Thank You for the Shout-Out, BBC Worldwide Labs: And Congratulations!

Had a great time with you all at the Labs, as I said in an earlier post about the BBC Worldwide's model for entrepreneur success.

For those who aren't familiar with the model, check out the kind BBC blog post. 

Hope to see you again soon and hear about which teams succeeded in working with a new client.

TV and Film as Guides for Presentation Skills: But Beware of What's Left Out

Naturalism in Acting

It's pretty common for people with a theatre background, like me, to coach (read: collaborate) with business people in order to help them find a comfortable, persuasive manner and vocabulary for them onstage, in presentations, for pitches, and in conversations generally.  Why not when the goal of an actor is to persuade, create empathy, and generally win an audience over?

There is a lot to be learned from acting in this sphere, particularly when combining and tailoring a range of acting for a particular person's temperament, strengths, and blind spots.  Acting is really all about listening and reacting in the moment, and it surprisingly takes a lot of training to be natural in character.

95% practice, 5% inspiration, I always say.  And you can't depend on the latter without having done the former.

Theatre Vs. Film/TV

Although acting is often similarly natural across media, the effect is very different.  It's not just the live vs. non-live experience, which certainly changes one's experience of performance.  In business, think of it as the difference of being on skype and in the same room with someone.  The conversations won't be the same.

However, perhaps even more important, the dynamic of conversation is portrayed differently between film (and TV) and theatre.  In the former, your view of the dynamic between people as they talk is often obscured by focusing the camera in a close-up on one face.  So when using professional actors as role models, remember you're only seeing one side of the story.

Without a reaction from a listener, how can you be sure that the actor has hit the mark? 

An Example

I went to see The Audience with Helen Mirren as part of The National Theatre Live series.  It seems like an excellent deal: 20 quid to see a hundred-pound-per-ticket play televised as it is performed live.

The play depends on our belief that we are learning about Queen Elizabeth II as a human being through fictional, if informed, regularly scheduled visits she had with her prime ministers from her coronation through the recent Jubilee.  We learn, too, about her ministers, but the focus is Elizabeth as child becoming woman knowing she will be Queen, and then woman sustaining the dignity of the monarchy regardless of the personal cost.

What Was Great

The Audience pulled off an unlikely win in enacting the conversations of which the play is entirely comprised.  It's hard enough to suspend disbelief when a writer lays its credibility on the shoulders of 1 or 2 central characters' resemblance to historical counterparts.  Consider Frost/Nixon, The Iron Lady, Lincoln, or Peter and Alice.  Like The Audience, these were also composed almost entirely of conversations, but they only had to really persuade contemporary audiences that one of the characters seemed enough like the images with which we're all familiar.

However, The Audience's triumph is the credible representation of 10 or 11 characters as iconic as Churchill, the current Prime Minister, and the reigning Queen of England, even when the physical resemblance is more symbolic than photographic.

What Was Missing: For Those Looking to Learn for Business

The problem with the National Theatre's televised version is that you rarely see two characters at once during a conversation.  Because the viewer/listener lacks context, we focus only on what one character wants to say about themselves and not the dynamic between the two.  In other words, we can't see the reason for much of the dialogue if we can't see the faces and body language of the listener.  We are left to assume the reason for response based on viewing close-up one side of the conversation.

Why This is Worth Remembering

All effective conversations and presentations begin a conversation that listeners want to continue, whether it is in the form of a monologue or dialogue, whether in a grand ballroom onstage or at a boardroom table. 

The way you present and the things you say should be effected by the body language and expressions of your listeners.  In any presentation, watch the listeners more carefully than whomever is speaking.  You'll have a better idea of how to persuade when you take into account what has impact on others.

BBC Labs: A Wide Range of Talent

I visited BBC Labs this week to help entrepreneurs pitch to internal departments. I have reason to believe a great time was had by all.

First, it's wonderful model with which to adapt technology within a large business.  Rather than offering the companies debt (most often known as "investment"), BBC Labs offers the companies office space and the chance to win a client in one of its departments looking for new tech strategies.  Revenue is hard to come by.  Debt they can get anywhere.

See some of BBC Labs entrepreneurs' results, even at this early stage in its development.

Second, the companies were all innovative, smart, and enough along in their product to offer something of value to the markets.  That's a hard thing to say about the choices made by an incubator, let alone an office space provider.

I had only an hour and a half with the group, most of whom hadn't had the kind of pitch training for clients that I offer.  I'm not sure why that is exactly -- to me it's rather common sense.  Everyone watched as teams got practice with feedback, one by one.  I focused on different issues for each, depending on the need.

The speed with which we worked created an intense room, but there was also a lot of laughter. 

