Anniversary of a year of blogging

I started this blog a year ago today, after being asked by The Times to offer a few tips for Gordon Brown's speech to the 2008 Labour Party Conference. As I could think of more things to say than amount of space allowed, blogging seemed simple way to add a few extra tips - and held out the promise of 'publishing' anything else I'd written that hadn't found a proper publisher.

A year ago, I hardly knew what a blog was, and one of the benefits for me has been to discover the extraordinary wealth of interesting material that's available on the blogosphere.

Motives
When I started, I had three other vaguely formulated motives in mind. One was that I thought it might drive some traffic to my main business website, which it has done. Another was that I thought it might help to sell a few books, which it has also done.

The third one was to see if I could write things on a regular basis that were topical and/or interesting to a general audience.

For example, I've long been thinking about writing a book about conversation, and wanted to see if it would be possible to translate some of the brilliant, but rather inaccessible, research literature on the subject into more readable language. Whether or not that's worked is not for me to say, but I’ve listed a few examples below that you can check out for yourself.

Progress
The average number of hits has steadily increased and is now about five times more than it was during the first three months and continues to grow enough to make it worth continuing to make the effort.

Occasionally there have been massive surges, as when the BBC website or top bloggers like Iain Dale have included a link to this one.

I also discovered fairly early on that Google delivers a large amount of traffic whenever the title of a post includes words like 'Obama', 'rhetoric' or 'oratory'– and have had to resist the temptation to use promising key words just for the sake of it.

Thanks
If there’d been little or no interest in what I write, I’d have given up blogging long before reaching this, the 296th post.

So to all of you who’ve taken the trouble to visit, and especially if you've added or emailed encouraging comments, thank you for playing a more important part than you realise in keeping me going for as long as this.

And any suggestions you might have about how it could be improved and/or about which kinds of post you like best are always very welcome.

Examples of posts inspired by conversation analysis:
• What’s wrong with saying “Hi”?
• Planning to say ‘um’ and ‘er’
• Gordon’s gaffe explained
• Why lists of three: mystery, magic or reason?
• How to use video to study body language, verbal and non-verbal communication
• Monty Python, conversation and turn-taking
• Interview techniques, politicians and how we judge them
• Derek Draper breaks a basic rule of conversation
• ‘Sound-formed errors’ and humour’
• Gordon Brown is finding the Jacqui Smith expenses story more ‘delicate’ than he says
• The ‘delicacy’ of Mrs Clinton’s ‘consequences’ for North Korea
• Pre-delicate hitches from the White House
• Pre-delicate hitches from Brown as he avoids answering a question about the Queen

Why are there so many quotations on Twitter?

This is a genuine question that's perplexed me since joining Twitter a few months ago - and it's one to which I really would like to hear some answers .

Admittedly, I do tend to follow (and am followed by) others with an interest in public speaking and communication, and that no doubt has something to do with the daily dose of quotations that pops up on TweetDeck (see below for 10 latest examples).

I also think that quotations can play a useful part in speeches and presentations. I've written a bit about them and have included quite a lot of them in some of my books.

But if I'm looking for one, there are plenty of dictionaries of quotations on my bookshelves and plenty of dedicated quotation websites online.

So, if I could see any point in it, I could tweet quotations at people all day long.

My question, therefore, is a simple one that's addressed to all of you who send quotations winging in my (and who knows how many other people's) direction:

Why do you do it?

Is it intended as aid to my sluggish imagination, to make me think, to amuse me, to inspire me to pull my socks up - or what?

10 latest quotations to reach me from Twitter:

• The greatest mistake you can make in this life is to be continually fearing you will make one.
• Recognition not given where deserved is a form of theft.
• There are no secrets better kept than the secrets that everybody guesses.
• Authentic praise inspires. Disingenuous praise patronizes.
• The minute you stop learning is the moment you stop leading.
• Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising up every time we fail.
• Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising up every time we fail.
• A word aptly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver.
• You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.
• Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach him how to fish, and he will sit in a boat and drink beer all day

P.S. The problem's getting so serious that, whilst writing this, three more have appeared:

• An unused life is an early death.
• The reward for work well done is the opportunity to do more.
• The world stands aside to let anyone pass who knows where he is going.

