Max Atkinson's Blog

Obama demonstrates how to time your slides with what you're saying

Many PowerPoint presentations fail because the speaker can't wait to press the button to bring up a new slide - usually because they haven't a clue what to say next until they can see what's there on the screen.

That's why I recommend the motto "later rather than sooner" -because the audience has to wait for whatever newsworthy or surprise element a slide might have in store for them and gets
the impression that the speaker is in full control and knows
exactly what's coming next.

I illustrated and discussed the point a while back, with video
clips of Steve Jobs getting it wrong and getting it right (HERE).

In his recent speech at the White House Correspondents dinner (above), President Obama demonstrated that he too knows that pressing the
button (or getting someone else to press the
button) "later rather than sooner" is an effective way to
time when to reveal each next slide.

It was also a marked improvement on his use of visual aids
than was to be seen in the slide-pack used in the 'enhanced'
version of his State of the Union Address earlier this year.

Another startling interview: "I haven't seen or heard what the PM said, but I agree with it"

My thanks today to Jim Kelleher of IpsosMORI for alerting me to an essential gem for my collection of memorable interviews with politicians (via Twitter @UncleBooBoo).

The language 'surfacing' from James Murdoch at today's Leveson Inquiry

At about 1.00 p.m. today, I was asked by a leading Scottish newspaper to write a 400 word piece on James Murdoch's performance at today's Leveson Inquiry - deadline 6.00 p.m.

Tight though this was compared with the usual deadlines I work to, I agreed. Then, at about 4.30 p.m. just as I'd finished the first draft, another phone call from them: the revelations about Alex Salmond's involvement with the Murdoch family had wiped everything off tomorrows front pages so they wouldn't be able to use my contribution after all.

Not unusual in my experience with the media but, with a blog where I can post unfinished stuff, not much of a disaster either:

As one who spends most of his working life helping business people to communicate more effectively, I should have known better than to tune in to James Murdoch’s evidence to the Leveson Inquiry today. But I can never resist the chance to collect examples of how and how not to do it.

Having heard Mr Murdoch in action before, I knew that he had a tendency to use management-speak to get his points across. What I now know is that he’s one of the most extreme cases I’ve ever come across.

He spoke about “negotiating some of the detail going forward”, an “undertaking in lieu”, of someone who had “gotten what they’d professed to want”, about “a case about whether or not there was an insufficiency with respect to…”; he “recalled concurring with that view” and “believed (he) would have appreciated assurances that the process would be handled objectively in the future.”

He had much to say about “our rationale for the transaction and our analysis of the plurality concerns” and even threatened to “take plurality off the table.”

“Nothing (he) said to Mr Osborne would have been inconsistent with our public advocacy on the subject."

And he was lucky enough to have “a management board where senior executives … had ample opportunity to be able to discuss these issues and surface them.”

As his flat mid-Atlantic drawl droned on, it was like listening to paint dry. As for what it all meant to your average native speaker of English, much of it was anyone’s guess. And that, presumably, is the point. Why else would so many business people become so addicted to the language of jargon and management-speak.

After all, the more long words of Latin origin you use, the more obscure your message is likely to be. Better still, saying that you “concur with that view” rather than “agreeing with it” implies a degree of neutrality and detachment. As an added bonus, if your audience is trying to work out what your words actually meant while, at the same time, trying to listen to whatever you say next, they’re less likely to be able to understand that either.

Anyone in search of data for a treatise on the obscurantism of contemporary business language need look no further than James Murdoch – who also provides us with a variation on a famous quotation from George Bernard Shaw: he who can communicate communicates; he who can’t owns the media of communication...

P.S. Data for further research
Video and full transcripts of proceedings from the Leveson Inquiry become available shortly after each session at 'Hearings' on the Leveson website HERE. They hadn't been posted at the time of writing the above, but they have now. So, if you've the stamina for more management-speak, you can gorge yourself on gems from James Murdoch like the following:

"Well, I think this is a formal letter about the process, which is something that we would have -- I mean, again, most of these emails in here, as we continue to go through them, are really about the process and our concern that the appropriate things were being considered, that they were being considered in the appropriate way and that our legal arguments were heard around the place. I mean, this is a large-scale transaction that was in the hands, with respect to the decision-making process, of the department of culture, media and sport. We're going to get into, in a minute, the undertakings in lieu that were extracted, the concession, the remedy, if you will, and it was entirely reasonable to try to communicate with the relevant policy-makers about the merits of what we were proposing."

"… you point out rightly it's a very difficult question and it is a balance and I wouldn't presume to have the answer. However, perhaps I would just -- I would just say that the things that may be weighed up with respect to when you're considering up would be both a question of clarity around defence, really around criminal defence, and it may be a question of a stronger enshrining of speech rights on the one hand, coupled with a stronger set of consequences and either a self-regulating body or a statutory body that includes the press but also individuals that are not part of the working press today, so that just as one of the great learnings for us as a business has been not to allow an operating company to investigate itself without absolute transparency to the corporate centre, which I think is one of the learnings from the failure in 2006 and 2007 for News Corporation to get to the bottom of this, I also think it's difficult to allow an industry in and of itself to control itself on a voluntary basis, given the concerns that we obviously all have, and I think balancing a strengthening on both sides may be one way to think about it."

