Cameron takes to the lectern in a crisis

One reason why I suggested last week that Gordon Brown should give up trying to emulate David Cameron's walkabout style of delivery and return to the lectern was that it would make the embattled P.M. look more statesmanlike.

So what does Cameron do when he wants to appear statesmanlike in the middle of today's financial mayhem? Well, it was back to the lectern, back to a script and hardly any movement at all, let alone any walking about.

And making this unscheduled emergency intervention at his party conference on the day before his big speech was probably a very smart move. Otherwise, the risk was that both he and the Conservative conference would have been completely wiped off the front pages and prime-time news programmes by all the reports of financial crisis.

But doing what he did paid off and got him to the top of tonight's BBC 10 o'clock television news.

His dilemma now is how to play it tomorrow? Will we see another 'unscripted' walkabout or a carefully scripted statesman speaking at a lectern?

Objects as visual aids: Obama & Archbishop Sentamu in action

If you've read my books or been on any of my courses, you'll know that one type of visual aid that tends to go down well with audiences is the use of objects or props to make a point. Two nice examples came my way recently, showing that even something as apparently unpromising as cutting up or brushing items of clothing can be very effective.

In the first one, Dr John Sentamu, Archbishop of York, took off his dog collar during an interview with Andrew Marr, and then proceeded to cut it into small pieces to illustrate what Mugabe was doing to the identity of the Zimbabwean people, ending by promising not to wear it again until Mugabe was gone.

In the second one, Barack Obama dismisses criticism from the Clinton camp by brushing invisible dust from his jacket - and the more he brushed, the more the audience applauded.

You can see both these examples by clicking below - and more on objects as visual aids in my books Lend Me Your Ears: All You Need to Know about Making Speeches and Presentations, London: Vermilion, 2004 & New York: Oxford University Press, 2005, and Speech-making and Presentation Made Easy: Seven Essential Steps to Success, London: Vemilion, 2008.

PowerPoint comes to church

This Sunday, it was the Harvest Festival in our village church, where the congregation was treated to a PowerPoint presentation that went on for twice as long as it was supposed to do.

As for how it went down, I couldn't help noticing that the assembled multitude only managed about 4 seconds of applause - way below the standard burst of 8 (plus or minus 1) seconds - further proof, if proof were needed, that the C of E shouldn't be putting too much faith in PowerPoint to reverse declining church attendance!