???

Methinks Labour doth protest/spin too much

One of the lead stories the BBC website today caught my eye as a an extraordinarily orchestrated effort to avoid all the talk of getting rid of Gordon Brown that preceded last year's party conference.

It summarises what cabinet ministers (and one former cabinet minister) have been saying to various newspapers on the eve of the last Labour Party Conference before the general election - and depicts a level of unity that, to say the least, smacks of being rather too good to be true.

Here’s how the story starts, followed by a selection of fan/spin messages from Mr Brown’s colleagues (full post can be seen HERE):

Ministers back PM pre-conference
Cabinet ministers are falling in behind Gordon Brown as he prepares to issue a rallying cry at Labour's last party conference before the general election.

Schools Secretary Ed Balls said the prime minister's "authentic" approach would find favour with voters.

The Energy Secretary Ed Miliband said Mr Brown was "the right leader".

International Development Secretary Douglas Alexanderr said Mr Brown had "nothing to fear" from a TV debate between the party leaders.

Mr Miliband said Mr Brown had "bags" of resilience to take into the next election.
He told the Daily Telegraph: "I think we've got the right leader in Gordon. He's the man who stopped us going from recession to depression in Britain and around the world."

Mr Balls - regarded by most as the prime minister's closest ally - insisted there was "all to play for" in the next election as he geared up for the conference which begins on Sunday in Brighton.
He said the party needed "more fighters, not quitters".

Mr Balls told the Guardian the prime minister should not worry about lacking "razzmatazz". "Gordon is who he is. Gordon is at his strongest when he is being authentic," he said.

Mr Alexander suggested any televised debate could be part of a series between Labour heavyweights and their opposite numbers ahead of the next general election.

'Game on'
"I don't think Gordon has anything to fear from a TV debate," Mr Alexander, who is also Labour's election co-ordinator, told the Daily Mirror. "I hope this campaign provides the opportunity for serious debates at every level of the party.

He said the conference would demonstrate that "it's not game over, it's game on".

According to the BBC report, the only leading Labour politician who’s ‘off-message’ is John Prescott:

'Meanwhile, ex-deputy PM John Prescott has accused Labour MPs of defeatism. He told the Independent there was "something lacking" at the top of the party and no direction in campaigning, adding: "We are drifting"… in his interview, Mr Prescott suggested there was a lack of talent and experience among the party's team of advisers. He said: "Those who have responsibility for campaigning - it is not reaching out to the depths of the party. "We've got a whole bank of MPs, but everybody seems despondent. There's too much defeatist thinking. There's no central direction to campaigning."

Reading posts like this makes you wonder how the BBC website goes about compiling such material. Does a reporter, spend an hour or two reading today's newspapers and then cobble together a 'detached' summary on his/her own initiative?

Or does some Labour Party spin doctor prompt them into doing it?

Whatever the answer, it gives the party with a great deal more coverage than appeared on the same website one day last week during the Liberal Democrat conference (i.e. none) - which also makes you wonder just how 'impartial' the BBC really is.

What's wrong with saying "Hi"?

One of the (many) things about Twitter that irritates me is that messages from would-be 'followers' start with 'Hi' - and presumably anyone I decide to 'follow' gets an identical 'Hi' from me - even though it's a word I do my best to use as rarely as I can.

This isn't just because I don't much like imports from American English into British English, but is because "Hi" is so much less efficient as a greeting than alternatives like "Hello" or "Good morning" - especially if you're making a phone call and can't see the person who's answered it.

Some of the early work in conversation analysis took a detailed look at greeting sequences, and came up with the idea that the first thing we do when we hear a voice on the other end of a phone is a 'voice recognition test'.

The rule is: if you can recognise the voice, you should immediately let the other person know that you've recognised who it is.

So, if someone answers the phone by saying "Neasden 456789", you have quite an extended voice sample (9 syllables) on which to do the voice recognition test before the answerer reaches the end of the number. By then, if you have recognised it, you should promptly acknowledge the fact by saying something along the lines of "Hello Ron" or "Hello Mr Knee."

