Graduation ceremonies are important landmarks for graduates, families and universities.
But seeing 125 youngsters trooping across a stage to shake hands and receive their degrees can hardly be said to be the most gripping of theatrical events, especially when there's only one of the 125 that you actually know and care about.
I’ve just been to such an event, at which it quickly became apparent that we were in for a long wait (over half an hour, as it turned out) before our candidate got anywhere near the stage. Nor were we alone, because there were about 250 other people in the audience in exactly the same position as us.
All of which raises the interesting question of how you stay awake, as one unfamiliar name after another is read out, and as one unfamiliar smiling face after another appears on stage. For me, the answer is easy, because occasionally there's an advantage in having a technical interest in how such ceremonies work,
And I have to say that this particular one worked like clockwork, and did so in two intriguing respects that probably weren’t even noticed by anyone else in the audience.
The first was the supreme efficiency with which the ‘clap on the name’ technique ensured that every candidate was applauded as they walked into the limelight, with the applause coming in on cue a fraction of a second after each name was read out.
The second piece of clockwork was that the ovation in every single case lasted for exactly 7 seconds. No one told the audience to time their clapping to fit within the standard 7-9 second span found in the vast majority of bursts of applause, but the fact is that they did - with mechanical precision.
And the fact that they did so meant that, in every case, it sounded about right – less than 7 seconds wouldn’t have sounded complimentary enough; more than 9 seconds would have sounded more enthusiastic than necessary.
The only reason I’m able to report this extraordinary 100% regularity is that I sat there timing them all, which not only kept me wide awake, but also enabled me to test a hypothesis or two.
At the start, for example, I wondered whether there might be a difference between the amount of applause awarded to men and women, younger and older graduates, members of different ethnic groups, etc. But there was no hint of any such difference, as all of them got exactly the same 7 second ration.
Such negative results can sometimes be disappointing, but not if the process of coming up with them keeps you awake and attentive from the beginning to the end of what might otherwise have been a rather tedious experience (apart from our 30 second reason for being there).
There were, however, two exceptions that did get an outstanding 15 seconds of applause (outstanding because it’s twice as long as normal). One was for the collected assembly of graduates themselves, and the other was for their teachers – which is also exactly as it should be.
(Further details about the 'clap on the name' technique and the 7-9 second standard burst of applause can, of course, be found in my books).
BBC plug-a-book shows: how and why is so much offered to so few?
There are quite a number of plug-a-book shows on BBC Radio 4 (e.g. Start the Week, Midweek, Thinking Allowed, etc.), which is, I suppose, what you’d expect from the country's leading talk radio channel. Several times a week, a few lucky authors are invited by the likes of Andrew Marr, Libby Purves and Laurie Taylor to spend ten minutes saying whatever they like about their latest book.
Since yesterday, I’ve been twittering and blogging about how even a short interview on a fairly obscure part of the BBC website can work short-term wonders on book sales.
Before it was mentioned on the BBC website, my book Speech-making and Presentation Made Easy was languishing at around 245,000th on Amazon (UK).
Two hours later, it had shot up 220,000 places to 25,000th; two hours after that it rose to its highest place ever at 1,841 and pushed Lend Me Your Ears into second place in their ‘Public Speaking’ best-sellers list.
Impressive though this may seem, it pales into insignificance compared with what can happen after a few minutes on Radio 4. A couple of years ago, I was interviewed about speechwriting on Saturday Live by Fi Glover. When I mentioned Lend Me Your Ears, she told me I wasn’t supposed to be plugging my book, to which I replied that I thought this was the whole point of Radio 4.
Three hours later, I had a look to see if there’d been any move from its placing at about 4,000th, where it had been for a week or two on Amazon. To my astonishment, it had risen to 2nd – not 2nd in books on public speaking, but it had made it to the 2nd bestselling book in Amazon’s entire UK list. And there It stayed there for about half a day before beginning to slide down the rankings.
But the net result was that my publishers had to reprint it three days after the broadcast, and sold about 1,000 copies in the next seven days.
So there’s no doubt at all that the BBC, despite the fact that it’s not a commercial broadcaster and doesn’t officially advertise anything, does in fact advertise books. What's more, they must know what an impact their plug-a-book shows can have on sales, and the question on which I think we could do with a bit more transparency is, quite simply this: how do they go about selecting which of the thousands of possible authors get the tiny number of such important slots?
It would be nice to think that they operate with the kind of studied neutrality you might expect from a public service broadcaster. But at least two things make me wonder just how detached they really are.
The first goes back 25 years, when I was involved in coaching a woman who had never made a speech before to make a speech at the SDP annual conference in 1984. The fact that she got a standing ovation became a news story, but bookings for one or both of us to appear on various BBC radio and television programmes were suddenly cancelled when they realised that the training had been organised by, and was to be televised a couple of weeks later by, one of their commercial rivals, Granada Television.
The second reason for wondering about their detachment comes from the past two or three weeks. In one Radio 4 book review programme, the main inteviewee was a novelist who, before starting to write novels, had been a presenter on a BBC Television arts programme. At about the same time, Radio 4’s Book at Bedtime featured nightly readings from a novel by someone who used to run a London advertising agency, whose clients included one of our three main political parties.
Whether or not these two authors are better at writing novels than they were in their previous jobs, or whether they are any better than all the others who also publish novels each year, I have no idea. But I can’t help wondering whether they are part of a London social network that includes radio producers who find it easier to put people they know on their shows than the hundreds of other worthy candidates who never get a look in when it comes to such valuable exposure.
It’s well known that bookshops like Waterstones charge publishers huge sums of money to have their books displayed on tables near the entrance to their stores, a practice that doesn’t seem very far removed from the Payola scandals in the music industry all those years ago.
I’m not suggesting something similar is going on at the BBC. But at a time when the corporation is showing signs of becoming a bit more open about and accountable for their executives’ salaries and expense accounts, I don’t think it would do any harm to have some kind of investigation, or at least a good deal more transparency, on the question how candidates actually get selected for their plug-a-book programmes.
And, if it sounds as though I'm biting a hand that feeds me, I should make it clear that it doesn't happen as often as I'd like it to, and, on the rare occasions that it does, the rations don't last for very long.
Since yesterday, I’ve been twittering and blogging about how even a short interview on a fairly obscure part of the BBC website can work short-term wonders on book sales.
Before it was mentioned on the BBC website, my book Speech-making and Presentation Made Easy was languishing at around 245,000th on Amazon (UK).
Two hours later, it had shot up 220,000 places to 25,000th; two hours after that it rose to its highest place ever at 1,841 and pushed Lend Me Your Ears into second place in their ‘Public Speaking’ best-sellers list.
Impressive though this may seem, it pales into insignificance compared with what can happen after a few minutes on Radio 4. A couple of years ago, I was interviewed about speechwriting on Saturday Live by Fi Glover. When I mentioned Lend Me Your Ears, she told me I wasn’t supposed to be plugging my book, to which I replied that I thought this was the whole point of Radio 4.
Three hours later, I had a look to see if there’d been any move from its placing at about 4,000th, where it had been for a week or two on Amazon. To my astonishment, it had risen to 2nd – not 2nd in books on public speaking, but it had made it to the 2nd bestselling book in Amazon’s entire UK list. And there It stayed there for about half a day before beginning to slide down the rankings.
But the net result was that my publishers had to reprint it three days after the broadcast, and sold about 1,000 copies in the next seven days.
So there’s no doubt at all that the BBC, despite the fact that it’s not a commercial broadcaster and doesn’t officially advertise anything, does in fact advertise books. What's more, they must know what an impact their plug-a-book shows can have on sales, and the question on which I think we could do with a bit more transparency is, quite simply this: how do they go about selecting which of the thousands of possible authors get the tiny number of such important slots?
It would be nice to think that they operate with the kind of studied neutrality you might expect from a public service broadcaster. But at least two things make me wonder just how detached they really are.
The first goes back 25 years, when I was involved in coaching a woman who had never made a speech before to make a speech at the SDP annual conference in 1984. The fact that she got a standing ovation became a news story, but bookings for one or both of us to appear on various BBC radio and television programmes were suddenly cancelled when they realised that the training had been organised by, and was to be televised a couple of weeks later by, one of their commercial rivals, Granada Television.
The second reason for wondering about their detachment comes from the past two or three weeks. In one Radio 4 book review programme, the main inteviewee was a novelist who, before starting to write novels, had been a presenter on a BBC Television arts programme. At about the same time, Radio 4’s Book at Bedtime featured nightly readings from a novel by someone who used to run a London advertising agency, whose clients included one of our three main political parties.
