Month: February 2011

Two gaffs in two visits for the Obama’s – DOH

Finding President Obama in the headlines is no surprise but when his wife makes national news for ‘touching’ the Queen it leads you to question what is going on? The fuss started during a visit in April 2009 when Michelle Obama seemingly half hugged the Queen.

So we have been waiting with bated breath for this forthcoming visit to see if Mrs Obama ‘did it again’ or if greater guidance in relation to royal etiquette has been passed on to spare her blushes.

It would seem our attentions should have been on her husband, none other than President Obama. During a formal dinner yesterday evening the President was seen to raise a toast and speak through the National Anthem. Not a good start.

Although I find the press coverage relating to this particular incident a little over the top it does make you think about the way you approach people and the manner in which you address them.

As an example, at Open Communications we wouldn’t greet a client with ‘Alright mate, how’s it going?’ and in the same vain we wouldn’t shower our clients in ‘air kisses’,  it’s just not how we want to work and certainly not how we want to present ourselves as a business.

However similarly to the Obama’s (yet on a far smaller scale) we meet and deal with so many different clients and suppliers who work in a range of industries from shopping to law, retail to training, there are obviously preferred ways of communicating with each and every individual that you have to learn.

More seriously than that, there are things that we need to know when working with international companies, again referring to etiquette. Something very innocent from one nation could be deemed particularly rude by another.

It’s not so much correct protocol but effective communications. If you want to be received well you should take the time to understand a market, know how they prefer to be communicated with and when it is likely to be best received. You don’t just presume that one size fits all and you can use a mass communication to target everyone – it won’t work.

It would seem that despite two strikes in two visits the Queen chose not to respond to the ‘gaff’ yesterday evening and instead managed to hide a smile – perhaps she was just relieved that for once it would be someone other than Prince Philip hitting the headlines for all the wrong reasons during a state visit.

Food glorious food

I was in the unfortunate position to have to spend four days in hospital recently and as I had never been on that side of the bed, having only ever visited sick relatives and friends, I was surprised when a nurse cam e round to ‘take my order for lunch’.

The menu was relatively diverse with around four or five options, including a starter, main and desert. I wasn’t expecting this having heard all the horror stories about food in hospitals and was a little apprehensive when my meal did arrive.

It wasn’t restaurant quality but then I didn’t expect it to be with hundreds of hungry mouths to feed. During my time in St James’ and then Leeds General Infirmary I couldn’t fault the food at all. Some days were better than others but that was down to my personal taste. The tea and biscuits at regular intervals during the day, which were brought round to my bed, also helped.

I notice in the news today that Mark Sparrow, a gentleman who had to spend ten weeks in hospital, has written a blog about the food he was served. As a result, the blog has encouraged a documentary to be produced for Channel 4. I really do hope that this piece is subjective and balanced.

Personally I would much rather that my money was used to ensure that the specialist doctors, nurses and health care staff were available to make me better – not feed me Michelin starred food. Let’s be honest, no one enjoys going to hospital and the idea is to get in, fixed and out in as little time as possible, not to behave like a food critic.

I’m not sure how helpful it is that these reports focus entirely on the negative. The NHS isn’t perfect but then we do far better than a lot of others and after my stint on the inside I take my hat off to those who work so hard to try their best and as far as I’m concerned that’s all that anyone can ask for.

Shakespearian Gnomes

Last week I went to see Gnomeo and Juliet, one of the latest 3D family films, and I loved it. The film is based on Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” and is set in two neighbouring gardens to a soundtrack of Elton John’s greatest hits.

A mad combination I know, but it really worked! There are many reasons to love this film, from the mixture of adult and child humour, to the fantastic cast (including Emily Blunt, Hulk Hogan and Jason Statham) but the reason I wanted to mention it is because it’s a great example of how the craziest of ideas can often lead to a fantastic product.

On paper, mixing Shakespeare, gnomes and Elton John makes no sense at all; it’s a random combination without any obvious target audience. But the end result is a feel-good film that works on different levels and makes the audience laugh. How often do you have an idea but immediately dismiss it because it seems a bit too “out there”? And now think about how many leading entrepreneurs credit their success to thinking about things in a different way to most people.

Now I’m not saying all mad ideas will pay off, and some people are very wary of new combinations (my friends at university never could get their heads around my pea pizzas or chicken soup on baked potato specialities) but when you have that spark of inspiration that fills a gap in the market, it’s worth properly considering it before worrying that your peers will think you’ve finally gone and lost the plot.

Call Me

My mum was talking to me recently about the problem of organising an activity with a large group of friends when they all use different ways of communicating.

When you have one friend who will only use the house phone, another who likes texting but doesn’t check their e-mails, one who loves e-mails but hasn’t got the hang of Facebook yet, do you have to tailor each message to the various ways in which people receive information?

A large majority of us now use smartphones, and will probably have short cuts to e-mail, Twitter and Facebook all on the home page.  It’s great to have so many different communication tools at, literally, the touch of a button, yet it still doesn’t solve the annoying issue of having to use different formats to simply arrange a coffee with some friends.

I thought about how glad I was that it’s simpler in the business world; a good old fashioned phone call and a follow-up e-mail seem to be pretty standard, yet even this is changing.  With LinkedIn created specifically for business networking, and Twitter becoming an increasingly popular way of finding new business opportunities, do people now check these inboxes on a regular basis for updates?

I would guess that some people still believe it is good business etiquette to make a phone call first or a formal e-mail, yet some of us would probably find it perfectly acceptable to receive a Tweet as a business introduction.  Is there a line to be drawn here?  Do we still need a set of certain rules when it comes to communicating with clients and suppliers, or are you considered a Luddite if you don’t embrace the latest development in communications?   Personally, my Facebook page is purely for socialising with friends, whereas my Twitter account is used for both friends and businesses, so although I’d welcome a ‘tweet introduction’, I would be put off by a person trying to talk to me about business through Facebook.

Communication tools change rapidly (we used to giggle in disbelief at school when we’d get a Loveheart pack of sweets that said “Fax me”) and it seems unlikely that we’ll get to a point any time soon where we all use the same way of communicating.  For now then I’ll just have to keep texting/e-mailing/phoning/Facebook-ing (new verb) people about that cup of coffee…