I don't normally comment on
what happens at a big show like NAB until well after the show has closed -
it allows time for sober reflection. But this year has been a bit
different, and I think my experience to date deserves airing. As many of
you will know, I'm attending NAB with a "News Media" hat on -
covering (somewhat thinly) the show for the BKSTS News site (great
advertising rates by the way). This has resulted in lots of invitations to
Press Conferences, and although I have not attended that many, there's a
distinct trend starting to show.
So, let's call this - how
not to do a Press Conference.
Firstly, there's the
question of size. Big companies will see the need to have big Press
Conferences, that's obvious. And smaller companies will settle for getting
a few hacks into a meeting room on the back of the stand (or maybe not even
bother with the meeting room). But regardless of size, you need to think
about scale. If you have a huge meeting room, capable of taking at least
1000 journalists, please don't work on the assumption that they will all be
able to see you and what's going on. It's probably a good idea to have some
cameras taking a closer view of your presenters (especially if you make
cameras), but it would be an even better idea if those closer views could
be put up on a big screen - maybe not the one you're using for illegible
PowerPoint slides, but perhaps one alongside it. After all, this is a big
Press Conference.
Then there's the problem of
the speakers. If they are going to work to a script, it's probably best
that they either have some sort of prompter, or memorise it, or
even have it printed on sheets of paper in front of them. And
they need to have rehearsed - so they give at least a passing resemblance
of knowing what they are talking about. Oh, and even if the CEO does fancy
himself as Steve Jobs, don't let him pretend to be the man.
Next there's the problem of
sound - if you're going to have some sort of PA system, it's probably best
to test it ahead of time. If you insist on holding your Press Conference in
a night club, don't expect a loudspeaker system that consists mainly of
bass bins to reproduce speech too well. And while it's great for your CEO
to have a lapel mic so that he can wave his hands about freely, try to make
sure it isn't fixed to him in such a way that his face is pointing
away from it most of the time.
Getting your customers to
say good things about you is a great idea - just make sure they're not
going to be doing the same thing for your competitor 3 hours later. And if
you're going to include "specially shot" material in your
presentation, make sure it really is special - having to apologise for your
laptop running slowly really isn't good enough.
Having circumnavigated all
the pitfalls of venue, technology and the CEO's dress sense, there's then
the relatively minor issue of content - after all "content is
king". First thing to remember is that just because you say something
often enough, that doesn't mean it's true or accurate. Solutions are chemicals
in liquid form (apologies to all chemists out there), and no one has a
"complete solution". You're tremendously excited about your new
XYZ10, but that doesn't mean that the entire planet will be. And if you do
have something genuinely ground breaking, don't assume that all your
audience will understand what it does if you simply say "at last it
solves the problem of infinite space!"
Finally, if you only have a
little to say - only say a little. Don't be tempted the fill out your
allotted time by saying the same thing 20 different ways - it gets to be
boring.
|
No comments:
Post a Comment