast between the way audiences used to respond to Cicero and Demosthenes. Brown firmly identifies himself with the latter and gets a positive reaction that doesn’t often happen to him outside Labour Party conferences – a standing ovation - and it doesn't often happen to anyone in Oxford either (or at least, I never got one when I worked there).
The whole unedited 16 minute speech can be watched below. And, as you'll see from the first few minutes, someone must have advised Mr Brown that, if you must use PowerPoint, you can't beat genuinely visual slides like pictures:
