tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-56288068205083812282012-02-03T15:04:05.325+01:00Andrew Hennigan is a Consultant, Speaker and Writer on professional communication, intercultural issues, public speaking, social media, networking, persuasion & influencing, video and other topics. Copyright Andrew Hennigan 2011.Andrew Henniganhttps://profiles.google.com/105057073153150809821noreply@blogger.comBlogger1211100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5628806820508381228.post-42600390474138497312012-01-30T14:42:00.001+01:002012-01-31T10:06:32.220+01:00

There is a persistent myth that engineering is some sort of universal truth that is unaffected by national, regional or company cultures. This is something I have heard when I am doing intercultural workshops -- comments like "all this stuff about cultural differences is interesting but it doesn't apply to me because I am an engineer, I work with other engineers and we all think the same way".

Andrew Henniganhttps://profiles.google.com/105057073153150809821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5628806820508381228.post-18225224878176444192012-01-25T11:52:00.001+01:002012-01-28T22:42:39.206+01:00

When the London Organizing Committee of the Olympic Games, LOCOG, announced a social media ban for volunteers the reaction was mostly negative with just a few thinking their position was reasonable. At the time I wrote my initial comments in Olympic Ban Highlights Polarized Attitude to Social Media where I argued that while there are sensible reasons to restrict social media use, the way it

Andrew Henniganhttps://profiles.google.com/105057073153150809821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5628806820508381228.post-11274579414306861522012-01-23T09:55:00.000+01:002012-01-26T14:43:49.699+01:00

Maybe you have an early stage startup with a minimum viable product and you are somewhere between the kitchen table stage and your first funding. When you search for the name of your startup on popular search engines all you see is your own website, your own blog and then irrelevant results. This will change when you get covered by Mashable, TheNextWeb, TechCrunch and so on, but for now it

Andrew Henniganhttps://profiles.google.com/105057073153150809821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5628806820508381228.post-65330430459782708302012-01-19T14:25:00.000+01:002012-01-19T14:25:08.100+01:00

At the end of lectures and workshops one of the questions I hear most often is "How do you get so many ideas?". Some people turn this round and ask "Why don't I have so many ideas?". In reality everyone has ideas, the only difference is that some people write them down and everyone else forgets them. You think you will remember, but without the help of a note you are likely to forget the idea,

Andrew Henniganhttps://profiles.google.com/105057073153150809821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5628806820508381228.post-59773049566948911722012-01-13T21:22:00.004+01:002012-01-23T11:59:35.763+01:00

After the  summer while I was benchmarking social media monitoring tools I watched a number of demos, including an early version of Odimax's SocialGuru. At the end of the demo founder Atal Malviya asked if there was anything else that might be useful to add. One feature I asked for is an emergency stop button for the scheduled actions, the equivalent of the big red button you find on all

Andrew Henniganhttps://profiles.google.com/105057073153150809821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5628806820508381228.post-90866458048103553022012-01-11T12:47:00.005+01:002012-01-24T14:04:01.618+01:00

People from the few societies that are not hierarchical -- Netherlands and Scandinavia mainly -- often have difficulty grasping how strongly hierarchical societies can function. When I explain this point in culture workshops they usually ask how any organization can function when people are unable to contradict the boss or even to report that something doesn't work. This happens not just

Andrew Henniganhttps://profiles.google.com/105057073153150809821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5628806820508381228.post-10010781877642387932012-01-10T14:56:00.001+01:002012-01-25T12:00:50.659+01:00

According to family legend, my great uncle Willie went to Paris with the UK Olympic team in 1924 then continued to wear the blazer proudly until well into the 1950s. News that the London 2012 organizing committee intends to ban social media use by volunteers (BBC article) shows that they are perhaps out of touch with what motivates people today -- I doubt that anyone is doing it for the

Andrew Henniganhttps://profiles.google.com/105057073153150809821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5628806820508381228.post-25614881213058888472012-01-06T10:45:00.001+01:002012-01-06T11:00:44.263+01:00

Now that Facebook Timeline is available to all users worldwide (if you haven't got it yet go here and click Get Timeline Now) I hear more and more people complain that it is not as good as old Facebook. Yet I am sure that when Facebook announces the next major redesign people will be grumbling that they want to keep Timeline. This "New Facebook Effect" is well known. I wrote about it last year

Andrew Henniganhttps://profiles.google.com/105057073153150809821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5628806820508381228.post-17390549755639722732012-01-03T10:45:00.000+01:002012-01-03T10:45:04.562+01:00

Email has been the backbone of business communication since the 1980s. When it was first introduced it changed the way people worked, driving the shift from physical letters typed by secretaries to self-typed messages, accelerating the pace of business and enabling more remote collaboration. Since then technology ha advanced. Thanks to better hardware, better software and faster networks we

Andrew Henniganhttps://profiles.google.com/105057073153150809821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5628806820508381228.post-38101386916478497352011-12-19T14:45:00.000+01:002012-01-23T12:00:55.556+01:00

This week I've been testing a new website called 16pics that is designed to take the hard work out of choosing a selection of photos from an album. Once you have set up your account it is very simple to use. You just choose an album on your favorite photosharing site or on Facebook and it automatically chooses a suite of 16 photos that you can share with your friends. Surprisingly the process

Andrew Henniganhttps://profiles.google.com/105057073153150809821noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5628806820508381228.post-3720266963367093242011-12-13T10:43:00.001+01:002011-12-13T10:52:45.297+01:00

In the last two weeks I have seen a best-in-class example of a video streamed event -- LeWeb Paris 2011 -- and I have appeared myself in a conference professionally streamed from the IAE Graduate School of Management near Aix en Provence. I have also seen another example of an event that was streamed less successfully, probably because the streaming was improvised. I won't say who did it to

Andrew Henniganhttps://profiles.google.com/105057073153150809821noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5628806820508381228.post-79749412110224666122011-12-11T15:37:00.001+01:002012-02-02T10:48:19.582+01:00

[ 2 February 2012: Wahooly has started now. See note at Google Plus Wahooly Post ] Perhaps one day people will run out of ideas for new Internet startups but I don't think that we are there yet. Alongside all the me-too photo sharing and social network sites there are some brilliant new concepts that remind me how creative people can be. Wahooly.com is one of these. Wahooly is a new web 