The advantage of this for Mr Knee is that he doesn't have to go to the trouble of introducing himself or explaining who he is or where he's from, because you've already established that you know perfectly well who he is.

Like quite a lot of rules in conversation, the rule has an 'if you can' clause to it. In other words, there's a preference for showing instant recognition over failing to show recognition - so the first option is to show that you've recognised the answerer - if you can.

This is why the word "Hi" is such an inefficient or inadequate form of greeting when you can't see the person who's speaking - for the obvious reason that a single syllable on its own may not be enough for you to be sure who it is within the split second before they've finished. As a result, you'll have to admit to them that you didn't recognise their voice, which can sometimes have quite embarrassing consequences.

This might seem a rather trivial reason for suggesting that multi-syllable words and phrases like "Hello" and "Good morning" are more efficient than "Hi". But it's not at all trivial when you're on the phone, or if you happen to be blind or visually impaired.

I know this because the person I've heard objecting most strongly about people greeting him with "Hi" is someone who's been blind from birth. What's more, the reason he gives for detesting it so much is precisely because it doesn't give him enough time to know who it is that's speaking to him - and makes him feel impolite for having to confess that he'd failed to recognise them.

Clegg’s conference speech: ‘definitely OK, absolutely fine, without any doubt not bad’

The last thing party leaders want when making their annual conference speeches is for something in the news to knock coverage of them down in the list of the day’s headlines.

So it was bad luck for Nick Clegg that he was wrapping up the LibDem conference at the same time as President Obama was speaking to the United Nations in New York, one result of which was that Sky News opted for live coverage from across the Atlantic rather than from Bournemouth. Another was that, if you look at the online versions of today’s newspapers, it’s actually quite difficult to find any references to his speech at all on their home pages.

But the fact that much of the reaction was as feint in its praise as the quote from former Blair speechwriter Phil Collins in today's title can't just be put down to 'bad luck'

Noticeable absences
Something else that party leaders should be aware of is that ‘noticeable absences’ from their speeches don't make good headlines.

The concept of a ‘noticeable absence’ is a simple but important one in conversation analysis. It refers to instances where conversationalists notice that something that had been expected to be (or should have been) said is missing – e.g. if you don’t say “hello” in response to someone who’s just said “hello” to you.

Speeches are obviously different from conversation, but you really don’t want the media giving higher priority to what you didn’t say than to what you did say, as happened in the following headline and opening few lines in The Times (which wasn’t the only paper that highlighted the absences):

Nick Clegg ignores Lib Dems' week of woe with pitch for Downing St
Nick Clegg urged voters yesterday to elect him Prime Minister in a brazen attempt to put a difficult and divisive pre-election conference behind him.

Speaking in Bournemouth Mr Clegg failed to discuss his promise of “savage cuts”, he ignored the dispute over tuition fees and made only a fleeting mention of the “mansion tax” proposal for properties worth more than £1 million, which was intended to be the flagship policy for the week.

Walkabout woe?
Given Mr Clegg’s obsession with not being regarded as a clone of Tory leader David Cameron, repeated in yesterday’s speech with jokes about Brad Pitt, I remain baffled as to why insists on aping the management guru-apparently unscripted-walkabout style of delivery that made Cameron stand out at the Tory leadership beauty parade in 2005 – and set him on course to win the top job.

If you want to assert how different you are from someone else, why on earth would you copy that person’s distinctive (for a British politician) style of delivery? Why would you do it if you aren’t as good at it as him? And why would you do it when even Cameron has increasingly given it up in favour of looking more ‘statesmanlike’ at a lectern? (For more on which, see HERE and HERE).

I’ve asked a number of LibDem insiders why he does it, whose idea it was and what the advantage is supposed to be, but they either don't know or won't tell me.

Time to abandon autocue?
One comment submitted to The Times ‘Live chat’ feature on Clegg’s speech raised an important question:

‘Does he have an autocue problem or does he just talk that way?’

This could well be at the heart of what's holding him back – because without giant teleprompters, he wouldn’t be able to pretend that he’s speaking off the cuff (you can see another LibDem MP wrestling with the huge autocue screen HERE).

