Thursday 15 January 2009

How not to be interviewed (by the CEO of Easyjet)


The Guardian's coverage of Easyjet's environmental plans is an interesting example of how not to deal with difficulty media questions. The cringe-worthiness of watching George Monboit challenge Andy Harrison's views on Easyjet's environmental plans makes you wonder if the PR people at Easyjet best prepared Easyjet's CEO got beforehand. After all the environment is a sensitive subject at the best of times and is bound to throw up difficult questions!



Media training is always a good exercise for spokespeople and most come away enthused and prepared. It teaches them the skills of how to deal with an interview - from dealing with the usual questions to, more importantly, handling the difficult, out-of-left-field questions. But once this exercise is over and a few months have gone by most spokespeople can forget the skills learnt. This becomes apparent during George Monboit's interview.

This is why preparation for interviews should involve reminders of these skills. It is no good preparing answers for the questions you want to hear and then not being able to answer the more difficult questions that you don;t want to hear! After all, the journalist is only doing his job by getting to the truth.

A spokesperson not answering questions and being abrasive is the interview equivalent of sticking your head in the sand and not wanting to play the game.

I think the thing to remember in these situations is to expect the unexpected and don't get annoyed that the journalist asks a difficult question - he is only doing his job!

Monday 12 January 2009

housing crisis of a personal kind

With the housing crisis hitting full strength in the UK, I thought this was a good time to start searching for the ideal property to consider my first owned home (I must be mad). So we have begun trawling primelocation searching for the ideal home in north west London, looking in the local newspapers and so on and so on.

During this whole process, what has amazed me most is how many people have their stories to share when giving advice on finding your first property. Its as if this is one of those milestones that everyone has been through and its makes you suddenly relatable to everyone. In some ways it is lovely to hear your grandad tellling stories of his first home which cost £6,000 or my uncle's story about how he made friends with the owner and pandered to owner's need for a substitute son and daughter.

However, as the stories keep coming, primelocation emails keep being sent and estate agent keep calling, I am coming to the realisation that sometimes there is just getting too much information. After only a month of searching i am already tired of the stories and the emails and the calls.

I know this is only the start and my opinion is bound to change, but at the moment it feels a little like information overload.

That's all for now, see you on the other side.

Sunday 11 January 2009

hello world

Hello world!

So after much toing and froing I have taken the plunge and started to put my thoughts out there in the big old web. Who knows what is to come from this blog in the future but I hope that i can make my thoughts as interesting and entertaining as possible to those who read this.

So until tomorrow, wish me luck and see you on the other side