Ever since his Oscar-winning film, An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore has been viewed as one of the world’s most persuasive public speakers. So when his new climate change lecture was premiered on Ted, a website dedicated to “inspired talks by the world’s greatest thinkers and doers”, earlier this week, I decided to pick it apart to see how it worked.

Like many people, I was impressed by An Inconvenient Truth. I’d even stood in line to hear Mr Gore speak in New York last May (this was deeply hypocritical, given that I had jetted in from Paris for an emission-heavy long weekend in Manhattan - unless getting him to sign a DVD counted as a carbon offset).

It was my hope that a close analysis of his new slideshow might be useful to public speakers in the business world. Having viewed it three times - and watched An Inconvenient Truth yet again for context - I think I have been able to identify four key elements to the performance. But after studying his verbal and visual tricks in detail, I’m not sure I’d queue to see him again.

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When Jérôme Kerviel was named as the alleged rogue trader at Société Générale, journalists immediately trawled social networking websites in search of facts about his career and personal life.  But in spite of the risk of such (perfectly legitimate) intrusion, hordes of business people are still willing to lay out details of their lives on sites such as LinkedIn, Xing and Facebook. Why?

Given that these are predominantly smart, forward-thinking people, I can only assume that the benefits of membership outweigh the privacy risks. Over the next week or so, I’d like to try to quantify and analyse some of these benefits. I’m particularly intrigued by the potential for conflict between the trend for ‘Brand Me’ self-promotion and the ‘keep your head down’ discretion expected by more traditional employers.

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Dear Shareholder,
You have asked me to explain my outburst of a few days ago, when I threw down my copy of the Financial Times and declared, to no one in particular: “Why don’t some of these shareholders just shut up?!” I am now writing to provide some detail of my deliberations prior to making that outburst.

We have been told in recent days that the proposed changes in the Marks and Spencer boardroom are “in breach” of the UK’s combined code on corporate governance.

Apparently the English word “or”, as in “comply or explain”, has lost its meaning. M&S has, slowly and in stages, provided an explanation. You may not like that explanation. But its move does not necessarily constitute a breach of anything.

Continue reading “M&S shareholders should think before they speak”

Harvard Business School, the creator of the MBA, celebrates its 100th birthday tomorrow. To mark the occasion, Della Bradshaw, the FT’s business education editor, has produced an authoritative analysis of the MBA’s contribution to business in its first century of existence. While the report card is mixed, there is little doubt that it remains a qualification that can seriously boost one’s salary, while at least 30 of the top 100 global companies are run by MBAs.

One of the most intriguing suggestions in the piece is that HBS graduates no longer out-earn peers at six other top US institutions, such as Stanford and Wharton (see table). A decade ago they did, according to data collected over that period by the FT, which also suggest that leading European schools such as LBS have been catching up. Jay Light, HBS dean, says he is sceptical of the numbers, adding that recruiters still lay siege to his school. But he is perfectly willing to admit that the Harvard MBA is unlikely to guarantee success in one high-octane career choice: politics.

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Michael Skapinker says in his latest column that the visit of Nicolas Sarkozy to the UK has been a marketing coup for Emirates. The airline’s name adorns Arsenal’s football stadium, used as one of the venues for the Franco-British love-in last week. This meant that Emirates, which paid more than £100m for the “naming rights” to the ground, was frequently mentioned in the press.

The thinking behind naming rights is that people encounter the brand in a positive context, creating a rosy glow of familiarity that translates into higher sales. But are the purchasing patterns of consumers really influenced by the myriad things that they see as they go about their daily lives?

They can be, according to new research by Jonah Berger, an assistant professor at Wharton business school, and Grainne Fitzsimons, of  Canada’s University of Waterloo. However, I’m not convinced that their findings add much to the marketer’s arsenal.

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There’s a certain type of man – middle-aged, brought up in a Commonwealth country – who, when things are going really well, will get up from his desk and (when no one is watching) dispatch an imaginary cricket ball to the cover boundary with an elegant swish.

The cover drive: perhaps human civilisation’s greatest achievement. To see David Gower, the former England captain, execute a cover drive was to experience pure bliss. I am not exaggerating.

Sport is not everybody’s cup of tea. At school, dividing lines are drawn between those who are good and bad at games. (There is also that important third category: bad at games but endlessly enthusiastic and jolly well willing to have a go.)

Continue reading “How to score a winning strategy”