Debate

Soft Skills: The 2022 French Presidential Debate

by Michael Rickwood —

The 2022 French presidential election debate serves up a new dish, more palatable than the one served in 2017. On Wednesday night, 20th of April 2022, two presidential candidates battled in Paris for the next five years in a crucial election here in France. For Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen this was their second debate, the last being back in 2017. But last night’s debate was very different. Now, from a policy point of view, many views were exchanged on the environment, security, the economy and the current international context amongst many others.

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The Communication Battle Facing Us All

by Michael Rickwood —

Misinformation is the scourge of our time. It confuses and divides us and can do irreparable harm. What can we do to fight it? For the majority of us today working in business, life is good. In the last 15 years or so, I have observed huge improvements in the way large companies and corporations respond and communicate with their customers and peers on issues that matter: climate change, DE&I and Digital transformation being the most important.

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Boris Johnson’s Peppa Pig Moment

by Michael Rickwood —

Say what you like about Boris Johnson, his style connects with the mob. Our institutional leaders need to put aside their intellectual bias and start figuring out why it’s working. Last month in London, Boris Johnson gave a speech at the Confederation of British Industry in South Shields in the North of England. He stumbled, got lost in his notes, and started talking about Peppa Pig. You might start reading this and assume where it’s going.

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What happens when two political parties use the same rhetoric?

by Pierre Morsa —

What happens when two parties position themselves in a similar manner on the same topic? Simple: the one which is the most credible wins. By “most credible,” I mean “the one that incarnates the rhetoric with the most authenticity.” There is a mistake that has been made by many traditional parties. Some traditional parties saw new parties start to gain popularity by advocating extremist views. So they started to adopt a slightly watered down version of these views to attract voters.

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The adult and the spoiled kid

by Pierre Morsa —

Some adults behave like bad, spoiled kids. They whine, they threaten, they become petty if they don’t get their way. They don’t hesitate to lie, or even worse, use the emotional card to play the victim, make you look bad and make you submit to their will. These people are easy to recognize, but very difficult to deal with. Just think of the child rolling on the floor screaming. His parents will look bad whatever they do: scold him, do nothing, leave… they have zero good solutions.

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Is Elon Musk running out of credibility?

by Pierre Morsa —

Gizmodo wrote this rather funny piece about Elon Musk’s latest rash of announcements, such as fully autonomous cars and a million robotaxis by 2020. Now, Gizmodo is not exactly known as a staple of great journalism, but sometimes they have a knack to hit the nail on the head. In this case, the fact that for several years Elon Musk repeatedly promised—and failed to deliver—full autonomous driving. Honestly, s eeing how hard it is to achieve full autonomy, and how many problems are left with Tesla’s current autopilot system, it is hard to believe these new promises will actually materialize.

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The 7 deadly sins of slide design

by Pierre Morsa —

This is a quick list of seven common problems that we see with slides created by non specialists. However they are relatively easy to spot, and you don’t have to be a graphic designer to avoid them. Read on and your next slides will look much better! Too much content. The goal is not to cover every single inch with content. It’s not because you have some space left at the bottom of the slide that you should put something there.

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Listen like a butterfly, talk like a bee

by Pierre Morsa —

I know, paraphrasing the motto of the great Muhammad Ali, “Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee”, doesn’t seem to make much sense. Yet my point is that in a debate it is extremely important to listen and move with a maximum of agility, and talk with a maximum of punch. Take the example of the Gilets jaunes controversy in France. The government was completely taken by surprise by the popularity of the movement.

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