I felt quite honored when Jenny Fielding, Head of Digital Ventures at BBC Worldwide, wrote:

Big thank you for yesterday - it was great. I caught up with everyone later in the day and they were all super impressed / appreciative. Let's see how they do today on round two...
This is the kind note I received from Hannah Blake, the organiser:

Annette - THANK YOU!
You were absolutely fantastic and we all feel so inspired.

To both of you, I'd like to say the feeling is absolutely mutual.  I'd come back anytime.

Idealism and Entrepreneurship? A Provocative Indictment of Silicon Valley Today

There is often an automatic assumption that the goal of a young entrepreneurs is to change the world for good.  And in the UK, San Francisco and Silicon Valley are the the destinations of choice, both for funding and for a sense that there are so many people all working toward a common goal of facilitating positive global transformation.

George Packer in The New Yorker wrote a provocative article on The Valley and culture of entrepreneurship that brings this into question.  As someone who hasn't been to California in over 10 years, it was rather distressing.

BBC Labs and Elevator Pitching

I've been asked to do some pitch collaboration with the companies at BBC Worldwide Labs on 12 June.  Hannah Blake, who blogs for BBC Labs and organises the programme, is wonderful to work with and very creative. 

For news and information, you can follow them on Twitter @bbcwlabs.  Lots going on worth checking out.

Annual Lecture: St. George's House, Windsor Castle

The Annual Lecture by Jane Goodall at St. George's House, Windsor Castle was thrilling.  Jane recounted her transformation from girl to scientist (at 5) that led to a move to Africa and field work (without a university education), and her subsequent work as an activist, first on behalf of research and then on behalf of the planet.

More for anyone pitching for clients of investment -- no matter how concise and expert you are within each piece of your message, discipline is necessary to win the day:
Although Dr. Goodall didn't ramble once --her mind is sharp and articulation of ideas crisp as ever -- her talk went on much too long.  It was a shame because what she said was so nuanced and powerful, yet the overall, final impression was completely diffused and vague.

The event itself was star-studded: members of the Royal Family, House of Lords, Bank of England -- you name it.  St. George's House is a tremendously rare valuable institution for conversations about Big Ideas, and anyone interested should certainly investigate.  I'm quite honored to have been made an Associate as an honor (generally you buy a seat), and I look forward to more adventures.

Honored by St. George's House, Windsor Castle

Monday I was named an associate at St. George's House, Windsor Castle Windsor.  Particularly as an American in London, I'm a bit overwhelmed.  It's a post you usually pay to fill, but I was made associate for service rendered to the house.

Windsor Castle Consultations are conversations around insight regarding business, culture, healthcare,  commercial practice, organisational values, brand, and any other large internationally relevant topic you can name.

It's what the corporations call thought leadership, although I don't believe you can call anything leadership unless anyone is actually following you.  Let's instead call it very smart people from across disciplines making short work of big problems.

Started by Prince Philip, the consultations last about a day and a half and take place entirely at Windsor Castle, complete with the most interesting private tour of the chapel at 10pm I've ever experienced.

In any case, I'm honored to be said to belong among the great minds who participate, fund, and play there.

Coming to America: Mini-Accelerator for Companies Expanding from the UK

I am fortunate to have participated in FriedFrank's Mini-Accelerator Coming to America for which I have been asked to be a co-founder by Dan Glazer.  You'd never guess that a White Shoe American law firm would be so smart about the start-up scene -- and so entirely non-predatory -- but they are genuinely interested in improving the ecosystem both here and in NYC.

Companies competed for a slot in one of two day-long events that provided information and contacts for everything from IP to pitch training to how to get a visa.   The companies ranged from strictly consumer online commerce to business-to-business enabling technologies.

It was an intense couple of days, and well worth it -- Everyone who participated said they got a lot out of it, and we learned lessons for the next one as well.  If you're interested in applying, please sign up for the Fall. 

Digital Shoreditch: Panel on The Institute of Failure

This past week in London was busy and memorable, not least because of Digital Shoreditch.

Digital Shoreditch is worth attending, even if only to see everyone you have been trying to see all year and calendars have prevented it.  I was asked to sit on a panel by Dr. Mitra Mesmeria (scroll down to find her) to kick off her Institute of Failed Ideas.  More on that as it emerges.

The panel itself collected a few of us who have had seen failure only to find success later with persistent learning and dogged determination.  Mitra started the panel by talking about the way in which Digital Shoreditch came from a failed idea to begin with --this she told to a packed room, so clearly failure isn't forever.

My top tips:
1. Know yourself -- intellectual convictions are just abstract rationales for emotional reactions.  Know why you think what you do so you can be responsible for your convictions and decisions.

Associated with this is recognise and rieve losses, recognise when you need perspective and get it (even if it's faking it until you make it).  This will prevent bringing unresolved negative feelings into the next project or strategy and make it more likely you'll be successful.