Are parents of young children fit to run the country?

A 43 year old father of two teenagers recently got me thinking about the age of our our leading politicians' children: "I really don't think that all these blokes with young children are in any position to govern effectively."

The point he was getting at will be familiar enough to all parents, and especially those where both partners are working (or have have worked) in demanding jobs. He was taking about the time-consuming nature of bringing up a family and the dedication, distractions and compromises it inevitably involves.

Many of us, of course, have already raised doubts about the growing dominance of contemporary British politics by MPs in their 40s, whose main work experience has been as former aides to older politicians.

But it hadn't really dawned on me that the age of their children might also be a powerful new factor in the lives they're all trying to lead. If nothing else, it must put a tremendous strain on them when it comes to maintaining a satisfactory balance between home and work (I do, however, remember wondering if one of Gordon Brown's more notorious gaffes - "We've already saved the world - er saved the banks" - partly derived from his being tired from nights disturbed by very young children HERE).

Youngsters with young children

Consider the ages of the current prime minister, deputy prime minister, leader of the opposition, chancellor and shadow chancellor and their 13 children, whose average age is just over 7 (all ages in brackets):

Cameron (45): 3 children (2, 6, 8)

Clegg (45): 3 children (3, 7, 10)

Miliband (42): 2 children (2, 3)

Osborne (41): 2 children (9, 11)

Balls (45): 3 children (7, 11, 13)

How are you doing/did you do?

Now consider what you job were doing (or are doing now) while bringing up children aged between 2 and 13. Then ask yourself the following:

How well did you (or do you) cope?
How many commitments at work, home or school have you had to miss out on?
What impact has your missing work commitments had on your family life (and vice-versa)?

How are they doing?

In his Wikipedia entry, Nick Clegg is quoted as saying "The most important things in my life are my three young children: I'm besotted with them" (HERE) - which presumably (and understandably) makes them more important than his job in government as deputy prime minister.

Elsewhere, in the run-up to the most recent Labour leadership contest Mrs Ed Balls (Yvette Cooper) wrote candidly on why her mention of her young children didn't mean that she was letting women down by not standing for the leadership (HERE).

And, as I was writing this, news came through on Twitter that David Cameron had shown he is aware of the problem on BBC Radio 4's Today programme this very morning when he said "It's got to be possible to be a decent husband, a decent father as well as prime minister."

Should we worry?

So, going back to the question raised by my 43 year old informant's point: how worried should we be about being governed by people whose lives must be distracted by trying to run private lives with children who are so very much younger than those of most previous generations of leading politicians?

P.S. Tweeted Reactions
Although I may have hinted at what I think about this, I deliberately left it as an open question - which makes it all the more gratifying that, since posting it a few hours ago, it's attracted quite a lot of interest on Twitter, for which thanks to all of those who've taken the trouble to respond.

As the comments haven't been entered under 'Comments' below, you might like to see a selection of what people have been saying:

'Possibly something in this!...Yawn' @benatipsosmori
'This is the kind of thinking that keeps women from putting themselves forward for power. ' @karinjr
'We ask too much of our leaders if we ask them not to want children and family lives.' @karinjr
'You are inviting me to make a sweeping generalisation! You should know this is the HQ of mushy equivocation.' @JohnRentoul
'Don't Cameron et al all have professional child care/nannies?!' @PolProfSteve
'A lot of good sense here!' @DillyTalk
'Women are harder on themselves. Have you seen the recent research showing women believe themselves less qualified for office?' @karinjr
'Not having kids, I can't speak for how hard it is (crazy hard I bet) but I think women more likely than men to doubt themselves' @karinjr
'I realise this is a tangent from the "politicians with kids" question, but...' HERE @karinjr
'We need a broad reflection of society for govts to work properly - gender, race, background, income, kids ages etc.' @lochlomondhol
'Agreed, but my worry is sheer tiredness + work/life balance. Constant try to get clients to manage this better' @DillyTalk
'A very good point. I've often thought about it - particularly the sleep deprivation, which knocks about 20 points off your IQ.' @MASieghart
'Also, as I wrote a couple of weeks ago, this business of peaking at 40 makes it even harder for women with children to compete.' @MASieghart
'Women have argued for many years for provision of adequate, affordable childcare. Won't stop sleepless ngts tho!' @DillyTalk

P.P.S. And thanks to @MASieghart for drawing my attention to this article: Moderate sleep deprivation produces impairments in cognitive and motor performance equivalent to legally prescribed levels of alcohol intoxication.

Evidence that I would not have played cricket for Yorkshire

A while back, I posted news of how I might have played cricket for Yorkshire if only I'd known at the time that I needed spectacles - and that, had I done so, I might have had the miserable experience of spending a career opening the batting with Geoffrey Boycott (HERE).

However, now that some cine film of my youthful batting has been become available in digital format, the empirical evidence suggests it was a fantasy (even though I was summoned to the nets at Headingley twice for inspection - see HERE for 'professional coaching' experience).

It may not be too bad for a 12/13 year old facing up to his (very) big and intimidating brother, but too much right hand resulted in a tendency to scoop up rather easy catches to mid-off or mid-on: