Communication and Media Skills
We started to help people become better presenters in the early seventies. Back when a slide show was something you brought in a box, not an icon on a computer screen. We have delivered Presentation Skills training to more than 15,000 clients, in eighteen countries using four different languages.
Our courses and approaches have developed over the decades. They now encompass the use of PowerPoint, Audio-Visual inserts, Video-conference links and the increasingly complex task of presenting within the bounds of modern public-procurement processes.
But our presentation skills training is still rooted in the same core principle; we help you deliver a presentation in your own style, using your own words that will change attitudes and behaviour. A presentation that will be interesting, understandable and memorable.
Our courses are available one-to-one or in group session.
Every company’s senior management team should be trained to handle the media during any crisis that may occur. The central objectives of this training would be to ensure that all of the crisis team are equipped to deal directly with the media during any incident. The plan itself must also be tested, so that any intrinsic weaknesses or holes are spotted, rectified and an improved alternative provided.
The course would be practical and exercise based, allowing the participants to learn by doing. Carr Communications provides a team of Senior Consultants who will assess, tutor and also act as journalists. Simply put, you will never face journalists in reality who are as investigative, as difficult or as competent as those we provide. The team will put you through a course that will leave you ready for any media interaction you could possibly face.
Over the course you will:
- Manage a staged media Crisis
- Brief The Press
- Write Press releases
- Be interviewed for Radio
- Be Interviewed for TV Sound bites
- Be Assessed in all areas of your ability to handle a media crisis
The course ends with a plenary session to cement the rules of the course and to cover any outstanding issues in relation to the crisis plan and its practical implementation. You will leave with detailed notes and all of your video footage providing you with a televisual record.
Media training in Ireland started with a popular presenter in the early days of Irish television.
Bunny Carr found that politicians and businesspeople appearing on his programmes were boring. Boring because they just wanted to survive the studio experience.
It wasn’t good enough. Not for them. Not for the viewers.
So he started to train people in how to appear on programmes. In how to be interesting. Understandable. Memorable.
Carr Communications was the first company to offer media training. No-tricks media training. Training that brought out the best in the individual – and helped them transport their natural best into the more pressured situation of a TV studio. Training that de-mystified television and radio. That stopped programme guests obsessing about the hidden agendas they were sure interviewers had. That allowed them to be comfortable, confident and communicative.
Within a few years, the company was a household name: if media training was mentioned, Carr Communications was mentioned, too.
As media changed and evolved, so did Carr Communications’ media training and coaching.
And it wasn’t just for programme guests. Carr Communications is the leading European trainer of presenters, newsreaders, reporters, researchers, script-writers and TV/Radio producers.
If you need to come to terms with media, there’s nobody to touch us. Our constantly-refined media training is unequalled in its effectiveness for the individual. And it’s fun.
You’re a newly appointed Press Officer. Or you’ve just been handed the task of revamping the company’s publicity material. Or you’re a Communications graduate who wants to break into print media. Carr Communications’ Writing for Publication Course is for you. The course is tailored to individual requirements, and can deal with writing and targeting excellent Press Releases, feature writing and placement and designing or re-designing organisational promotional material. The flexibility of our approach allows us to cater for specific training needs.
Exercises are practical, based on pre-training preparation. By the end of the day’s training you will know the principles of good writing, whatever the medium. You will know how to assess the audience for your feature or Press Release. You will have identified who is most likely to read organisational material in written form and shape the information for relevance to that audience.
You will have located how best to target different elements of your staff with internal communication and what will attract the interest of each. You will understand the importance of identifying the audience for each piece, and how to adapt information for that audience’s benefit.
Carr Communications has a unique expertise when it comes to speechwriting. Our consultants have written more speeches, for more people, from more organisations than any other company in the Ireland.
Our consultants have written speeches for the nation’s most senior business people and politicians and for people from NGOs and lobby groups from a spectrum so diverse it includes the Irish Farmers Association and Down Syndrome Ireland. We have written speeches for the majority of Cabinet ministers who have held office since 1980, for nearly every Taoiseach since 1980 and for numerous party leaders at innumerable Ard Fheiseanna.
Our speechwriting courses have been attended by thousands of people over four decades. Over that time we have provided speechwriting training in each and every Government Department, from Higher Executive Officer grades all through to Assistant Secretary grades.
Our two-day speechwriting course will make you the best speechwriter you can be. It is based on your own work, not theory. You will be asked to submit a speech you have already written before you arrive for the course. During the two days you will undertake a series of exercises in writing, editing, speech analysis and speech-writing.
By the end of the course you will be able to:
- Write in the spoken word
- Assess and understand the speaker’s speech-patterns
- Use language, and references that suit the speaker
- Avoid cliché
- Structure a coherent and involving speech
- Avoid data-overloading your speaker’s audience
- Use illustration effectively
- Write interesting, understandable and memorable speeches
You will understand:
- The difference between verbal and written syntax
- Rhetorical techniques and flourishes
- The proper use of alliteration, sibilance and onomatopoeia
- Standard speech protocols and etiquette
Contact Us
To book, find out more information or simply have a chat about what programme might suit you best please contact us on:
Tel: (+353.1) 772 8900
Fax: (+353.1) 772 8901
Email: info@carrcommunications.ie
Or alternatively fill out the contact form and we will get back to you as soon as possible