Whether or not these two authors are better at writing novels than they were in their previous jobs, or whether they are any better than all the others who also publish novels each year, I have no idea. But I can’t help wondering whether they are part of a London social network that includes radio producers who find it easier to put people they know on their shows than the hundreds of other worthy candidates who never get a look in when it comes to such valuable exposure.
It’s well known that bookshops like Waterstones charge publishers huge sums of money to have their books displayed on tables near the entrance to their stores, a practice that doesn’t seem very far removed from the Payola scandals in the music industry all those years ago.
I’m not suggesting something similar is going on at the BBC. But at a time when the corporation is showing signs of becoming a bit more open about and accountable for their executives’ salaries and expense accounts, I don’t think it would do any harm to have some kind of investigation, or at least a good deal more transparency, on the question how candidates actually get selected for their plug-a-book programmes.
And, if it sounds as though I'm biting a hand that feeds me, I should make it clear that it doesn't happen as often as I'd like it to, and, on the rare occasions that it does, the rations don't last for very long.
Puzzzle-Solution formats
If you've arrived here from the BBC website, a very warm welcome to the Blog. If you haven't, you might like to see the article that's been sending quite a lot of people here since earlier today.
One important rhetorical technique that wasn't mentioned in Denise Waterman's piece on the BBC website, is what I refer to in my books and courses as the Puzzle-Solution format. It's based on the very simple principle that, if you say something that gets the audience wondering what's coming next, they'll listen more attentively and, if it's a good 'solution', they'll applaud it.
An example I often use when teaching is from a speech that Ronald Reagan made when declaring his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination in 1980. What's puzzling is why this should be a moment of 'mixed emotions' for him:
PUZZLE: This is a moment for quite some mixed emotions for me.
SOLUTION: I haven't been on prime-time television for quite a while.
Another of my favorite examples comes from a speech by William Hague when he was leader of the Conservative Party.
This one poses as big a puzzle as anyone who knows anything about the recent history of British politics could ever pose, namely the suggestion that former Tory prime ministers Margaret Thatcher and Edward Heath could actually agree on something in a debate about Europe.
To appreciate the solution, it also helps to know that, on the previous day, the conference stage had been furnished with some chairs supplied by the Swedish furniture company IKEA:
PUZZLE: Ted and Margaret came on to the platform for the debate on Europe yesterday and they were both in instant agreement.
SOLUTION: They both hated those chairs.
COMBINING RHETORICAL TECHNIQUES
Something else not mentioned in the post on the BBC website is the way in which you can combine rhetorical techniques to achieve greater impact.
In this clip, from the 1987 UK general election, Mrs Thatcher poses a metaphorical puzzle (why is the Labour party's manifesto going to be like an iceberg), the solution to which comes in the form of a simple contrast:
PUZZLE: From the Labour Party expect the iceberg manifesto.
SOLUTION:
[A] One tenth of its socialism visible.
[B] Nine tenths beneath the surface.
One important rhetorical technique that wasn't mentioned in Denise Waterman's piece on the BBC website, is what I refer to in my books and courses as the Puzzle-Solution format. It's based on the very simple principle that, if you say something that gets the audience wondering what's coming next, they'll listen more attentively and, if it's a good 'solution', they'll applaud it.
An example I often use when teaching is from a speech that Ronald Reagan made when declaring his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination in 1980. What's puzzling is why this should be a moment of 'mixed emotions' for him:
PUZZLE: This is a moment for quite some mixed emotions for me.
SOLUTION: I haven't been on prime-time television for quite a while.
Another of my favorite examples comes from a speech by William Hague when he was leader of the Conservative Party.
This one poses as big a puzzle as anyone who knows anything about the recent history of British politics could ever pose, namely the suggestion that former Tory prime ministers Margaret Thatcher and Edward Heath could actually agree on something in a debate about Europe.
To appreciate the solution, it also helps to know that, on the previous day, the conference stage had been furnished with some chairs supplied by the Swedish furniture company IKEA:
PUZZLE: Ted and Margaret came on to the platform for the debate on Europe yesterday and they were both in instant agreement.
SOLUTION: They both hated those chairs.
COMBINING RHETORICAL TECHNIQUES
Something else not mentioned in the post on the BBC website is the way in which you can combine rhetorical techniques to achieve greater impact.