Andrew Henniganhttps://profiles.google.com/105057073153150809821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5628806820508381228.post-8192110802305612432011-12-04T01:53:00.001+01:002012-01-24T14:02:50.541+01:00

When you are managing people from other cultures you probably expect that they see things differently in some ways, but there are also many deep cultural differences that can cause unexpected problems. Here are three of the most common culture-related surprises I have encountered doing intercultural workshops, and what you can do about them. 1. HIERARCHY HEADACHES.  The world is divided into

Andrew Henniganhttps://profiles.google.com/105057073153150809821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5628806820508381228.post-87091751405511944892011-12-04T00:40:00.001+01:002011-12-05T00:42:41.304+01:00

How did Brunel build bridges and steamships without email, powerpoint and other modern communication tools, asks a recent question on Quora.com.  You don't have to go back so far; at the end of the 1960s NASA sent men to the moon and returned them safely to the earth with little more than slide rules, typewriters and carbon paper. But the question is interesting because when you think about it

Andrew Henniganhttps://profiles.google.com/105057073153150809821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5628806820508381228.post-46991291479755975242011-11-29T12:01:00.001+01:002012-01-25T12:37:27.021+01:00

One of the questions that I often hear in networking workshops is how to separate private and work networks. This is a problem for anyone but especially for those who are transitioning from study to work and need to add a layer of professional networking on top of their existing friends-and-family networking. Whatever your situation here are five answers to the question.. 1. THERE ISN'T A

Andrew Henniganhttps://profiles.google.com/105057073153150809821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5628806820508381228.post-63928111684723980482011-11-28T09:23:00.001+01:002012-01-23T12:01:47.954+01:00

With dozens of new websites coming every day, to impress me you either have to do something very original or do something very well. A startup called Gidsy has managed to do both. Described as a "marketplace for experiences", Gidsy brings together people who are looking for interesting new experiences and people who have an activity to share with other people. You can, for example, book a

Andrew Henniganhttps://profiles.google.com/105057073153150809821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5628806820508381228.post-60096523269352765272011-11-24T12:46:00.001+01:002011-11-25T12:36:31.646+01:00

So you don't like the way you look in photos? You are not alone. Most people feel the same way -- and this includes some of the pin-ups and fashion icons you drool over. Just being in the majority isn't going to make it feel better so is there anything concretely you can do if you feel like this? Yes, it turns out that there are a few things you can try, and here are the top five in no

Andrew Henniganhttps://profiles.google.com/105057073153150809821noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5628806820508381228.post-26131251949819687022011-11-22T12:06:00.001+01:002012-01-25T12:37:51.922+01:00

Most people are happy to share information about their relationships with other people through social networking sites, though in all normal cases this information is shared voluntarily. But a recent announcement by a Washington political publisher raises the possibility of someone, somewhere might one day assemble and share this kind of information without your knowledge and without your

Andrew Henniganhttps://profiles.google.com/105057073153150809821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5628806820508381228.post-86878293415091351682011-11-21T12:55:00.001+01:002011-11-21T14:00:25.863+01:00

When Google rolled out their first search site in 1998 their website amazed everyone for its simplicity. At that time most websites seemed to strive for the chaotic jumble favored by portals like Yahoo, where the aim appeared to be to use every word, every font and every color that ever existed in the same page. Sadly, though Google inspired many me-too search sites, most other websites

Andrew Henniganhttps://profiles.google.com/105057073153150809821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5628806820508381228.post-27733033851251706692011-11-15T12:07:00.001+01:002012-01-25T12:38:51.937+01:00

Every so often I get connection requests on LinkedIn from people I don't really know. Some users actually welcome any connection requests -- these are the "open networkers" -- but many people are like me and prefer to connect to people they know in some way. This does not mean I don't like to be contacted by new people, but I prefer to get to know them before I connect. This is not as hard as

Andrew Henniganhttps://profiles.google.com/105057073153150809821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5628806820508381228.post-57423892490443133922011-11-14T12:48:00.001+01:002012-01-28T19:57:49.702+01:00

Twitter usernames are given on a first come first served basis so unless you were quick to register your name and your brands -- as I suggested in this post -- it is quite likely that they have already been taken by someone else. What's more infuriating, though, is that very often they are taken by someone who apparently leaves the account inactive. This means that many people ask how can you

Andrew Henniganhttps://profiles.google.com/105057073153150809821noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5628806820508381228.post-36924619406127021312011-11-09T12:59:00.001+01:002011-11-09T18:32:02.269+01:00

After less than a decade of activity, the world of social media is littered with ghost towns that have not disappeared but practically nobody goes there anymore. Since they are not in the public eye many pages have been created and then forgotten. Maybe the community manager that started them has changed job, or maybe they were never official projects anyway. But whatever the reason, there

Andrew Henniganhttps://profiles.google.com/105057073153150809821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5628806820508381228.post-5086468823810218582011-11-07T14:56:00.000+01:002012-01-24T14:06:10.791+01:00

A few days ago I wrote about some less than obvious ways that culture can impact your meetings (Three Non-Obvious Issues in Multicultural Meetings). Since that was so popular here are three equally unexpected ways in which cultural differences can derail an email exchange. RISKY REMINDERS. Depending on where you come from you might think that sending reminders is a sensible, practical idea,

Andrew Henniganhttps://profiles.google.com/105057073153150809821noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5628806820508381228.post-80168582812543584662011-11-02T16:50:00.000+01:002011-11-02T16:50:25.793+01:00

Many people are frustrated by the amount of time that they have to spend in conference calls that are inefficient and unproductive. Avoiding these calls is one answer, but then you are out of the loop both for information and decision making. A much better strategy is to apply best practices and systematic preparation to make them faster, leaner, more effective. You can do this even if you are

Andrew Henniganhttps://profiles.google.com/105057073153150809821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5628806820508381228.post-82078503998539188572011-10-27T11:39:00.000+02:002012-01-24T14:04:28.342+01:00

When you are planning a meeting with people from different cultures maybe you have already prepared by learning about the way people greet each other and other surface cultural differences. But chances are that your meeting might be derailed by some non-obvious cultural misunderstandings. Here are the top three problems I have seen in workshops and coaching people about intercultural business.

