Wired Presentations

Tonight was awesome. A few of my neighbors and I went to a town hall meeting. BJ Lawson, who is running for Congress from the 4th District in North Carolina, hosted the event. My goodness was it eye-opening. He answered questions from the audience for almost two hours. Not once did he side-step a question or ignore a question. Ignoring questions is what politicians usually do; they choose to answer questions that were not asked.

BJ Lawson is not like most other politicians. He doesn’t side-step a tough question or a tough crowd. Take a look at this video and see for yourself. Keep in mind he attended this event without a body guard. In fact, he may have gone alone.

The next time you have to speak on a controversial subject to a potentially hostile crowd, remember BJ Lawson.

Take a moment to read BJ’s blog post “ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION AND AMNESTY: IT’S NOT ABOUT CITIZENSHIP.” It provides some context for the video.

Three days ago I wrote that there may be a time when you need to read a speech. The response on Twitter indicated that some people were skeptical. Today four candidates for the Wake County (NC) school board proved me right!

I was driving to the grocery store when I heard these folks talking on the radio. I was struck buy 3 things:

Thing 1 – Get coaching: Not a single one of them was good at public speaking. Com’on people. If you are going to run for public office there is a slight possibility that you will need to speak in public. I imagine that these folks are comfortable speaking in public and believe that comfort equals skill. It doesn’t.

Here is a suggestion to anyone in the Triangle area of North Carolina thinking of running for office: Take a communications course. Contact Alan Hoffler at MillsWyck Communications. He can help you stand out from the crowd. Call him or send him e-mail now!

Thing 2 – Practice for the situation you will face by role playing: It didn’t sound like any of them had role-played being on the radio. False starts. Stutters. Dead air. It was all there. I bet they could have made arrangements to visit the radio station and practice using the equipment. At a minimum they could have recorded themselves and figured-out that they were speaking too fast and were not pausing. A great point would be made and then quickly disappear because it was washed away by the next thing that they needed to force in there.

They were so nervous that I felt sorry for some of them. Again, practice is key here. One of them stated that they have a Doctorate. All I could do is wonder why someone so educated was so ill prepared. Practice. Practice. Practice.

Thing 3 – If you are going to read a speech then learn how to do it right: All 4 of these candidates read their closing comments. It was dreadful. The speech feature of my Kindle would have had more nuance and emotion. Good’ole Kindle would have been smoother too. That is just sad. Everyone should practice reading aloud. Everyone.

Bonus Thing – There has to be something that you really care about: Each one of these candidates had lots of things that they were “concerned” about. They were all over the place. I have learned that stuffing more content into the allotted time hurts much more than it helps. Pick 2 or 3 issues and know them inside and out. Care about them. Immerse yourself in them. Hammer them home. Show you have great depth in your issues. In short: Own your issues.

If someone were to offer you $75,000, and the use of a private jet, to give a speech: Would you accept the offer?

If you had accepted the offer: Would you show up?

Seems that not everyone would.