One problem of wandering about, with or without autocue assistance, is that you have to find something to do with your hands. Another is the question of what to do when the audience applauds – an issue touched on previously HERE and HERE.

The trouble is that how you handle such apparently trivial details is likely to be noticed by reporters, and you really don’t want valuable column inches being wasted by such distractions, as in the following accurate observations (in italics) from Ann Treneman in The Times:

“I want to be prime minister,” said Nick Clegg, hands clasped as he stood in a spotlight. Nick, basking in their love, stepped back for a moment, preparing himself to deliver his next bombshell announcement.

Similar details also got a mention in the Daily Mail: 'Captain Clegg looked neat and tidy and waved his hands about ... He spoke fluently, strode around the stage and clasped his palms together at appropriate moments ... Once or twice he waggled a forefinger in a way that reminded me of John Major'.

I’m not sure how far his insistence on walking about and reading from autocue screens at the same time is diminishing his performance. But his delivery does seem to attract a good deal of feint praise like that from Phil Collins in today's title and other similar reactions to yesterday's speech, like:

'he gave a workmanlike version of what a modern Opposition party leader's speech tends to be these days. But that is as far as it went', ‘a decent performance’, ‘fluent but strangely unpersuasive’, ‘there is no change in timbre in his voice, no rise and fall’, ‘I don't get the sense he really believes this’, ‘it makes you nostalgic for the rabble-rousing charisma of, er, Menzies Campbell’.

However, one thing I am sure of is that, if I were advising him, I’d get him to have a go at speaking from a lectern to see if it helped him to lift his performance beyond 'OK' and 'not bad'.

(P.S. It's great when other blogs like Liberal England pick something up from here, but I wish their readers it would take the trouble to read the whole story. From comments on the Liberal England blog so far, their complacency about media coverage of Nick Clegg's speech makes me wonder if they really are living in a world of their own).

25 years on, and all I remember about the day is baldness and chewing gum

Twenty five years ago today, Methuen published Our Masters' Voices and Granada Television began a new season of their World in Action series with the film Claptrap (which can be seen HERE).

The story of how the book came to be written, published and eventually used as the basis for a televised experiment is continuing in the Claptrap posts on this blog, and I'd been vaguely aiming at getting to to the end of it by today. But it's turned out to be a rather longer story than I'd expected and there are at least two or three more episodes that will be posted during the next week or so.

The curious thing about today is that the main things I can remember were two details in the way Ann Brennan and I reacted when we saw the film for the first time at the London offices of Granada for the press preview before the film went on air later that day.

Ann was upset by a close-up shot of her chewing gum just before going up to make her speech. She never chewed gum, didn't like the sight of people chewing gum and certainly didn't want people to think that chewing it was a normal part of her everyday behaviour.

The only reason she was chewing it was that Cicely Berry, then head of voice at the Royal Shakespeare Company, had given it her to help relax her jaw and moisten her mouth before making the speech. But that wasn't mentioned in the commentary and it was far too late to change anything before the film went out.

I experienced a similar shock about my appearance that was beyond repair. When congratulating her at the end of the speech, the camera brought the top of my head into view, revealing the beginnings of a bald patch - that has progressed a great deal further during the 25 years since then.

Apart from these two trivial details, I remember hardly anything else about what happened that day.

Given some of my posts criticising over-stated claims about the importance of body language and non-verbal communication, I find it rather depressing that, 25 years later, the only things I remember clearly about that day had to do with what we looked like, rather than anything either of us actually said in the film!

Beware of mobile phones and 5-part lists

If you're looking for sample clips of how not to do it, go no further than the BBC Parliament Channel during the party conference season - if you can bear to sit through one dire speech after another.

Its apparently random editing as the picture switches from speaker to audience also throws up the occasional gem - or maybe it's not so random, but is deliberately done to show that some people in the audience have more important things to do than hanging on the speaker's every word.

Tonight I spotted this one, which highlights a problem with mobile phones that's all too familiar to those of us who regularly speak in public.

It also illustrates the kind of response you're likely to get if you're rash enough to use a 5-part list (i.e. none) and the fact that using an autocue doesn't guarantee a brilliant delivery.