Andrew Henniganhttps://profiles.google.com/105057073153150809821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5628806820508381228.post-5304856060750990612011-10-24T13:38:00.000+02:002011-10-26T10:06:28.932+02:00

By following just three simple tips any email user can save time for themselves and everyone else, cutting the time you need to spend on mails and reducing stress. Anyone can learn this in five minutes. 1. PUT SOME MEANINGFUL CONTENT INTO SUBJECT.  By far the easiest way to make your emails easier to find, understand and act on is to put the heart of the message into the message subject. This

Andrew Henniganhttps://profiles.google.com/105057073153150809821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5628806820508381228.post-13557756556193515492011-10-15T10:08:00.000+02:002012-01-26T14:44:28.544+01:00

Recently I wrote a detailed note about the process of discovering and selecting brand names that are search engine friendly -- Branding in the Age of Search Engines.  What this note did not cover was the issue of pronounceability  which is a problem so complex it would not fit into a single bullet point but is critically important for businesses. When the Internet search site Cuil closed last

Andrew Henniganhttps://profiles.google.com/105057073153150809821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5628806820508381228.post-86734881876027263792011-10-14T12:47:00.000+02:002012-02-01T11:16:08.361+01:00

Every day I get followed by Twitter accounts that are obviously using some sort of autofollow tool triggered by a keyword in one of my tweets. I know that they are autofollows because it is clear that the account has no interest in my content and it is unlikely I would be interested in theirs. Most use a crude keyword trigger so that if I were to tweet that I hate carrots I would be followed

Andrew Henniganhttps://profiles.google.com/105057073153150809821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5628806820508381228.post-39176799996814155752011-10-11T12:41:00.000+02:002011-10-11T12:41:19.599+02:00

Most social media and social networking sites allow some limited interaction between different channels. So, for example, you could link your Twitter and LinkedIn accounts so that all your tweets go into your LI status updates. Using tools like Hootsuite and Tweetdeck you can also schedule actions across several platforms at certain times. And there are many tools that allow you to setup

Andrew Henniganhttps://profiles.google.com/105057073153150809821noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5628806820508381228.post-75760986135583179142011-10-10T11:03:00.002+02:002012-01-22T09:04:22.294+01:00

Every week there is a new wave of Facebook scams and hoaxes. Sometimes it is a warning that you will have to pay for Facebook if you don't click on a link. Other times it is the promise of seeing who viewed your profile, if you click on some link. There are others promising the Secrets of Farmville -- if you click on a link.  This week one of the most popular Facebook scams is the one

Andrew Henniganhttps://profiles.google.com/105057073153150809821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5628806820508381228.post-13052407486381888082011-10-08T14:08:00.002+02:002012-01-31T10:24:35.023+01:00

When someone has a great idea -- a new product, a reorganization, a cost saving move or whatever -- what often happens is that they make a presentation to the decision maker in a meeting. This is actually one of the worst ways and makes rejection much more likely because it doesn't take into account human nature. Rarely do decision makers decide in isolation; usually they are influenced by the

Andrew Henniganhttps://profiles.google.com/105057073153150809821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5628806820508381228.post-63027895903971421102011-10-07T10:41:00.000+02:002011-10-07T10:41:26.445+02:00

From time to time a clever hoaxer manages to fool the media with a fake press release, normally backed up by a fake web site.  Usually people do this simply to make a point, a tactic used very effectively by the culture jamming group The Yes Men.  More recently it was used by Taradeep Gill, a Canadian Web Developer frustrated by having to make websites compatible with older versions of the

Andrew Henniganhttps://profiles.google.com/105057073153150809821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5628806820508381228.post-61059527296515136522011-10-05T13:06:00.000+02:002012-01-31T10:05:14.397+01:00

[ UPDATE: New note about remote coaching options below this post ] When people hear about you for the first time very often they will Google you just to see who you are. If they don't like what they see this could reduce your chances of being called to interview for that dream job, getting a chance to pitch your business idea to a wealthy venture capitalist or whatever it is you are trying to

Andrew Henniganhttps://profiles.google.com/105057073153150809821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5628806820508381228.post-35836269187993044502011-10-04T11:08:00.000+02:002012-01-25T12:40:02.261+01:00

According to knowem.com there are more than 500 popular social networks and new ones are emerging all the time -- Google+, Dribbble, Zerply, Diaspora, Geekli.st and many others. Nobody can be active on all of them and even maintaining a presence on more than just a few is impractical, so which of these networks do you really need to be on?  Luckily there are just a few that are either

Andrew Henniganhttps://profiles.google.com/105057073153150809821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5628806820508381228.post-90948327361331787242011-10-03T10:11:00.001+02:002011-10-03T10:11:59.903+02:00

If you are a rising politician, the founder of a interesting startup or a successful athlete sooner or later you will be hearing your own voice on the radio. Most likely you are not going to like the result, especially at the beginning. All the time I hear people say "I don't like the way I sound", "I hate the way I sound" or "do I really sound like that?". It's not just beginners, too. Not so

Andrew Henniganhttps://profiles.google.com/105057073153150809821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5628806820508381228.post-34236916003416821142011-09-30T11:41:00.000+02:002012-01-26T14:46:12.706+01:00

You are not what you are; you are not even what you think you are; you are what Google says you are. When people look for you, your company, your products or pretty much anything else the first thing they usually do is to turn to Google. This means that if you are not easy to find you will probably not be found. If you can't be found by a human searching on Google then the internal search

Andrew Henniganhttps://profiles.google.com/105057073153150809821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5628806820508381228.post-49932841122182445792011-09-27T14:26:00.000+02:002012-01-25T12:40:33.596+01:00

When I talk about professional networking most people are thinking of traditional business networking sites like LinkedIn, but Twitter can also be surprisingly effective to find and engage with people in your business. Twitter also has the advantage of speed: relationship building that can take months on LinkedIn happens much faster on Twitter simply because of the speed of the medium.  Maybe

Andrew Henniganhttps://profiles.google.com/105057073153150809821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5628806820508381228.post-77468642184174161202011-09-26T12:45:00.000+02:002011-09-26T12:45:32.028+02:00

