My friend Roz Morris is a fellow Liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Marketors and we spent some time together on its Court. She and her husband Malcolm came with my wife Carmen and me on a Marketors’ trip to Chile in my year as Master. After Oxford she started her career in journalism, first as a reporter for The Guardian and The Observer. She then moved into broadcasting as a reporter and presenter for BBC Radio 4’s World at One, BBC Scotland, Tyne Tees TV, RTE (Radio Telefis Eirann) and ITN. She was a freelance reporter for newspapers, magazines, radio and television, as well as a media trainer. She regularly blogs about media issues and the visual economy and for several years she has provided media training and presentation training services through her company TV News London Ltd.

Roz reads my blogs and knows that from time to time I read a book that so inspires me with its originality and insights that I write a blog about it. On this occasion Roz has sent me a review copy of her latest book The Visual Revolution Guidebook[i] and suggested that I might like to blog on it. I needed to think about that as it is a different approach from my usual, but I have decided to go ahead, but readers should not take this as a review but rather a summary and I will conclude with a few comments of my own.

The first thing to say is that despite an extensive career in Sales, Marketing and General Management I am not really the target for this book. Roz says that we are all broadcasters now. But I am not a broadcaster. Yes, I publish these blogs on my website most weeks of the year, but they are not broadcast but rather sent largely to people who have registered to receive them. Sometimes I also send them to a second group of people I know well who I think will appreciate them. The only visual aspect to my blogs is my headshot which is probably getting a bit old.  Roz’s audience for her book are people still active in their careers who may need to give interviews which are increasingly recorded on video. They may send podcasts or wish to build a career as an influencer. They may need to make presentations and will use an increasing array of visual websites on their smart phone or laptop.

That does not apply to me. I use my smart phone to make telephone calls, an increasingly outdated procedure. I have, of course, given media interviews in the past. Indeed, I had my first interview on TV when I was an 18-year-old exchange student in the US, and I was interviewed along with two other exchange students from different countries on a daytime talk show in the Mid-West. To emphasize my Britishness I wore a Beatles style cap. Roz is highly active on LinkedIn with 3,000 followers. I am not although I was an early adopter and was one of the first million users world-wide. Initially I used it as a way of getting in touch with former Sony colleagues so I could organise a dinner in 2008 to mark the 40^th anniversary of Sony’s foundation in the UK in 1968. But I now find it irritating as I get several enquires per week to link from people I have never heard of, most of whom live in other countries.

Roz explains with great clarity the importance of other social media platforms. I have never even seen a page of Facebook and have not understood what Mark Zuckerberg is talking about when he describes the Metaverse. I did join Twitter when it first started as it seemed quite interesting. Within seconds I had received 35 contacts and I knew it was a scam and promptly delisted myself. It now is in the headlines as one of the reasons violence is flaring out all over Britain.

But I have now read the book. It is a very good read and for those who are its target, will no doubt be extremely helpful. Of particular value are several excellent case studies giving both positive and negative examples of visual awareness in real life situations. There is not space here for me to describe these so if you want to learn about them buy the book.

The book is organised into an introduction followed by 11 chapters each of which is less than 20 pages. Roz says you can take them in any order depending on your particular situation but I will just summarise them in order.

Introduction. Roz sets out how important visual communication has become particularly on social media. She thinks we are moving away from the dominance of text in everyday communications. While I don’t take advantage of the many features of a smart phone, for many it is a means to create text, images and videos and send them out into the world within seconds. Zuckerberg predicted all of this in 2016 when he told the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, “most of the content ten years ago was text, and then photos, and now its quickly becoming videos. I just think we’re going to be in a world a few years from now where the vast majority of the content that people consume online will be video.” That has come true as by 2023 more than 80% of all web traffic was online video.

Roz argues that we still need to be able to read and write but if you want to enjoy success those skills are no longer enough. You have to understand the grammar for the visual economy and you need to be professional in all your visual communications.

The rise of TikTok and the introduction of YouTube Shorts and Instagram Reels has led to a massive increase in the popularity of short form video. But this is not just about funny baby videos. If you're making videos on your phone for a business then there are a number of pitfalls you need to avoid. Even a small business can compose videos not only on their company website but on business related social media. You need to be clear on your content. You need to take time to rehearse. You need to get the tone and pitch of your voice correct and it's important to get your facial expressions right.

Common video mistakes include making too many points, using portrait shots rather than landscape, getting camera angles wrong, not checking for technical settings, failing to use a tripod, forgetting to keep still, not getting the eyeline right particularly avoiding looking to one side or the other, using a room that's too dark or too light. not understanding the microphone on your smartphone picks up all the sound around it, having too busy a background, wearing clothes that are tight, crumpled or shiny, getting captions and subtitles wrong, particularly the name caption.

Roz gives considerable coverage to the importance of AI which used correctly can hugely reduce the time required for both the creative and the production process but you must always check it thoroughly and never assume it's 100% accurate.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic having meetings or training sessions online was unusual but after the first UK lockdown in March 2020 everything changed. Like everyone else Roz found herself working on Zoom, Teams or other video conferencing platforms. Many people were simply unprepared for this. When people were talking from their homes they were sitting in the dark, looking in the wrong direction, out of focus and quite a few were scruffy.  Roz realised that too many people were thinking that an online business meeting is like a phone call but it's not. It's an on-screen performance that requires the skills of a broadcaster. But working from home means that as well as being a presenter we have to be the producer and the director. She provides a checklist of seven steps to visual success online:

3. Why appearance matters.

In preparation for the interview or presentation it's important to give some detailed thought to your appearance. It's about being practical and should always be part of your preparation for meetings and interviews. Clothing choices can cause problems not just for women these days but men have far more choices today than when you just had suits and ties and it wasn't much of a choice. You couldn't really get it wrong but now not wearing a tie can be much harder. Patterns can cause problems whether they be large or small. Plain clothing works best on screen unless it's black. It's preferable to wear a jacket for both men and women as it provides instant authority. Things to avoid include tops with messages, scarves, jewellery except for plain necklaces. You have to take extra care of your hair on screen. Even slight untidiness is exaggerated when all the audience can see is a head with hair and a face. This is all important as we do notice people's appearance before we start to listen to them.

4. Making the most of your presentations.

For many people anxiety about public speaking can have physical effects such as shaking with nerves, speaking too fast and running out of breath. It's quite likely that you will be filmed and the videos will be put on social media which really means there's no longer such a thing as a private meeting. Increasingly there's awareness among teachers in schools that children need to develop speaking skills and this may give them a chance if they have fears to learn how to overcome them.
Roz provides a checklist for effective presentations:

You need a structure with a beginning, a middle and an end. Avoid excessive statistics. In PowerPoint presentations the best use of slides is limited to five written points and in terms of the number of slides any more than ten and engagement by the audience will drop off severely. You can use props but you should avoid jokes. You need to rehearse and again be careful with your body language.

5. How to appear confident in media interviews.

Media interviews are challenging. But if you sit down calmly and take the time to plan your interview you should be OK. If you're giving the interview in a studio then there are skilled technicians that make you look and sound professional but if you're doing it on your own at home you've got to avoid mistakes with lighting and framing. To get the best results from media interviews it's good if you can share some interesting new information which the audience might then talk about with their colleagues, family and friends. You must look confident and talk fluently when you're broadcasting and you must get your eyeline right. If you're being interviewed you look at the interviewer. If you're doing it remotely then you look at the camera. Giving media interviews is a lot harder than it looks because the media exists in its own world with its own rules.

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