The Camera is Never Off – Media Training/Presentation Skills Training
This video illustrates a core principle of media training and presentation skills training – the camera is never off.
The clip was captured less than a week ago, and to date has been viewed 850,000+ times. The camera should have been off, but it wasn’t.
The segment has been cut, the stress has ended, and everyone is in a jovial mood. The camera is never off.
The tour of your facility has ended, there were no hiccups, and now you and your “guests” are engaging in friendly banter in the parking lot. The camera (or recorder) is never off.
This media training principle does not only apply to a situation when you, or your staff, are before the media.
You are the CEO of a multinational conducting a video conference with thousands of employees. The conference has ended, but you are still in the room where the video conference took place. The camera is never off.
You are a VP addressing 80 employees via teleconference – the phone is never off.
This mindset is not easy – the natural inclination, once the stress has subsided, situation has turned friendly, casual conversation begins and one is no longer “on” – is to engage in conversation with those around us, and for that conversation to be less guarded. It happens to most of us (and I readily include myself).
The vast majority of the time, the camera or recorder will be off, and the phone may very well be hung up. Unless it isn’t.
Whether meeting with the media, or addressing an entire company, if you adopt the mindset that the camera is still rolling not only during the event, but before and after it, you will prevent gaffes, damaging comments, and other headaches from occurring.
Very funny. Did she get in much stink about that?
The Camera is never off…the microphone is never off, and there is never anything as ‘off the record’!
Cheers
Darren Fleming