Once again Facebook has changed the layout of the home page and once again most people are enraged. There are always a minority who are attracted by change but the majority react like the participants in this Digital Trends Survey who gave the latest redesign a clear thumbs down. Yet the people who don't like the new version now prefer the previous version, but just a few months ago the same

Andrew Henniganhttps://profiles.google.com/105057073153150809821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5628806820508381228.post-57259336869666230752011-09-21T14:16:00.000+02:002012-01-26T14:46:44.240+01:00

Many companies and organizations use an account on photo sharing sites like Flickr or Picasa effectively as part of their overall communication strategy.  For example, the Greater Manchester Police in England uses their Flickr account both to post pictures of people they are looking for and  community building images from their historical archives. But some companies decide that they do not

Andrew Henniganhttps://profiles.google.com/105057073153150809821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5628806820508381228.post-88750617375962063562011-09-20T11:01:00.001+02:002012-01-26T14:47:46.292+01:00

There's a question and answer thread on Linked In Answers this week where people are discussing the question: Are you on all 340 major social networks?.  Most people focus on the impossibility of following hundreds of social networks and I realized that they are maybe not aware that simply signing up for a new network or service can sometimes be very important for your reputation or brand.

Andrew Henniganhttps://profiles.google.com/105057073153150809821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5628806820508381228.post-83983058492550830862011-09-15T16:07:00.000+02:002011-09-15T16:07:35.858+02:00

Engagement between companies and their customers on social networking sites is mostly done by human community managers, assisted by some limited automation to boost productivity.  As technology advances these bots will take on more ambitious roles. Soon it will be the norm for mainstream companies to use automated engagement bots to handle first responses and simpler operations, with a human

Andrew Henniganhttps://profiles.google.com/105057073153150809821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5628806820508381228.post-84924084117267278922011-09-11T16:47:00.002+02:002011-09-11T16:47:40.675+02:00

Many science fiction stories have anticipated future developments, but probably the most surprising was Murray Leinster's extraordinary story "A Logic Named Joe". Written long before anyone had seen a computer, or even a TV set, it imagined a future world where every home would be equipped with a computer ("logic" in the story) that is connected to a "tank" (a server) and that all the tanks

Andrew Henniganhttps://profiles.google.com/105057073153150809821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5628806820508381228.post-17665165386277745392011-09-09T20:18:00.000+02:002011-09-10T09:44:05.930+02:00

This week the free social media monitoring site socialmention.com suddenly disappeared. I first noticed when I tried to demonstrate it to a class I was teaching at the IAE Aix Graduate School of Management near Aix en Provence, but later I noticed that the problem persisted for several days. This is very unusual. Most glitches last a few hours so for a website to disappear for several days is

Andrew Henniganhttps://profiles.google.com/105057073153150809821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5628806820508381228.post-60211987389241748472011-08-31T14:07:00.004+02:002011-08-31T14:30:57.304+02:00

Twitter is an amazingly useful service but is constantly being undermined by two things: spam and automation. There is not much we can do about spam except report it, but we can all help to minimize the negative effects of automation by teaching everyone how to auto-tweet responsibly. All social media management tools offer automation features, from simple tweet scheduling to fully automated RSS

Andrew Henniganhttps://profiles.google.com/105057073153150809821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5628806820508381228.post-4758782700343029432011-08-22T11:02:00.002+02:002012-01-25T12:42:00.706+01:00

This week I have been testing Zerply, the new professional networking site aimed primarily at people who grew up with the web. Though it sounds like an embarrassing disease, the name is inspired by the idea of "serious play" and the idea is to bring effective networking to non-corporate people who find traditional networking sites like LinkedIn very dull. You can read more about this idea at

Andrew Henniganhttps://profiles.google.com/105057073153150809821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5628806820508381228.post-11048495168629068512011-08-19T09:33:00.003+02:002011-08-19T10:46:36.114+02:00

Since the Heello.com service started earlier this month I have seen and heard many people say that Twitter users are not going to pack their bags and move to Heello so it is doomed to failure. On the first point I might agree but I do not believe that this means it cannot succeed. I don't say it necessarily will succeed but here I am going to give you three reasons why it could succeed. Just in

Andrew Henniganhttps://profiles.google.com/105057073153150809821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5628806820508381228.post-11854328818240580242011-07-12T12:38:00.005+02:002011-07-13T21:41:39.900+02:00

Just recently I wrote about how many rogue tweets are the fault of poor user interface design in Rogue Tweets: Where They Come From; How to Stop Them. In early 2010 I also wrote about this topic in When No Communication is Best: Speed Skating, Morphine Overdoses and the Wings Fall Off Button. But I see that the lessons of errorproof interface design are not being learned very quickly.Many rogue

Andrew Henniganhttps://profiles.google.com/105057073153150809821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5628806820508381228.post-5420105366112901262011-07-06T13:04:00.002+02:002011-07-06T13:21:22.812+02:00

By May 2012 tobacco companies in Australia will be required to package cigarettes in plain olive green packs with the name of the product and the maker written in a standard font. At the same time health warnings will increase from 30% to 70% of the surface. (See "Australia Plans Plain Packaging for Cigarettes" in The Guardian.) The goal of this move is to make smoking less attractive though I

Andrew Henniganhttps://profiles.google.com/105057073153150809821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5628806820508381228.post-50004168039121500792011-06-20T13:06:00.004+02:002011-06-20T13:29:57.363+02:00

Today's announcement that the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) will change the rules for Top Level Domains in 2012 might be good news for people who want to use other languages and scripts, but is it also good news for communication, marketing and branding people? I am not convinced and here are three reasons why:FIRST: in today's world people are more likely to be

Andrew Henniganhttps://profiles.google.com/105057073153150809821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5628806820508381228.post-6229757155423054522011-06-16T13:24:00.003+02:002011-08-30T14:40:45.746+02:00

What do the American Red Cross, the US Secret Service and the Chrysler Corporation all have in common? They have all been embarrassed in recent months by rogue tweets, those unfortunate errors that often go viral and frequently cost someone their job. Rogue tweets are caused by a variety of reasons. Sometimes it is an accident caused by software that automatically shortens content generated for

Andrew Henniganhttps://profiles.google.com/105057073153150809821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5628806820508381228.post-9718618602972360502011-04-06T13:02:00.003+02:002012-01-31T10:27:46.476+01:00

