Andrew Hennigan's Blog

When's the last time that you had an offensive, rude or snarky email in your inbox? If you don't remember then consider yourself lucky. If you're looking at one right now then maybe your organization suffers from Toxic Email Syndrome. Luckily we have a cure for that and it isn't so difficult to apply. Toxic Email Syndrome seems to occur spontaneously in many workplaces. One person has a bad day and sends a mean-spirited email that they might regret later. Others respond to that in the same way and even more are influenced by the tone to follow in the same style. Over time the culture of sending toxic emails becomes sedimented in the company culture. But there is no reason for this to start and once it has started it can actually be stopped simply by following three best practices: MANAGEMENT HAS TO SET A GOOD EXAMPLE . People don't do what you tell them to do, they do what they see you doing. When the management is sending impolite and disrespectful emails to...

Maybe you are a pretty good speaker but when you try to record speeches they always sound wooden, hesitant or just plain boring. Luckily there are some simple methods that anyone can apply to make recordings sound better, and perhaps also easier to make, using no more than a laptop and free sound recording software. Before you start recording, though, make sure that you have practiced the delivery of the speech so that it sounds as natural as possible. Avoid reading a script, using instead a list of keywords to jog your memory about the key ideas. Unless you are a highly-trained actor it is very unlikely that you will be able to deliver a convincing performance from a written script. Then when you have mastered the content use these best practices to capture a good recording. RECORD THE SPEECH USING SOFTWARE THAT ALLOWS EDITING . Record your speech using a laptop with digital audio workstation software like the free Audacity package, which you can download free from   htt...

Networking experts never tire of telling people that they should always personalize LinkedIn connection requests. Many people ignore standard "I'd like to add you to my network" requests or at least are more reluctant to accept them. What the experts often don't tell you is that over the years personalizing these requests has become more difficult. Back in the noughties when you clicked on the connect button you were taken to a dialog box where you have had the option to change the standard message to something more personal -- and more effective. More recently the connect button has been changed to send the request immediately. At first you could personalize requests from People You Might Know and user profiles. Today the only place where you can do this is from a user's profile. What this means is that the connect button that you see in the People You Might Know section today is a one-click automatic request with the standard message: The Connect but...

Part of the everyday work of PR professionals is preparing quotes and comments for journalists. I have done it myself in the past but I have also been on the other side when I work as a freelance journalist and I have noticed that there some responses are exactly what I need, some are completely useless and most are somewhere in the middle -- ok, but could be better. Crafting usable quotes is a mission-critical skill for any PR person. Usable quotes are more likely to be chosen and less likely to be edited. You are also more likely to be asked for comment again in the future if your response is usable. So what exactly makes a usable comment? Why are some better than others and how can PR people learn to make their quotes easier to use?  Here are five essential tips: DELIVER YOUR RESPONSE ON TIME. If you have been asked to deliver a reply by Monday then make sure that you are on-time. If you are late or might be late because you are waiting for an approval then send...

Twitter has become an important source for news. Many people like myself find links to interesting articles in their feed and news stories that go Twitter viral soon end up being covered in media and the subject of conversation. For many years newspapers, magazines, blogs and other media have all had one-click icons to share article links. Some even added a suggested tweet text to make it even easier. But now media are adopting other techniques to encourage readers to tweet, simple ideas that anyone can adopt without any special web development or coding. Looking at an article published in today's Los Angeles Times Leading scientist warns that Ebola eradication may be elusive , for example, we see the usual Twitter sharing icon both at the top of the article and at the bottom. Clicking on this icon opens a Twitter composition window where we find a suggested tweet with a link to the article. Readers can edit this tweet or add hashtags before sending it. Readers with little t...

In an earlier post  Three Tips for Responding to Angry Emails I outlined some practical methods for responding to angry emails effectively. This solves part of the problem but it would be far better if angry emails were never sent in the first place. There are some people who regularly resort to sending angry emails -- every organization seems to have at least one employee who is part troll -- but even otherwise calm and measured people can slip into this mistake occasionally. And this is a mistake. Sending angry emails can have negative effects that go beyond the obvious. ANGRY EMAILS ARE NOT EFFECTIVE. A polite and respectful email is much more likely to achieve results than one that is angry and perhaps disrespectful, both in the short term and long term. Other people are always more co-operative with someone who treats them well and they will feel a stronger commitment to your goal when you ask nicely. Remember that at the end of the year when your results are being ev...

Recently I wrote some guidelines about  How to Make Sure Journalists Quote You Correctly . Since then several people have asked about a related question: how you make sure that journalists will ask you for comments again in the future. As a freelance journalist I have asked many other people for comments and in my role as consultant I have also been on the other side, so I have learned why some people get contacted just once while others are asked again and again. There are actually just three simple yet important rules to follow. RESPOND QUICKLY . When you are asked if you are interested in commenting on some topic you should respond as quickly as possible. The journalist is almost certainly working to deadline and needs to talk to a number of sources. Knowing who is interested and who isn't is very important. If you don't respond they don't know if you plan to respond later and maybe have to choose someone else instead. At this stage it is enough to state that you ...