2. Everything comes from 1 above.  Leading from that, impose work-life balance.  If you can't do it with love, do it with discipline.  Picking yourself up from your work and doing something you love will change your brain chemistry and make it easier to do it next time, or the time after.

The longer we live, the narrower our lives tend to get.  As company-owners, we shoot for results and try to make the road to get there as automated as possible.  This includes creative thinking.

You get much more than a break by ensuring you've got activities you love in your life separate from work.  All the feelings and associations -- and most important, connections -- that come with them will make you more creative and innovative when you get back to the grind.

3. Know when to let go.  And do it.  No matter how much time you've put into a company or initiative, know when you need to walk away.  Again, if you can't do it with love, do it with discipline.  Grieve the loss, and move on.

4. Don't globalise failure -- nothing is the end of the world.  Did I mention that if you don't do it with love, do it with discipline?   Do an audit of the things that succeed and fail, and remind yourself that this isn't forever.  In a couple of weeks, you'll know it without reminding.

The Mini-Accelerator Coming to America next.

Pitching for Lawyers: Remembering How to Have a (Real) Conversation

I worked this week and last with Associates at an International White Shoe Firm (as we call it in the US) to help frame conversations they can have with potential clients.  The week before, I worked with a Partner at another.

The goal: to be as much themselves as possible.

The principle is actually simple -- remember what works for you outside of work and then transfer to a work situation the reasons for which you communicate and the style/comfort level with it.

The doing of it is much harder.  The facility to transfer behavior across contexts requires practice after having acquired the habit of thinking (and behaving) as though living in the world and surviving at work are two entirely different processes.

My solution, as I've explained before: Sustainable Curiosity.

Interestingly, this practice for smart adults yields very effective adults.  Unlike a lot of people I know, I really like lawyers as a group exactly because the ones I know catch on quickly.  I had a great time, and from the Facebook comments, it seems they did, too.

Tremendous Video on Why Body Language Matters

Amy Cuddy of has a great explanation from a social scientist's perspective how we are judged by our body language. 

One thing that Harvard Business School has just learned what we have known in theatre for a long time.  You can't separate the way you move from the way you think.  It's the reason that "presentation skills" separated from the business proposition you're developing has much less impact when the two are done together.

Each influences the other, and both when developed together reinforces strengths and weaknesses of your case.  Be careful of people who say there are tricks to presenting effectively.  These are minor.  The most important thing to know is that how you think, develop ideas, and present them must be a unified process.

Pitching as English-to-English Translation

I was working with a WPP executive on telling a more effective story for a new client with whose industry she wasn't entirely familiar.  She called me because the old tricks just weren't working for her.

Persuasion often involves what my friend James calls English-to-English translation: the ability to take language that one person believes describes the world and apply it to your argument about the world that might be quite different. 

Natural language --eg replacing jargon with words we use everyday -- is generally more effective than replacing one set of industry terms for another.  See TED for ways in which very clever people make very complex issues entirely straightforward entirely by translating language usually reserved for specialists into layperson's terms.

You don't have to go back to Plato to argue that every argument is an interpretation -- it's credibility that separates a business case from a rationalisation.  So be familiar with every convention within the context you're pitching -- convention is, by definition, what people take for granted.  Then you can build your argument in a way that will sell.

CISCO and Start-Up Support: New Resources for Start-Ups

I met with CISCO yesterday to discuss the possibility of working together on their Innovation Centre and start-up competitions.  I was thrilled to hear that an ex-client, Jenny Griffiths, had won their last challenge.  She and Snap-Fashion are absolutely tremendous. 

See what Fast Company said about Jenny Griffiths.

Small world, and it's great when someone wonderful is recognised with so much support.

WAYRA Collaboration - Pitching to Win

In January, I worked with the WAYRA companies and their tremendous programme manager, Adah Parris.  The goal was a pitch practice and some guidelines for delivery.

Yesterday, Telefonica UK published a post about it.  It's pretty concise about what goes into the mix.  Take a look.

The Lab at Telefonica

Yesterday, I went to visit Telefonica in Slough and visited with Shomila Malik.  It's a remarkable project -- a start-up within a large company investigating the ways in which innovation can both benefit the larger corporate venture and smaller tech stars who could create new possibilities if brought in.

Shomila is remarkable herself.  With the background of a programmer, she began by creating prototypes and sold them in through demonstration to make Telefonica meet customer needs more fully. 

It's a trend that is catching on.  As a pitch coach and brand consultant, businesses like The Lab seem like an obvious move for most big businesses.  After many interviews of intrapraneurs elsewhere, the trick seems to be selling in the new ideas, even after the structures are in place to house them.