Fear of speaking and presenting are very common but they can impact your career and also create avoidable stress. I know because I can remember a time when I was terrified of public speaking and really hoped I would be struck by lightning before it was my turn. Now I look forward to it and actively look for opportunities to speak (in fact if you need a speaker get in touch). You can do the same

Andrew Henniganhttps://profiles.google.com/105057073153150809821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5628806820508381228.post-75675864347849047042011-02-11T10:18:00.005+01:002011-10-31T10:16:17.920+01:00

When Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak addressed his people for the last time on 10 February 2011 the disconnect between his words and the expectations of the audience was highlighted by the AlJazeera (http://english.aljazeera.net/video/) split screen presentation, which showed us Mubarak on one side saying "I cling to power" while on the other side his people were waving their shoes and

Andrew Henniganhttps://profiles.google.com/105057073153150809821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5628806820508381228.post-11729928173171709772011-01-19T12:27:00.003+01:002012-01-25T12:43:11.605+01:00

Networking is an essential element of any influencing strategy and mastering the use of networks is a skill you will need to develop social and political intelligence. But while most people understand the need, not quite so many realize that the essentials of good networking are actually very simple. You can, in fact, sum them up in just three keys: Know People, Build Trust, Share Needs.

Andrew Henniganhttps://profiles.google.com/105057073153150809821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5628806820508381228.post-56612835715252445172010-10-21T20:09:00.006+02:002010-10-21T20:31:40.861+02:00

A few months back I wrote some practical tips for recording video interviews, in Recording Video Interviews: Three Non-Obvious Tips That Make a Difference. Now it is the turn of audio podcast recording with five best practices that will help you to record audio podcasts quickly and easily yet produce a professional result.1. Create your podcasts on your laptop using a lapel microphone and

Andrew Henniganhttps://profiles.google.com/105057073153150809821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5628806820508381228.post-41579424101403182312010-09-13T10:10:00.003+02:002010-09-13T10:28:16.063+02:00

Many times I have heard people say "I hate the way I look on video", or "I hate the way I sound in recordings". This is nothing weird; if you are not used to being recorded then there is always a disconnect between the way you see yourself -- always a mirror image -- and the way others see you. And you hear your voice partly through your head so it sounds different to you. Add to that the

Andrew Henniganhttps://profiles.google.com/105057073153150809821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5628806820508381228.post-18537060983860295892010-09-05T09:41:00.007+02:002012-01-31T10:27:24.786+01:00

This week I was fortunate enough to see the primatologist Frans de Waal speaking at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm. He spoke about empathy in primates -- the topic of his most recent book, The Age of Empathy; he also spoke about popular science writing and how he mastered this difficult craft. His lessons are especially interesting for people who are at the beginning of

Andrew Henniganhttps://profiles.google.com/105057073153150809821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5628806820508381228.post-42609376321954769802010-08-25T10:29:00.007+02:002010-08-25T13:37:00.054+02:00

How many stories about your great-great-grandparents have been passed down to you through the generations by word of mouth? How many objects belonging to your great-great grandparents have reached your generation?If the answer to these questions is more than zero then you are quite lucky. Most people have a family tradition that rarely goes past their great grandparents unless they are royalty

Andrew Henniganhttps://profiles.google.com/105057073153150809821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5628806820508381228.post-9961523427219525802010-07-05T10:12:00.004+02:002010-07-05T10:41:40.030+02:00

Classic cartoons from the golden age were riddled with clumsy national stereotypes, so that non-American characters were instantly recognizable by their accent, dress, actions and even profession. Mostly harmless, these stereotypes formed the minds of generations and created myths that persist even today.Take, for example, the myth of the mandolin-playing, singing Italian waiter. I have been in

Andrew Henniganhttps://profiles.google.com/105057073153150809821noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5628806820508381228.post-78974732818038167142010-06-21T11:16:00.006+02:002010-06-28T12:50:03.774+02:00

In the YouTube age it's not just media pros who are recording TV interviews -- people in company PR, HR and training departments often find that they have to do it, too, and without any help.If you are in this position you probably discovered already that you can Google tutorials about how to use the equipment and also find plenty of lists of Important Things to Remember. What is missing is the

Andrew Henniganhttps://profiles.google.com/105057073153150809821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5628806820508381228.post-82042831155874152422010-06-08T13:04:00.005+02:002010-06-08T14:04:36.609+02:00

In the last post I gave seven reasons why companies should have a well managed Twitter account. Now I am going to explain what I meant by well-managed by listing 10 Things That Companies Do With Their Twitter Accounts but Maybe Shouldn't.Just to be clear, these are the things that you should NOT do:1. Use the account only to retweet articles from other sources that they find interesting without

Andrew Henniganhttps://profiles.google.com/105057073153150809821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5628806820508381228.post-16662517759100655892010-05-04T11:37:00.004+02:002010-05-04T11:57:10.854+02:00

There are still companies that either don't have a Twitter account or -- maybe worse -- have an account that is not properly managed. In my experience there are two reasons why this is so: either they don't know why they need an account or they do but they just don't know how to run it. Today we'll deal with the first problem; I'll come back to the other later.So, why does a company need a

Andrew Henniganhttps://profiles.google.com/105057073153150809821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5628806820508381228.post-63089798819560040022010-04-27T10:10:00.003+02:002011-11-01T15:47:45.424+01:00

Just a few days ago I ordered some printing work by email. My message was sent but there was never any acknowledgment of the order or notification that the work was done. In the end I had to ask if they had received the file. But suppose it had been urgent and my mail had not been delivered? Acknowledging messages is such an obvious good idea that I used to wonder why some people don’t do it.

