Ep 205 Video Conferencing is the Worst July 23, 2016

Headline from Slate Magazine Video Conferencing is the worst.

Speaking the show about effective speaking in public to the media, at work and in life. Speaking with TJ Walker.

Folks, I have been reading Slate for a long, long time. They are one of the pioneers of online journalism. I do respect them. You can find them@slate.com I find their think pieces to be amazingly insightful and above most of the clutter and garbage out there on the Internet. So I do take what they say seriously. This headline jumped out at me from earlier this week and I'm recording this in the end of June 2016. Here's the headline. Video Conferencing is the worst subheading. It makes us self conscious, distracted and suspicious. Why do we do it now? I read the article. I try to keep it open mind. It's possible I missed some things, but I read the story and I'm going to share with you some of the findings. And I have to tell you, to me, this strikes me as one of these things where someone says, well, I don't like something, therefore it's not good for anyone. Not particularly insightful. I also noticed and I'm not going to even mention her name. I don't want to get into ad hominem here, but the very same writer has another story a few days later about how she was obsessed with food, had negative self esteem Low self Esteem Folks, if you have low self esteem, I do understand you don't want people to see you. That's why you shun public speaking. That's why you might not want to run for public office. It's why you might choose a profession where you are in the deep bowels of a research department of a company where you never have to be seen. And if that's your choice, fine. I don't mean to make light of anyone's psychological issues, but that's very different from saying video conferencing is bad for everyone. Here is an example of how bad I think it is. I personally don't enjoy watching soccer. Okay, I understand that most people in the world have a different opinion than I do. Soccer is the most popular game in the world to watch. So even though I personally don't enjoy watching soccer, I don't run around saying soccer is a horrible sport to watch. Only a fool would watch soccer. There should never be any soccer shown on television. I don't say that because I like to think I have some sense of self awareness and I'm aware enough to know that not everybody has the same preferences. I do I point this out because I consistently see so many bad ideas, misinformation put out there about anything to do with public speaking, speaking to the media, presenting oneself. And this just sticks in my crawl. I can tell you as someone who does a lot of video conferencing, I happen to think it's the greatest thing ever. You can say I'm biased. You can say, well, tj, you have a financial interest in promoting video conferencing because you train people on how to speak in front of a video camera. Fine. But here's the thing. I have prospects. Call me all the time, who've never heard of me, don't know anything about me. They have simply contacted the first five people they see when they Google media training. And what I do quickly is I, I send them a video telling them what I'm going to do and I request being able to speak to them on a video conference through live Skype video. And what I have found is that when I can talk to them and they can see me and I can see them, there is a much stronger connection. They feel more comfortable with me. They have some sense that I know what I'm talking about. I'm not just text on a screen. I'm not the mythical dog on the Internet in Africa or South America, typing, trying to pretend to be something I'm not. They can see me. And quite often I get that business because they've seen me. They haven't seen my competitors. So am I going to say it's 100% the best thing for all people in every circumstance? No. I do think when you do it well, it can be a great way of selling your ideas, selling yourself and making people more comfortable with you. It's another way of communication. I think what has happened is this author doesn't do it very well, doesn't speak very well on video conferencing, doesn't like it, and therefore wants an excuse to say it's awful. Well, that's just ridiculous. Again, that's like me saying running is a horrible sport. The marathon should be removed from the Olympics. Anyone who runs is a fool. Well, no, I don't like running. I'm not a very fast runner. My mother used to tell the story about coming to one of my track meets in high school and the race was over. People are starting to go home, where's my son? And here I come walking in dead last. So I'm not a great runner, but I'm not going to tell people running is always bad. And that is the real Problem here. This also reminds me of a very famous story that comes up in Google. I believe it's on Forbes of someone who professes to be a former public speaking coach. And the headline of the summary is Public speaking training doesn't do any good. Well, no friends, it just means that you weren't a very good public speaking coach. That's what that means. That's like saying no one would presume to say music teachers are all bad. Beethoven, Chopin, whoever your favorite musician is. They would just have all been better off at self learning. Well, nobody, no sane person believes that. Is it possible occasionally some music teacher isn't the best? Sure, there is a range of everything, of every kind of quality and every kind of instruction in general. I believe anyone who wants to succeed in this world needs to look at every new communication opportunity and figure out how can I do it the best? Is it for me or not? Now I can look at something like vine, the online video service where you can only have five seconds and just say to myself, okay, I understand how it might be helpful, useful to a lot of people. It's not for me. I'm not going to say it's completely useless in every situation. I'm just going to say I don't think it's going to work for me. I wish this authority had done that with respect to video conferencing, more in a moment.

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Saying that video conferencing is a waste and is horrible. It's like saying public speaking is horrible. Yeah, I understand a lot of people hate public speaking. A lot of people go out of their way to avoid public speaking. But no sane person would say, if you really want to be successful in life, whatever you do, avoid all public speaking. No one says that. In fact, most people would say the opposite. You listen to Warren Buffett give advice to young people. He doesn't say read Business Insider 12 hours a day. He doesn't say get a phone app to check stock prices every two seconds. He says take a Dale Carnegie course like I did 50 years ago is what Warren Buffet said. Learn how to be a good presenter because that will put you ahead of a lot of competition. And he personally credits his public speaking training as helping his career a great deal because he does have to speak so much. Folks, I have to remind you that not only do I not have any credentials in any meaningful regulatory sense of giving advice on public speaking or media training, but nobody does. There simply is no valid equivalent of the American Bar or the American Medical association to weed out quacks from those who really know their stuff. Because of that Buyer beware news Consumer beware because the world is filled with all sorts of horrifically awful advice when it comes to public speaking. Tips speaking to the media tips whether or not to use video conferencing. It's horrible advice and you can get away with it because there's no sanction. I want you to listen to me on this podcast, watch me on this YouTube channel, because perhaps you've tried some of the tips in the past and you're getting results and you've heard me, or you've read some of my books and you can judge for yourself whether it's valid or not, whether there's a logic to it, a rationality to it. And all I can do is put the content out on a regular basis and let you judge. I hope that is in fact what you do. Thanks for joining me. As always, may all of your presentations in life be a huge success. Please be aware of bad advice whether it's on avoiding video conferencing, speeches or anything else.

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