In this clip, from the 1987 UK general election, Mrs Thatcher poses a metaphorical puzzle (why is the Labour party's manifesto going to be like an iceberg), the solution to which comes in the form of a simple contrast:
PUZZLE: From the Labour Party expect the iceberg manifesto.
SOLUTION:
[A] One tenth of its socialism visible.
[B] Nine tenths beneath the surface.
BBC rediscovers the 'Lost Art of Oratory' (again)
An interesting feature of today's post about oratory on the BBC website is that it doesn't say anything about why it should be appearing today, or any other day for that matter.
I say this because, as I've noted before, the BBC, like other media outlets, has systematically reduced the numbers of speeches they show on television over the past twenty years, which I regard as a worrying trend. You can see more on this in earlier postings on this blog, including Obama’s rhetoric renews UK media in the ‘lost art’ of oratory.
And the title of that is what I would bet inspired Denise Waterman, and/or whoever it was at the BBC who commissioned the piece, to write about a subject that they'd probably never have bothered with in the pre-Obama era.
So a few months ago Alan Yentob, who in his former job at the BBC played a part in taking speeches off the air, suddenly became interested in the subject, probably to justify the expense of sending so many staff to Washington for Obama's inauguration - on which, see ‘The Lost Art of Oratory’ by a BBC executive who helped to lose it in the first place.
If you'd like to learn more about Obama's techniqes, the following posts include line-by-line analyses:
Rhetoric and imagery in Obama’s victory speech
Rhetoric and imagery in President Obama’s inauguration speech
There are quite a lot of other posts about him on the blog, and the easiest way to access them is either to type his name (or that of any other politician you might be interested in) into the search box on the left, or to go to my business website where there's a complete list of posts (and direct links to them) since the blog began.
I say this because, as I've noted before, the BBC, like other media outlets, has systematically reduced the numbers of speeches they show on television over the past twenty years, which I regard as a worrying trend. You can see more on this in earlier postings on this blog, including Obama’s rhetoric renews UK media in the ‘lost art’ of oratory.
And the title of that is what I would bet inspired Denise Waterman, and/or whoever it was at the BBC who commissioned the piece, to write about a subject that they'd probably never have bothered with in the pre-Obama era.
So a few months ago Alan Yentob, who in his former job at the BBC played a part in taking speeches off the air, suddenly became interested in the subject, probably to justify the expense of sending so many staff to Washington for Obama's inauguration - on which, see ‘The Lost Art of Oratory’ by a BBC executive who helped to lose it in the first place.
If you'd like to learn more about Obama's techniqes, the following posts include line-by-line analyses:
Rhetoric and imagery in Obama’s victory speech
Rhetoric and imagery in President Obama’s inauguration speech
There are quite a lot of other posts about him on the blog, and the easiest way to access them is either to type his name (or that of any other politician you might be interested in) into the search box on the left, or to go to my business website where there's a complete list of posts (and direct links to them) since the blog began.
Welcome to visitors from the BBC website
Other bloggers, authors and anyone else interested in the impact of different links on the number of hits you get and/or how many books you sell may like to know that I'll be monitoring these things quite closely today.
This is because I was interviewed last week for an article that's just appeared on the BBC website.
As with all such contacts, you never quite know what they'll make of whatever it was you managed to splutter out from wherever you happened to be when they called - in this case from my mobile phone somewhere in the depths of Wiltshire. But one thing I do know from previous mentions by the BBC is that they usually generate a sudden and dramatic surge in traffic.
Regular readers can watch this space for a periodic updates on progress (if any).
And, if you've just arrived here from a link from the BBC web, a very warm welcome to the blog.
If you want to find out more about speech-making and communication, you'll be able to find plenty more about it here, some of it topical, some historical and much of it illustrated with suitably selected video clips.
I hope you'll find it interesting enough to become a regular visitor, and perhaps even introduce any of your friends who might also want to know more about the subject.
If you want to learn more about speechwriting, why not join the UK Speechwriters' Guild?
And, if you're interested in writing speeches and/or making speeches and presentations, my books on the subject are available from Amazon at very reasonable prices by clicking on the boxes at the top of the page.
This is because I was interviewed last week for an article that's just appeared on the BBC website.