Andrew Henniganhttps://profiles.google.com/105057073153150809821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5628806820508381228.post-80706357624294631262010-04-22T08:55:00.002+02:002010-04-22T09:08:17.784+02:00

If you were planning a career in the exciting world of call centers think again. Yesterday's experience rebooking a volcano-delayed flight convinced me that in the future Twitter is going to take a large slice of this business.With rolling cancellations of flights over a period of several days airlines have been faced with thousands of callers trying to rebook their flights. Call centers and

Andrew Henniganhttps://profiles.google.com/105057073153150809821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5628806820508381228.post-70406678793317971432010-04-12T13:29:00.009+02:002012-01-27T21:45:04.719+01:00

Anyone who has worked with other people in other cultures is aware that emails across borders sometimes have unexpected results or even no result. To address this issue people sometimes focus on visible details, like how to begin and end messages, but the real problems are deeper. This means they are less evident but let you predict how people will react in many different situations. The good

Andrew Henniganhttps://profiles.google.com/105057073153150809821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5628806820508381228.post-18459544263446370612010-03-01T15:39:00.003+01:002012-01-31T10:26:56.449+01:00

Let’s assume that you are pretty good at creating and delivering presentations, but now you have a chance to present to someone at the top, the Chief Executive or someone else at the C suite level. How is it different? What do you have to do and what fatal mistakes should you avoid? Here are nine and a half proven tips and tricks to help you succeed.1. PRESENT THE CONCLUSIONS FIRST then give

Andrew Henniganhttps://profiles.google.com/105057073153150809821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5628806820508381228.post-34958754521139486002010-02-26T10:36:00.005+01:002010-02-26T10:58:56.965+01:00

Very often I advise people how to communicate their messages more effectively, but there are some cases where the best idea is not to communicate anything at all but to design a product, process or system so that the message is not necessary. Intuitive user interfaces, for example, mean that you don’t need a user’s manual, and safety interlocks eliminate the need for warnings.Occasionally, though

Andrew Henniganhttps://profiles.google.com/105057073153150809821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5628806820508381228.post-56771871075451358972010-02-01T17:06:00.007+01:002010-02-01T17:21:25.925+01:00

You might think that the trademark database search page of the United States Patent and Trademark Office might be a bit dull -- it certainly looks so – but if you try typing in certain words that you think cannot possibly be trademarks then you make an interesting discovery. Not only are words like snot, piss and asshole all registered trademarks, they have all been registered dozens of times

Andrew Henniganhttps://profiles.google.com/105057073153150809821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5628806820508381228.post-49353273071751971162010-01-31T15:03:00.004+01:002010-01-31T15:30:22.678+01:00

In September 2009 I blogged about how the limitations of one media often drive creativity in another (If Fish Could Draw, 28 September 2009). One of the examples I gave was the art of Catarina Kruusval , whose illustrations are sometimes drawn with distorted verticals and perspective like the view from a fisheye lens. I am still convinced that she was inspired by wide angle lenses but it turns

Andrew Henniganhttps://profiles.google.com/105057073153150809821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5628806820508381228.post-1112853365376152282010-01-21T13:16:00.003+01:002010-01-21T13:18:33.067+01:00

Preparing for a lecture about how a PR crisis can become “chronic” I have been fact checking some case studies such as the long running “Nestlé Boycott”. This case is very interesting in many ways, but today I have noted two apparently trivial details that are instructive for anyone who is creating content for websites, blogs and social media. My first step in research is often to google the

Andrew Henniganhttps://profiles.google.com/105057073153150809821noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5628806820508381228.post-53340163408952498082010-01-20T13:41:00.006+01:002012-01-31T10:26:36.555+01:00

When I coach people in speaking and presenting skills I always ask what they need to know about and especially what they fear the most. Pretty consistently the nightmare of most people is having to present something that someone else has prepared. These are mostly people who are already confident presenters of their own material but they dread being handed a pile of possibly poor quality

Andrew Henniganhttps://profiles.google.com/105057073153150809821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5628806820508381228.post-75004124528565676482009-12-29T16:38:00.004+01:002009-12-29T16:46:46.427+01:00

As we approach the end of a decade once again the media have begun the tiresome review of the past ten years. Try as you might you will not find a newspaper or TV schedule that doesn’t feature some sort of overview of the noughties. Some, perhaps unwisely, are also essaying some predictions for the coming decades – the “oneties” I call them for the lack of a better name (the word comes from my

Andrew Henniganhttps://profiles.google.com/105057073153150809821noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5628806820508381228.post-48060395606467190312009-12-15T10:08:00.003+01:002009-12-15T10:15:06.412+01:00

Every time I read some PR maven forecast that social media spells the end of PR I always laugh. Far from putting flacks out of work, social media tools like Facebook and Twitter actually create more work, generating or adapting content, monitoring and watching out for hidden dangers. Communications professionals in the old days never had to worry about domain name or typo squatting, and they didn

Andrew Henniganhttps://profiles.google.com/105057073153150809821noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5628806820508381228.post-72524954344469185152009-11-20T11:49:00.004+01:002009-11-20T12:02:26.489+01:00

In a recent posting I expressed my disagreement with an article published in the Guardian newspaper suggesting that Google Sidewiki could mean the end of PR as we know it (see http://andrewhennigan.blogspot.com/2009/11/sidewiki-is-cool-but-reports-it-spells.html )At first I said that Sidewiki was cool, but simply that I did not think it was any threat to PR as we know it. Indeed I believe it

Andrew Henniganhttps://profiles.google.com/105057073153150809821noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5628806820508381228.post-47321583712040863652009-11-11T14:09:00.003+01:002009-11-11T14:11:18.307+01:00

Most people seriously underestimate the impact of cultural and social factors on innovation. Very often excited inventors roll out a product that is objectively “better” only to find that it bombs in the market for reasons that are perhaps obvious only to an anthropologist.Take, for example, the stubborn resistance of European drivers to automatic transmission, which is an almost universal

Andrew Henniganhttps://profiles.google.com/105057073153150809821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5628806820508381228.post-1443081967582778792009-11-09T13:01:00.002+01:002009-11-09T13:10:01.091+01:00

In a world where there is an exciting new web tool practically every day of the week, Google’s new “SideWiki” toolbar did not quite make the impact it deserved when it emerged about a month ago.Effectively it answers all the people who have become so used to adding their comments on Facebook posts and newspaper articles that they feel frustrated when they read an old time one-way web page with

Andrew Henniganhttps://profiles.google.com/105057073153150809821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5628806820508381228.post-57707268919030038992009-11-03T14:03:00.003+01:002009-11-03T14:07:41.712+01:00

Competent PR professionals can deal with any emergency. It’s their job and it is why we have crisis plans. But there are some cases where even seasoned veterans must wish they had better customers. One that springs to mind is the use of real human cadavers as crash test dummies about a generation ago. Objectively most reasonable people could accept that this testing could make cars safer and

