“This experience has been beyond useful, it’s been fundamental for us to make some really dramatic changes in how we show up.” – To watch the video click on the link: Continue reading
This is a interview done by Frances Stonor Saunders for the BBC with Richard Maxwell on Jackanory Politics:
http://www.first-voice.com/media/RichardMaxwell-BBCinterview.mp3
Winning in Business with Dr Herb Greenberg interviews Robert Dickman:
http://www.first-voice.com/media/RobertDickman-interview.mp3
The train wreck story:
Robert Dickman is an executive coach who teaches narrative strategies
as they relate to corporate communication, product design, and branding
with FirstVoice, a consulting firm specializing in media
awareness training for business. Robert was formerly a monk at the
Ryutaku-ji Zen Monastery in Mishima, Japan, and later an actor and an
acting and communications coach for Academy-Award-winning actors. He
lives in Santa Monica, California, with his wife, Aimee, and daughter,
Rylie. Email.
Richard Maxwell brings the skills he developed in his twenty-five-year career as a screen and television writer-producer to FirstVoice‘s clients. In addition to his produced feature films–The Challenge, The Serpent and the Rainbow, and Shadow of China–he
has worked as a script doctor, writing or rewriting films for every one
of the major Hollywood studios and many independent producers. He lives
in Pacific Palisades, California, with his wife, Christine. Email.
About First Voice
FIrstVoice is a communications consultancy firm helping leaders and their organizations to more effectively convey their message through the power of personal narrative. Over the years, FirstVoice has assisted numerous professionals in becoming more powerful, compelling speakers and storytellers, helping them to win more business, increase sales, strengthen client relationships, and improve both internal and external communications.
Clients Come to Us When….
- An organization has an important presentation to make – and
multiple employees must speak or present.
- An executive must make a key presentation, anywhere from executive retreats to major public engagements, and requires assistance with both content and delivery.
-
- An organization is working through a ‘re-branding’ process and must learn how to effectively articulate their mission and other messaging so that it is clearly understood by the intended audience.
- Executives in an organization wish to better understand the ‘stories’ and articulation of their organization by their own employees (often the most powerful – yet overlooked – marketers in a company), as well as ‘corrective’ coaching to help employees articulate key messages in a natural, focused way
- “Pre-crisis Management” and managing the story – pinpointing and assisting executives and their organizations through potential communications challenges before they reach critical mass
FirstVoice conducts both personal trainings and group sessions for corporate and creative teams. For scheduling/rate information, please contact us at 310.394.8829 or email moreinfo@first-voice.com.
One sure sign that the primaries are into their Awareness
moments is that the quality of the media coverage itself becomes a major issue.
The media is, after all, how we become aware of the facts we need to know to
vote intelligently. When we begin to become aware of how we become aware, we
are becoming really aware.
When a sketch on Saturday Night
Live about a fictional debate becomes an issue in the real debate in Ohio that
follows it, and then Hillary follows that by going on SNL herself and taking a
bow, the issue of media coverage is red hot.
Right on cue Newsweek has come out
with a long article answering the question “Is the Media Biased?” You can read
it here but I’ll save you the time:
Yes, the media is biased. No, there is nothing anyone can do about it, and it
doesn’t really matter that much anyway because most reporters aren’t
politically biased they are just vacuous airheads concerned with causing
trouble, getting ratings and looking good, and isn’t that sort of cute and
special?
The problem for the Dems is that there are two flavors of
awareness moments, and it is unclear which is fast approaching. One – vastly
preferable – is the “Trust the force, Luke” moment when the hero realizes what
to do to prevail. (Maybe Obama is right and Dems have to think outside their
usual party-line political box). But the other type of awareness is the Wylie
Coyote moment when you realize you have just run off the cliff and there is no
solid ground under you at all. (Maybe Hillary is right and Obama’s new ideas
are nothing but hot air). Paul Krugman deals with this dilemma in his piece in
the Times which IS worth a read.
Facts wrapped in emotions are the
essence of stories, and no one on the political beat works that alchemy better than the Sultan of
Shrill.
Nothing grabs your awareness more than a ringing telephone.
Unless of course it is a ringing telephone late at night when the noise might
wake up your sleeping kids.
That’s the hook for a new ad the
Clinton Campaign hopes will be a wake up call for the 8% of Texas and Ohia Dems
who are still undecided. You can see it here.
This style of political ad, known
as “Red Phone ads” after a 1984 ad run by Walter Mondale, are all about the
moment awareness that allows the hero to prevail. You never know when that “Use
the Force, Luke” moment will come for a Hero – or a President – but you know it
will.
Predictably Obama’s camp initially
cried foul calling Clinton’s “fear mongering”, but then pivoted smoothly and
came out with an ad of its own (see it here) that asks “Wouldn’t you rather have the
person taking that call be the one that keeps you out of war rather than the
one that got you into one?” Very nicely done.
But it doesn’t really answer the core question. Who is
better prepared to be Commander in Chief? Luckily JACK NICHOLSON, on this own
dime apparently, has weighed in with one of the really great ads of the year.
It is more than worth a watch. It is worth two or three. It is great political filmmaking by a great
filmmaker. Click here.
The line I really love? When Jake Gittes says, “What can I
tell you Kid, when you’re right, you’re right, and you’re right,” which neatly
puts to bed the whole issue of the vote to authorize force then moves on, to
stirring martial music, towards a “makes you want to salute” close. If Hillary
had done that months ago we could have cut to the chase a lot sooner.
Nicholson’s ad is brilliant political story telling. Now watch it again.