Andrew Hennigan's Blog

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 shouting "Leave, leave!". At the same time the crawl at the bottom of the screen was telling us that Mubarak was expected to step aside. Watching these images reminded me that not being in tune with your audience is actually a common problem in public speaking, though rarely on such a dramatic scale. Yet you can avoid or manage most of these situations simply through controlled leaks. You are probably familiar with the technique from newspaper and TV of politics. Before a leading politician makes a possibly controversial announcement you will often see reports in the media...

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. KNOW PEOPLE: Without people you don't have a network so you need to meet more people, either face-to-face or virtually. Just meeting someone isn't enough. You also need to get their contact information -- never go anywhere without your business cards -- and also find out something about what they do. Don't forget to make sure you also give your contact info and say what you do. Look for opportunities to meet people: attend conferences, go to networking events or join professional associations. Consider also volunteering for some kind of service, which gets you more visibility....

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 Audacity editing software . This setup is effective, inexpensive and portable so you can record anywhere. Adobe's Audition editing software is also good, but Audacity is free and more than good enough. 2. Record each podcast in one take without interruptions . Read an extra paragraph or two at the beginning to warm up your voice then delete them later. If you make a mistake in any paragraph leave a pause then read it again. Later go back and delete the bad paragraphs. Mark them by tapping your pen on the table to make a visible mark (see photo). This method makes sure you have t...

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 technical limitations of affordable hardware and its no surprise that occasional video makers are so disappointed. But there are some concrete things you can do about it. 1. GET USED TO IT . First of all it helps if you see yourself and hear yourself on video more often so you get used to how it looks and sounds. The first time will probably be a surprise but after a few attempts it will seem much more like you. Try also watching yourself on video in a mirror to get a more realistic idea of how others see you. 2. LET THERE BE LIGHT . Many problems are just caused by...

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 their career, but also useful for people who are already well established in their field. Professor de Waal explained that his career as a writer of scientific books for the general public began in the 1970s while he was a young scientist working at Arnhem Zoo in the Netherlands. Arnhem had at that time the world's largest colony of captive chimpanzees and his job was to study their behavior. Out of gratitude for this unique opportunity he volunteered to present lectures for visitors to the zoo. Visitors were mostly not scientists and this experience taught him what bores people and what...

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 or descendants of someone very famous. In my own case the oldest object of certain origin is a pot made by my great grandfather Robert Douglas Marr at the beginning of his career as a potter. The oldest stories that have reached me by word of mouth -- rather than official records -- are more or less from the same period. From the records I know that Robert's grandfather was a carpenter named Andrew Marr, born in 1785, but no relative that I know has any stories to tell about him, nor do any artifacts survive. I suspect that he never gave any thought to the problem, but if he tried to pa...

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 restaurants in the US where waiters sing because "that's what they do in Italy", but though I lived a long time in Italy I never saw a waiter sing there. In fact the source of this myth for a generation of people is the restaurant scene in Disney's Lady and The Tramp -- the scene where the dogs eat spaghetti and meatballs. Just for the record, spaghetti and meatballs is also not something you would ever find it Italy, but that's another story. Over the years the most offensive stereotypes were eliminated, even to the extent of censoring existing cartoons, but what surp...