Andrew Henniganhttps://profiles.google.com/105057073153150809821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5628806820508381228.post-90437259939876492662009-10-30T11:22:00.004+01:002009-11-20T11:47:10.766+01:00

Over the years I have taught hundreds of managers how to communicate effectively. One point I often make is that you should be focusing more on the goals and messages, and not just obsessing over minute rules of grammar, spelling and punctuation. But these can sometimes be very important too, as we will see.Yesterday I picked up a new ink cartridge for a printer and I was mildly surprised to see

Andrew Henniganhttps://profiles.google.com/105057073153150809821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5628806820508381228.post-66251974061357355812009-09-28T13:24:00.003+02:002009-09-28T13:26:55.041+02:00

If fish could draw perhaps their drawings would all be done with a fisheye perspective, though PJ O’Rourke once famously remarked that if fish really did see like that we could go after them with baseball bats and not need to buy expensive fly rods. Since the stone age artists have drawn and painted with the normal human eye perspective, but I have noticed that nowadays they sometimes draw and

Andrew Henniganhttps://profiles.google.com/105057073153150809821noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5628806820508381228.post-77068574497079067952009-08-12T12:39:00.005+02:002009-11-20T17:41:52.072+01:00

Often I meet people who are trying to improve their communications but at the same time are trying to do it in a language that is not their first. I understand the problem well since it is what I do myself most of the time, but over the years I have picked up some useful shortcuts to speaking and writing more effectively in other languages. Some I have discovered myself and others I have learnt

Andrew Henniganhttps://profiles.google.com/105057073153150809821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5628806820508381228.post-74508647173215337652008-12-16T11:55:00.005+01:002008-12-16T12:00:32.236+01:00

Recently I was paying some taxes. In France this is not as terrible as it sounds because the tax people have a most excellent website www.impots.gouv.fr where you can pay all your taxes online with just a few mouse clicks. The site is surprisingly effective and makes the chore of paying taxes if not exactly a pleasure then maybe less painful that it could be, though every mouse click still sucks

Andrew Henniganhttps://profiles.google.com/105057073153150809821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5628806820508381228.post-88181334171126981992008-09-13T20:25:00.002+02:002008-09-13T20:30:28.147+02:00

Earlier this year the Clarion hotel chain opened a new hotel in Stockholm, right next to the terminal of the Arlanda Express airport train. A curiously angular cheese-shaped building; it is described as Stockholm’s largest hotel, with hundreds of guest rooms plus all the usual big-hotel facilities. Since it is right next to the station it will probably be a popular conference venue.But what

Andrew Henniganhttps://profiles.google.com/105057073153150809821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5628806820508381228.post-87803289025106544272008-06-09T12:26:00.002+02:002008-06-09T12:32:35.023+02:00

Recently a federal judge threw out a lawsuit where the health products company Johnson & Johnson sued the American Red Cross Committee for using the classic Red Cross logo (Red Cross Prevails in Lawsuit). For most people it is no surprise that the suit was thrown out, but for many it is a mystery why a billion dollar company would sue a charity anyway, since at the very least it does not look

Andrew Henniganhttps://profiles.google.com/105057073153150809821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5628806820508381228.post-54951899985470510422008-06-03T11:46:00.000+02:002008-06-03T11:47:31.628+02:00

Last week UK media all covered the story that Prime Minister Gordon Brown personally calls a selection of people who have sent him letters or emails. You might think that this is a nice personal touch that would get a neutral to positive coverage, but in fact many publications focused on the funny side. The prime minister, they claim, might be well meaning in his attempt to be more human, but

Andrew Henniganhttps://profiles.google.com/105057073153150809821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5628806820508381228.post-74370150216274581202008-05-27T10:36:00.004+02:002008-09-14T10:00:54.898+02:00

One of the basic rules of planning communication goals is to make them achievable. Some things you can change and others you just have to live with. Maybe you can convince someone to buy your product, and maybe you can change their attitude about the environment, but some changes are just too big for one step, or perhaps even for one generation.A new book has just been published that contains a

Andrew Henniganhttps://profiles.google.com/105057073153150809821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5628806820508381228.post-58572243390137471152008-05-26T13:27:00.003+02:002008-05-26T13:33:23.962+02:00

Hardly a day goes by without some educator protesting about the damage done to learning by Wikipedia. Students cut and paste text directly, they claim, or they repeat one-sided arguments and false stories planted by vandals and spin doctors. Actually I can well believe that students do these things and I am sure that had I grown up in the web 2.0 era I might have done the same, but this is no

Andrew Henniganhttps://profiles.google.com/105057073153150809821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5628806820508381228.post-67010441054141528362008-05-22T13:59:00.003+02:002012-01-20T20:12:55.619+01:00

Some places have names that are romantic or glamorous: think Hollywood, Saint Tropez or Timbuktu. Others are not so fortunate: Dusseldorf in Germany, Pittsburgh in the USA and Pukeberg, Sweden come to mind. For the English the town of Newcastle is firmly in the second category. Not exactly England’s Beverly Hills, it was long famous as the place coal came from though these days it is perhaps

Andrew Henniganhttps://profiles.google.com/105057073153150809821noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5628806820508381228.post-7836378005733604982008-05-07T13:39:00.001+02:002008-05-07T13:41:15.549+02:00

Recently researchers discovered what was billed as the earliest sound recording ever – a brief clip of a French folk song recorded by Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville in Paris on April 9, 1860. Actually de Martinville never intended to record sound to be played back. He was simply interested in capturing on paper a visual representation of sound for analysis, but with modern technology this

Andrew Henniganhttps://profiles.google.com/105057073153150809821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5628806820508381228.post-10571420007974152542008-03-17T12:33:00.000+01:002008-03-17T12:34:54.841+01:00

At the beginning of the month “peace pilgrim” Mark Bishop’s planned two year walk from Bristol England to the birthplace of Ghandi in India came to an early end. His plan was to carry no money and rely on the kindness of strangers to get free food, lodging and transport. This worked well from Bristol to the south coast of the UK and across the English channel, but it failed when he reached

Andrew Henniganhttps://profiles.google.com/105057073153150809821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5628806820508381228.post-64675174323173732572008-02-20T12:30:00.004+01:002008-02-20T12:36:07.959+01:00

