Students Of Success

Executives who WANT media attention for their companies, their products or their reputations have never had more opportunities to win that attention. There’s a wide range of media outlets today from broadcast to broadband, and all of them are hungry for good stories.

So if you’ve won media attention, how can you be certain you make the best use of it? That’s where media trainers come in. Their job is to prepare executives for the unique interaction that is the media interview; to help that executive or spokesperson put their best foot forward each and every time.

Media trainers work through the use of mock interviews and scenarios, putting executives through the paces of realistic interactions with reporters. Many trainers work by videotaping their sessions and writing mock articles, coaching executives through both the content of what they say and the execution. It isn’t easy meeting the succinct demands of both broadcast and print reporters, making sure your points get made briefly and powerfully.

But how can you be sure you select the right trainer to help you prepare? Here are some things that will better the odds on ensuring a good fit:

PICK A MEDIA TRAINER WHO HAS WORKED IN THE MEDIA

Sounds simple enough, but don’t assume your trainer has real world experience. Some so-called “media trainers” have never set foot in a newsroom. Some have backgrounds in public relations, sales, marketing or even entertainment fields-but if the best experience your trainer has is in watching others who come in contact with reporters-find another trainer. Interacting with the media is a ‘full contact’ sport, often with much at stake. Find a trainer who comes to training after a career as a reporter and you will have someone who knows what you’ll need to perform at your best.

DON’T PICK A MEDIA TRAINER WHO HAS ONLY WORKED IN THE MEDIA

As important as it is to find a former reporter to train you, don’t stop there. Your trainer has to have experience working on the other side of the fence. That’s because professional reporters are long accustomed to and proud of being able to ignore the consequences of their stories. Contrary to popular opinion, the vast majority of mainstream reporters are not advocates. They simply don’t concern themselves with whether you’re harmed or helped as a result of their story. As the interviewee of course, you care a great deal about that. That’s why it’s important to be sure your media coach understands both worlds, yours as the subject of media interest and theirs as the tellers of your story. Find a trainer with at least some experience in advocacy communications, either as a spokesperson or in some other role. You want a trainer with knowledge of the practical tools of media interaction: messaging and positioning. Don’t engage a media trainer who has never dealt with those tools or with the aftermath of a media interview gone wrong.

BIGGER ISN’T ALWAYS BETTER

The largest public relations and management training firms say they offer media training in their portfolio of services. They do, after a fashion. Media training is a special expertise however and one few large firms invest in. If you choose a big firm, make sure you check the credentials of the person actually slated to do your training. Don’t accept a trainer whose only credentials are that they are on your assigned account team.

EXPERIENCE COUNTS, BUT NOT ALL EXPERIENCE COUNTS EQUALLY

Look for a media trainer who is a good match for your specific needs. If you’re preparing for print interviews, a media trainer with television experience only won’t be the best choice. If television interviews are on your agenda, make sure your trainer understands that TV reporters aren’t just print reporters who use pictures. If you’re playing in the big leagues, don’t assume your trainer understands the very rough and tumble world of the major markets and networks. ASK if your trainer is experienced in preparing for live broadcast if that’s what you need, as well as taped interviews, ambush interviews as well as press conferences.

FIND A MEDIA TRAINER YOU CAN TRUST AND THEN TRUST THEM

If dealing with the media were easy, there’d be no need for media trainers. In reality, even those who interact with reporters regularly can get into trouble over something they said or didn’t say. It takes skill and practice to ensure your interests are served, and that every interview you give is a powerfully, effective one. If you don’t have internal staff to help keep you on track, make sure your trainer is available for follow-up help.

A good media trainer is like a good reporter: Professional, tough and truthful (even if you hope they’re not staying for dinner).

Aileen Pincus is a former local and national television reporter and p.r. executive who now leads her own Washington D.C. area firm, training executives in the media, public speaking, presentation and crisis communications.http://www.thepincusgroup.com

A good health and fitness program needs to focus on factors that prevent us from becoming unhealthy. One factor that has definitely a correlation with unhealthiness is obesity. The health consequences for being overweight or obese are vast and may include high blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease, stroke, gallbladder disease, sleep apnea and some cancers to name a few.

Losing weight and becoming healthy for obese and overweight people is imperative and well designed fitness software can support this. One way it can be helpful is to calculate a person’s calorie balance and correlate these numbers to their body measurements and vital signs. It is very encouraging and motivating to see yourself lose weight and in the same instance your blood pressure and cholesterol levels go down.

Weight loss all boils down to your calorie balance. If your intake is higher then you spend, you gain weight. In part 1, we talked about the calorie intake side of the calorie balance equation. Part 2 describes the requirements for the calories spent module.

Let’s start out with the assumption that the calories spent will significantly vary between people and can not be generalized between high, medium and low activity level. We need a more precise method than that. If we look just plainly at the factors that influence our energy spending, we can conclude the following:

Larger people will spend more energy than small people. It makes sense that when you move more weight it costs more energy. Younger people will spend more than older people. Males will spend more than females. Tall thin people will spend more energy than short stocky with the same weight. The tall thin person has more body surface and loses more heat. Lean muscled people spend more energy than the average or overweight person with the same weight. Muscles use more energy than fat cells. Active people will spend more energy than sedative people.

During a day we execute many activities all with a different length of time and intensity level. Between activities there can be huge differences in intensity level. For instance fishing is way less intense than rowing a boat. Also within the same activity different intensity levels exist. For instance 30 minutes running will cost more energy then 30 minutes jogging or walking. Executing an activity with a high intensity level will spend more energy per unit of time.

When calculating the calorie balance, the fitness software should take all the above factors into its formula and adjust the variables automatically. For instance if somebody loses weight, this should be immediately reflected in the outcome. Let’s say I weigh in on Monday and the system calculates 2500 calories spent and two weeks later I weigh again and provided my daily activities were exactly the same but I lost two pounds, the system should automatically calculate the new calories burned taking the 2 pounds lost into account.

You should have the ability to create multiple activity plans in the system, individualized per person. Most people repeat their daily activities on a weekly basis, if today is Tuesday, next Tuesday my activities will be pretty much the same. From Monday till Friday the activities may be similar, but they can differ significantly from weekend to weekend.

In order to calculate the calories spent during the day precisely, you will need to record all activities, the length of time for each activity and the intensity level it was executed. Doing so could mean a lot of time behind the computer entering all this data. To circumvent this problem, the software should allow you to create a plan that is repeated on a weekly basis with default values. Now you need to only to copy this plan and update the differences from what actually occurred. The actual activities with their time length are noted on an activity worksheet that can be printed on a daily basis. This way your data can be recorded within 30 seconds.

Next we need to be able to compare our calories spent with our calorie intake. This can be done in the form of a chart that displays the calorie balance per person over time. See the following example: calorie analysis. This chart makes abundantly clear what your calorie balance is and consequently shows the reason why you lose weight or not lose weight.

In the next article I will talk about body measurement and vital sign readings and how they correlate to your work outs, supplement intake etcetera

About the author
© Erik Pijcke is founder and CEO of Pycke Inc. He is the architect and developer of Hythial Pro, an all-inclusive personal health and fitness software program. Part of this software program contains a comprehensive calorie counter module. You can download this program at www.hythial.com

Hythial Pro - Health Diet Fitness Software + Free Online Recipe and Food Calorie Counter