Too often, innovators get frustrated and leave.  Larger companies, then, are left, dinosaur-like, and unable to move swiftly enough with the trends.  If anyone has seen a solution to this problem, please let me know.  I'm collecting stories, and I'll publish them in time.

Some Video on Pitching for Investment

In a nutshell, the most important thing you can do when pitching for investment is remember how investors listen.

You start to speak, and they hear something like "blah blah blah when-am-I-going-to-get-my-money-back blah blah why-should-I-believe-you?"

For Queen Mary, University of London, I did a speed session for academics who want to be entrepreneurs -- and the first stop is investors to get some seed funding.

I was given 15 minutes to sum it all up -- forgive the "ok's" and "rights" as I sped.  But here is some video on how to pitch for investment.   The specifics weren't filmed due to confidentiality issues with the start-ups.

(More) Tips on Pitching for Investment

I've been asked repeatedly for more tips about pitching -- here you go!

The best strategy is to blend elements into a seamless story.  Here are the first series of tips about which I'll be elaborating in weeks to come:


1. Be aware that you are telling a story. Stories have a beginning, a middle, and an end with transitions that lead from one to the other and tell the listener where you’re going.

2. More on the importance of transitions: Always remember to tell listeners where you’re going. They are much more likely to listen because they know WHY to pay attention.

3. If you are unclear what the structure looks like for your story – which elements lie in the beginning, middle, and end – put each piece of your presentation on colored note cards that distinguish the sections of the story. It’s a good exercise no matter what-- so that you really understand how you’re telling your story and why.

4. The point of the pitch is for new contacts to feel it’s obvious to meet you and to learn more about your company/project. However, the reason for telling the story must have its own, more specific internal logic. This is the logic that drove you to work on this idea – and now drives you to give the highlights. It’s what gets the investors/clients/collaborators to feel (not think) that you have it going on. Even if you’re only doing it for the money, your personal investment in this project needs to be felt. If so, it will be contagious.

5. No one ever made a decision based entirely on data – it’s how much/in what way the data supports the feelings you can generate in the rest of the story that will win your audience over.

6. It helps your audience to engage to give specific, concrete stories within the story. These can be very short, but any time you offer an abstract concept, offer a concrete example.

7. Discard jargon in favor of day-to-day language. Pretend you’re talking to a room full of highly intelligent, successful, well-educated, curious bakers. What kind of language would you avoid?

8. More on bakers: don’t use acronyms. OECD is ok if said s-l-o-w-l-y, but for more frequently used acronyms, skip the letters and say all the words. It doesn’t take much longer – World Wide Web takes even less time to say than WWW.

9. Say your name slowly and deliberately. Leave a pause between your first and last name. It’s important that listeners understand you, or they will assume they won’t understand ANYTHING you say. You want their attention from the beginning.

10. Stay focused as you go – to make sure you are concentrating on the story, why you care about the story, and why the listeners should, too.

Focus when pitching for investment . . .

London is buzzing with new activity, and keeping up is fun but hectic.  The UKTI Mission to NY in November went very well indeed, as did a much more recent days with organisations like

Between the two, I've done much else, and there are videos on my site that show some of it.

Perhaps the most salient similarity among the groups is a tendency to cram too much into a 1-3-minute investment pitch. 

Two points worth making:

1. Be careful to keep an investment pitch entirely investor-focused-- it's not a marketing pitch.  If you combine marketing and investor information, the result tends to be a muddle for your listeners.  Know how your audience hears, and keep the data specific to what the room is listening for.

2. Slides should be used to support your story, not to lead it.  If you can make a point effectively without the use of a slide, get rid of the slide.  Certainly don't make your listeners read text.  It's distracting and, again, dilutes focus from the point you're making.

3. Don't try to be exhaustive when giving a pitch -- you win if you find a way NOT to have the last word.  The real business is done in another room, after the last slide is shown.  So get your audience to ask questions, leave room for curiosity, and just show a little leg.

4. For all you incubators and accelerators wanting to do the best for your companies, avoid VC whiplash.  Throwing lots of pitch advice at those pitching can be confusing.  And whether you choose me or someone else, it's helpful to learners to have a standard to which they're working consistently.  Any extra advice is fine, but have one person who is in charge of Best Practices to help companies sort through what's the best choice of content and behavior for them.

Communicating In-Person Vs. Technologically: Great TED Talk

This is a treat -- Tanya Goldhaber gives wonderful context and sense to communication strategies in her TED Talk.

Check it out.

Dragon's Den: Professional Pitches Win

Congratulations to my client Dupsy Abiola, InternAvenue's CEO, who won investment last night on The Dragon's Den.  Dupsy worked very hard on her pitch, and it goes to show that even the most poised and professional speakers can get to an even higher level with some help.

Here's a picture from the party -- a fabulous CEO and a remarkable performance.