There’s an interesting piece by Chinese born graphic designer Yang Liu (sometimes spelled Liu Young) now appearing in emails and blogs everywhere. You can find the whole message by googling Liu Young and it is on many blogs including http://journeytothai.blogspot.com/2008/02/asian-and-western-culture-by-liu-young.html but it is not on her own website http://www.yangliudesign.com/ I give just one

Andrew Henniganhttps://profiles.google.com/105057073153150809821noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5628806820508381228.post-8059773041753097632008-02-05T13:41:00.000+01:002008-02-05T13:42:50.790+01:00

In 2006 newspapers reported* on the results of a study to determine the best way to load passengers onto an airplane. In the study they tested various strategies: a free for all; boarding the back rows first and so on. Their conclusion was that the fastest way of boarding passengers was to board first window seats, then middle seats, then aisle seats. Not surprisingly they chose not to adopt

Andrew Henniganhttps://profiles.google.com/105057073153150809821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5628806820508381228.post-91930298585350803712008-02-04T12:02:00.000+01:002008-02-04T18:25:42.948+01:00

Browsing in a supermarket today I saw a packet of crackers I had never seen before. Checking the labeling I saw a reassuring “baked in a nut free facility” (you definitely don’t want nuts baking your crackers) but I saw a worryingly long list of ingredients. The list didn’t seem to include anything obviously dangerous, but on the front of the box there was a note that it contained trans fat.

Andrew Henniganhttps://profiles.google.com/105057073153150809821noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5628806820508381228.post-61492059148036808692008-01-31T13:31:00.000+01:002008-01-31T13:37:32.442+01:00

I’m not going to name any names (see ”Name the sin...” at http://andrewhennigan.blogspot.com/2007/11/name-sin-but-not-sinner.html) but from time to time I see books and articles about presentation skills that recommend you practice with a video camera. Sounds like a sensible idea but in my experience it frequently causes more problems than it solves. The problem is that there are roughly two

Andrew Henniganhttps://profiles.google.com/105057073153150809821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5628806820508381228.post-75801393970718680302008-01-07T11:13:00.000+01:002008-01-07T11:17:53.985+01:00

A team of investigators from Britain’s “Scotland Yard” was invited by the Pakistan government last week to help investigate the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. Media reports suggest that their role will be to provide technical expertise not available locally. Mazhra Zaidi of the BBC Urdu language service also added “... a major question to be answered is how much co-operation the British

Andrew Henniganhttps://profiles.google.com/105057073153150809821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5628806820508381228.post-74221898192106132612007-12-17T12:23:00.001+01:002008-05-15T11:53:56.426+02:00

Last week's Business Week included an article by Steve McKee warning that pretesting advertising campaigns can kill good ideas. ("Beware the Advertising Pretest" at http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/content/dec2007/sb2007127_693450.htm?campaign_id=rss_daily ).Many successful campaigns, argues McKee, would never have passed traditional pre-testing with focus groups. The reasons are not hard to

Andrew Henniganhttps://profiles.google.com/105057073153150809821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5628806820508381228.post-50401021073749590672007-12-14T13:14:00.000+01:002007-12-14T13:28:36.184+01:00

My company's own modest website http://andrewhennigan.com may not win any prizes, but I am pretty confident that if you try to print any page you will not be disappointed by the result. It is made deliberatley that way since i am routinely frustrated by unprintable pages.Just to give one example, following up on the Beatrice Rose posting (see http://andrewhennigan.blogspot.com/2007/12/

Andrew Henniganhttps://profiles.google.com/105057073153150809821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5628806820508381228.post-5127652348551829472007-12-11T11:34:00.000+01:002007-12-14T15:45:23.811+01:00

Among the old cameras displayed by an antique trader in an open air market was a battered old folding Kodak that probably all the collectors avoided. Someone had scratched "Beatrice Rose" on one side and "B Rose, London, 1930" on the front in a childish scrawl, giving an already worthless camera -- folding Kodaks were always cheap and plentiful -- even less collectability.But for me this was an

Andrew Henniganhttps://profiles.google.com/105057073153150809821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5628806820508381228.post-32957587977508643272007-12-10T14:58:00.001+01:002007-12-10T15:26:15.745+01:00

In the Mind Matters blog at Scientific American magazine there is an interesting review of studies about Stereotype Threat, where the performance of people is measurably affected by their own perceptions of stereotypes. Put simply, if you tell someone from a pink skinned race that his kind are not good at, say, break dancing and he will perform badly on any standard scientific test of break

Andrew Henniganhttps://profiles.google.com/105057073153150809821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5628806820508381228.post-66327918776274557482007-12-06T11:39:00.000+01:002007-12-06T13:28:30.851+01:00

There was an interesting article in yesterday’s “Le Figaro”. Titled “Une Webcam chez la nounou pour rassurer les parents” ("A webcam at the nanny to reassure the parents") at http://www.lefigaro.fr/actualites/2007/12/04/01001-20071204ARTFIG00193-une-webcam-chez-la-nounou-pour-rassurer-les-parents.php, it tells the story of a professional child carer in the French town of Lyon who has installed a

Andrew Henniganhttps://profiles.google.com/105057073153150809821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5628806820508381228.post-16293655146077271942007-12-05T11:46:00.000+01:002007-12-05T11:48:14.274+01:00

Recently I received an email from a major car rental company informing me that they would debit my bank account to pay for some vaguely defined « damage » to a car I had rented in August. Or at least I would have received it had it not been automatically swept away by the Gmail spam filter. I only discovered it during a routine check in the spam folder for “keepable” spams – I collect the more

Andrew Henniganhttps://profiles.google.com/105057073153150809821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5628806820508381228.post-7425042783468327122007-11-27T22:40:00.000+01:002007-11-27T22:44:26.195+01:00

It’s not every day the US Defense Secretary urges spending more on communications rather than military equipment, but that is exactly what happened yesterday. In a New York Times interview published today Robert M Gates is quoted as saying: “We are miserable at communicating to the rest of the world what we are about as a society and a culture, about freedom and democracy, about our policies

Andrew Henniganhttps://profiles.google.com/105057073153150809821noreply@blogger.com0