Hi John,

Many congratulations to England goalkeeper Mary Earps on being named named England Women’s Player of the Year.

Her performances at the World Cup were outstanding and her attitude was inspiring. We finally seem to be getting to the stage where women's sport is reaching a par with men's sport, at least at the international level.

As someone who has been a school governor for decades, I've noticed the increased interest that female students have in school sports - 20 years ago it was almost impossible to get them interested, and now there's huge competition to get into the teams.

As with many things, it's all about reputation, and though the dreadful business in Spain with Luis Rubailes has overshadowed their World Cup win, it has also increased the interest in women's football there.



Places are going quickly for my 6 month or 12 month speaker coaching programmes starting in January 2024.

As someone who has been through the programme, Shaz Nawaz says:

“Working with Alan, and benefiting from his long experience in the speaking business, helped me to hone my message, define my market, and realise my value. I thoroughly recommend his coaching to speakers at any stage in their career”



If you'd be interested in learning more, and having a free 30-minute Zoom call, which will give you plenty of tips whether you sign up or not, just get in touch.

My guest in the web radio show this week is Dr Lynda Shaw.

She is the voice of behavioural neuroscience, dedicated to improving everyone’s understanding of how the brain affects your behaviour and how your behaviour affects your brain. With a rare talent to turn the complexity in relationships into something we can all understand, she is having a major impact on businesses around the world.

We had a fascinating talk about Toxic Positivity. Hear our chat in the in the radio show.

Go to the Apple Podcasts Archive of the MediaCoach Show

Follow me on Twitter

And there's a great song from Rob Corcoran

The MediaMug of the week is Scottish football club Stenhousemuir.

They won a Digital Transformation Award for the use of AI cameras to stream games to fans. But the technology was to blame for viewers missing the club's fifth goal in their 5-0 win over Stranraer at the weekend.

The goal was picked up by a second camera in the stadium, which produces less clear footage. But it was the clip of the goal not being shown which was included in the club's official highlight reel on YouTube.

Andy Smith, chair of fans group the Scottish Football Supporters' Association, said: "It’s ‘Bleeding edge’ technology and while it may be the future it’s not quite good enough for the present."

I once worked with a junior government minister who decided that he wanted to speak without notes. That's fine, but he left himself too little time to learn the speech, and forget some important sections. If you find a speech heard to memorise, here are some techniques to consider.

1. Autocue/Teleprompter. Obviously, this is only an option if the venue has the technology installed. Hiring it yourself, plus an operator is not cheap. However, if it is available, it's clearly a way of ensuring you remember all the words. It does require that you prepare and stick to a script, but remember that when you rehearse with the kit, you can still make last-minute changes. Make a sure you practice with the operator so that they learn your pace, and aim to look through the screens, not at them.

2. A4 script. This should be placed on a lectern. If you wander round the stage with it, you risk the danger of the "nervous flutter" noise, or simply looking like an actor in rehearsal. If you are using a verbatim script, try to look down and absorb a phrase before looking up and delivering it. The pauses while you read to yourself will seem quite natural. This technique needs a bit of practice, and has the danger that you may lose your place, so using wide spacing or colour coding on the script will help.

3. Cue cards. Use these for notes rather than the full script, and tag them together in sequence in case you drop them. They will ensure that you remember every section, which you then deliver from memory, though not to an exact script. You can easily move around with these cards in hand, making them a very popular technique.

4. Memorising links. Your speech will have a number of sections, which will often be stories. If you can memorise the links or transitions between the elements, perhaps by assigning each one to a finger, you will be able to deliver a decent-length speech (whatever that means) without notes.

5. Remembering the structure. This is a bit like memorising links, but could use the popular memory technique of a sequence of pictures, a journey, or the rooms in a house where you mentally "place" each section.

6. Winging it from your vast fund of knowledge. Don't.

It's a common misconception about the media that they are interested only in the big players. Of course, they want to hear from the CEOs of large organisations, but there is also a place for the small company too.

To paraphrase E F Schumacher, "Small is interesting". A good story with a human angle, or local interest, will always attract media attention, and is often more memorable for the listener or viewer.

If your story does manage to catch the attention of a journalist, be ready and be confident. I've spoken to reporters on many occasions after they have called potential interviewees, only to hear "I've got nothing to say really" or "We're only a small company, so we're not very newsworthy". Don't ever let me hear of you saying that to a journalist. If they call you, it's because they want you to appear on air, so don't try to talk them out of it.

Here's a tip for getting news coverage when your PR budget is tiny. Look for a large event that is happening in your area, and organise something which is small-scale but has some connection. For example, if a new car is being launched with a glitzy caviar and champagne presentation in a huge showroom in your area, organise the launch of refurbished bikes at the same time in a field, with soft drinks and crisps. You won't get as many journalists to come, but the ones that do will write a great story about you.

As the saying goes "If you think small things don't have an impact, try sleeping with a mosquito in the room"

There are millions of blogs and Facebook posts around. Many of them repeat the same old stuff, often about how to write blogs or "do" social networking. Some of them are very good, but most of them are not.

The ones that I read and enjoy most are those that stand out from the crowd by having a unique, personal point of view. I may not always agree with the writer, but I'm always interested to read what they say.

Many writers seem to want to be someone else. They copy styles, ideas, and sometimes even chunks of content from experts they admire. No-one is going to be interested in recycled ideas. They want the real thing.

To be a successful blogger and poster, I suggest you focus on your uniqueness (and don't tell me you aren't unique, because there is obviously no-one else like you).

.

In short, express your views, even if they are out of line with the mainstream (especially if they are out of line). Back up your views with evidence, otherwise they can just become a rant (a statement for which you have no evidence at all). Be controversial. Be yourself. Be unique. Most importantly, be respectful of all responses.      

No-one does one-liners better than Stewart Francis

A reminder to look no further. Just get in touch. 07986 852621

The information in this ezine may be freely re-used in any online or offline publication, provided it is accompanied by the following credit line - "This information was written by Alan Stevens, and originally appeared in "The MediaCoach", his free weekly ezine, available at www.mediacoach.co.uk."