In case you’re all wondering, my eBook Speechwriting for Leaders is coming along very nicely. A bold and amusing cover is being designed (every e-Book needs a bold and amusing eCover) and the substance is entering the layout and final edit phase. The problem for any great artist with any work […]
One of the few advantages of having Annoying Son home over the Uni holidays is that he draws one’s attention to unusual things. Such as martial arts legend Bruce Lee playing table-tennis. One of Lee’s famed movie techniques was to deploy to devastating effect the nunchaku weapon, two sticks whirling on a […]
Long time no blog. Family, Christmas, weather, website upgrades, more weather. the usual. Here I am in my most recent DIPLOMAT piece, on East v West and the benefits or otherwise of the Asian Model of Development: For most of the past 100 years or so, it looked as if […]
One of the nicer things about the New Year is a tendency for people to step back and look at the Big Picture. Here is a fine example from Jonathan Capehart at the Washington Post. He takes three game-changing trends: US energy independence, 3D-printing, and the rise of global scepticism […]
The heroic achievement of Nelson Mandela was to end apartheid‘s evil racial legal categorisations and associated injustice in South Africa, right? Alas not: The idea of defining and rewarding citizens by race continued. The argument was that drastic measures were needed to help the mass of people who had lost […]
As long-standing readers know, when I left the FCO back in 2007 I qualified as a professional Mediator and had ideas about developing that line of work. It turned out not to be easy to do that if one lived well away from a seething centre of serious disputes such […]
Telegraph Blogs have published my piece on the latest deal on Iran and its nuclear programmes: All negotiations boil down to a few existential issues: Security, Resources, Control, Reputation/Recognition and Time/Risk. Plus, depending on how the other aspects are tackled, Trust. Skilful negotiators trade both within and between these ideas. […]
A horrible new addiction enters my life: live World Championship Chess. The Anand/Carlsen match is being played in India, but now you can watch it live on the Internet with streans of analysis and expert Grandmaster commentary as each game proceeds. See eg on Chessdom the Hindustan Times site. Open […]
Over at the Ambassador Partnership we are busy developing our corporate diplomacy Technique portfolio. The broad offering is now something like this: Impact and Influencing • Key Principles of Impact and Influencing • Active Networking • Active Influencing Presentation Skills • Core Presentation Skills • Public Speaking with Impact • […]
My creative juices are at a low ebb these days. It must be Global Warming. Hence the feeble presence here and indeed everywhere else apart from off forays on to Twitter. Anyway, I am off to Budapest today to give a presentation on Eavesdropping and Diplomacy. The gift that keeps […]