As with all such contacts, you never quite know what they'll make of whatever it was you managed to splutter out from wherever you happened to be when they called - in this case from my mobile phone somewhere in the depths of Wiltshire. But one thing I do know from previous mentions by the BBC is that they usually generate a sudden and dramatic surge in traffic.
Regular readers can watch this space for a periodic updates on progress (if any).
And, if you've just arrived here from a link from the BBC web, a very warm welcome to the blog.
If you want to find out more about speech-making and communication, you'll be able to find plenty more about it here, some of it topical, some historical and much of it illustrated with suitably selected video clips.
I hope you'll find it interesting enough to become a regular visitor, and perhaps even introduce any of your friends who might also want to know more about the subject.
If you want to learn more about speechwriting, why not join the UK Speechwriters' Guild?
And, if you're interested in writing speeches and/or making speeches and presentations, my books on the subject are available from Amazon at very reasonable prices by clicking on the boxes at the top of the page.
D-Day memorabilia: from Normandy to Lüneburg
I've just been sorting through an old suitcase that belonged to my late father-in-law, who, by the time he landed in Normandy in 1944, had been promoted from Private to Major in the Pioneer Corps.
One of the things I'd never seen before was an official regimental Christmas card for 1944 (above). Inside, there's a map of their journey towards Lüneburg Heath, where he ended up running a refugee camp after the war ended.
But I'm not sure what the numbers on the back cover refer to. They start six months before D-Day and could perhaps be the numbers of soldiers killed during the different periods. If anyone can shed any light on this, do let me know so that I can pass on a fuller story to his grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
There's also a scrap of paper with his neatly written personal record of his journey to Lüneburg Heath:
Some of the entries include addresses, presumably of where they were billeted, and I was amazed to see a reference to La Hulpe, just outside Brussels - because, 45 years later, I went to the same place to give some lectures at an IBM training complex that's now become a hotel and conference centre.
More on body language & non verbal behavior
A few weeks ago, Olivia Mitchell got quite a debate going on the blogosphere about some of the more ridiculous claims that have been circulating as 'facts' about the allegedly overwhelming importance of non-verbal factors in communication.
I've found the way the debate has been going very encouraging, not least because I've been banging on about these myths for years and had a go at debunking some of them in my book Lend Me Your Ears: All You Need to Know about Making Speeches and Presentations, which included some email exchanges with the originator of the myth discussed by Olivia Mitchell and in a video that's just appeared on YouTube (see below).
Whether or not what I wrote five years ago had anything to do with inspiring others to start addressing such issues, I don't know. Nor do I really care, because what really matters is that the tide finally seems to be moving in a more sensible direction - which might help to save thousands of people from being mislead into a state of needless anxiety by so-called 'experts' in the field.
If you're interested in the subject, related postings on this blog, including various cartoons and video clips, can inspected by clicking on any of the following.
• Non-verbal communication
• How to use video to study body language, verbal and non-verbal communication
• Margaret Thatcher, body language and non-verbal communication
• Body language and non-verbal communication video
• Another body language & non-verbal communication cartoon
• Body language, non-verbal behaviour and the myth about folded arms and defensiveness
• Body language and non-verbal communication
You might also enjoy the following video that's just been posted on YouTube about one of the most preposterous myths of all.
I've found the way the debate has been going very encouraging, not least because I've been banging on about these myths for years and had a go at debunking some of them in my book Lend Me Your Ears: All You Need to Know about Making Speeches and Presentations, which included some email exchanges with the originator of the myth discussed by Olivia Mitchell and in a video that's just appeared on YouTube (see below).
Whether or not what I wrote five years ago had anything to do with inspiring others to start addressing such issues, I don't know. Nor do I really care, because what really matters is that the tide finally seems to be moving in a more sensible direction - which might help to save thousands of people from being mislead into a state of needless anxiety by so-called 'experts' in the field.
If you're interested in the subject, related postings on this blog, including various cartoons and video clips, can inspected by clicking on any of the following.
• Non-verbal communication
• How to use video to study body language, verbal and non-verbal communication
• Margaret Thatcher, body language and non-verbal communication
• Body language and non-verbal communication video
• Another body language & non-verbal communication cartoon
• Body language, non-verbal behaviour and the myth about folded arms and defensiveness
• Body language and non-verbal communication
You might also enjoy the following video that's just been posted on YouTube about one of the most preposterous myths of all.
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