Former Prime Minister Gordon Brown will vouch to that advice. In the 2010 general election he was on a tour of Rochdale when he came across 66 year-old Gillian Duffy. Mrs Duffy was fairly forthright in her questioning of the prime minister and the exchange was not all that Gordon Brown would have wanted in front of the TV cameras. Nevertheless he held his own and dealt with the questions in his usual calm manner.

It was only afterwards, as he drove away from the scene of the encounter that he said to his aide “That was a disaster. They should never have put me with that woman. Whose idea was that?” The aide went on to ask about the nature of the conversation and brown replied “She was just a sort of bigoted woman.”

Unfortunately for Gordon Brown the TV microphone attached to his lapel was still live and the whole conversation was picked up by the TV soundman. As soon as the story broke, Gordon Brown, red faced and contrite, was obliged to visit Mrs Duffy in her home, without microphones present and make an apology.

This week a similar incident happened, but this time in South America. The popular but erratic president of Uruguay, Jose Mujica, was meeting with Argentina’s less than popular and more than just a touch erratic president, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner.

Prior to the news conference, where both presidents were speaking, Mujica was picked up by an open microphone saying to an aide “This old hag is worse than the cross-eyed man.” The reference to the cross eyed man being Cristina Kirchner’s husband Nestor Kirchner who was Argentina’s president from 2003 to 2007 before his death in 2010. Cristina succeeded him as president in 2007 and is the current president of Argentina.

Mujica (77) denied that he was referring to Cristina or her husband Nestor but the damage was done and in our highly connected world the comment went viral within hours.

The moral of the story is, keep your mouth shut when near the press except for when you open it to make well thought through and pre-prepared comments.

LinkedIn, Xing, Plaxo and Viadeo are all online business networks which are becoming increasingly popular for people wanting to make connections with like-minded or professionally connected individuals, but they are also taking over in the biography stakes.

LinkedIn is probably the largest network at around 200 million individuals. Its use of Recommendations, the new Skills & Expertise section as well as the opportunity to create a highly detailed profile and keep on upgrading your information can be a plus, but also a minus.

Recently there have been cases of people who have applied for jobs and found their CV differed with their online profile. Recruiters like consistency and interviewers are always keen to root out why inconsistencies occur. With a limited amount of time in an interview to get across why you should get the job the last thing you need is questioning as to why your LinkedIn profile differs from your CV.

The ideal solution is to make sure that your online profile is a carefully edited version of your CV. It needs to be an edited version because there may be things on your CV which you would rather the world didn’t know about such as commercially sensitive examples or information that is of a personal nature.

Equally, be wary of the other social media in your life. Potential employers have started to track down Facebook and Twitter accounts to get another angle on their potential future employee. Pictures of drunken sessions or other inappropriate pictures might cause a potential employer to think twice, as might poor language, complaints about current employers and even friends posting embarrassing things about you. In short use the privacy settings to avoid prying eyes.

Future employers are not your only worry in the world of social media. Current employers might be watching your social media sites. Status upgrades that have you out shopping with your pals when you told your workplace that you were off sick could lead to disciplinaries. Even an upgrade and expansion of your profile after months of neglect could lead them to thinking that you are on the search for another job.

Social media can bring a lot of fun and new connections which enrich your life; it can even get you a job, but remain vigilant as to what your postings suggest to other people who may be able to influence your work status.

The two DJs having made belated apologies say that they never thought they would be taken seriously. When they telephoned King Edward VII Hospital to ask personal questions about the Kate’s health they expected to be exposed within 30 seconds. Nevertheless, when they managed to get through to a nurse looking after the Duchess they didn’t stop, they persisted with the hoax, presumably knowing that they had gone too far.

As if that wasn’t damage enough, the management of the radio station was happy to broadcast the encounter and publish it on their website. This action alone suggests that journalistic greed for ratings and listeners blinded them to the impropriety of their actions.

It is for others to judge the actions of the DJs and the radio station. Suffice it to say that this episode drove a dedicated nurse, Jacintha Saldanha, to kill herself despite her obviously innocent mistake.

To expect the media to change would be asking too much. As the internet and social media place greater pressures on the profitability of newsprint, radio and television so the desperation for a sensational story or a scoop increases.

Does that mean, as the Leveson Inquiry would suggest, that we should legislate to control the media? We would say, vehemently, no.

Legislation to control the media is used far too easily in too many parts of the world. In Argentina President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner is trying to stifle Grupo Clarín, a newspaper group critical of her presidency, through legislation. In Sri Lanka newspapers are humbled by the patronage (or removal) of government advertising. In Turkey journalists are routinely locked up in what Reporters without Frontiers has described as judicial harassment of Turkey’s media.

In more liberal countries modern society has become increasingly prepared to use legislation to do what society and the marketplace should be doing. The media will always find a way around laws and regulations especially when they think it will make them a quick profit in their profitless world.

Instead, when they go too far, we the people should be ready to intervene. By refusing to listen to their radio stations or to stop buying their newspapers we can punish the media much more effectively.

Social media brought the News of the World to its knees because of the actions of a small minority of journalists which may have included senior managers (tragic on the hundreds of others who did nothing wrong). Advertisers withdrew their advertising from 2Day FM, the Australian radio station at the heart of the tragic Duchess of Cambridge prank. Others will follow.

It requires society to flex its muscles rather than wait for government to legislate; whether that is through the withdrawal of advertising, social media exposure, refusal to listen to, watch or buy their product. Then, and only then, will the media take notice.

On 30th October 2012 the Swiss bank UBS announced that it would be making up to 10,000 banking jobs redundant. The immediate response of the markets was positive but the subsequent response of the media was scathing. Here are two examples of the reports as to how UBS staff in London were told:

The Telegraph (30th October 2012)

UBS bankers in London were turned away from their offices on Tuesday and handed a letter putting them on “special leave”, just hours after the Swiss bank unveiled a radical restructuring to axe 10,000 jobs.

“We were banging on the door,” said one. “Today is for drinking, tomorrow is for thinking about our careers,” added another.

The Guardian Work Blog (6th November 2012)

Being made redundant is bad enough, but to be marched straight to HR when you turn up for work to be given the news, and told you are not required in work during the consultation period, is something else.

They were sent home at the same time as being notified they were “at risk” of redundancy and were under a period of consultation (although this usually amounts to little more than one or two meetings at best). As is also usual, the UBS staff were given the opportunity to consider what alternative vacancies may be suitable for them.

The coverage reinforced the general public’s view of bankers as greedy and insensitive. In the short term the bungled handling of UBS employees has hurt the bank’s reputation. In the medium term it leaves a bunch of employees stewing away at home telling everyone who will listen about the way they were treated and it is unlikely that they will put a positive sheen onto the subject.

In the long term, if the final redundancy package is handled as insensitively as the early stages, then a large number of people will be released into the marketplace who will be looking for revenge. Many of those people will get jobs in other banks or with potential UBS customers. Nor should we forget the employees who remain; what must they be thinking about their employer? Will we be next? Will we be treated in the same way? Are we going to be expected to carry the extra workload?

It didn’t need to be like that. Making people redundant is usually a commercial imperative. Few managers enter into the process gleefully. It is a tough thing to have to tell someone that they have lost their job. This may explain why some managers fall back on impersonal letters, emails or text messages. But there are better and more sensitive ways to make someone redundant.

• Start by communicating commercial realities early on and treat your employees as business partners rather than disposable assets
• Communicate as early as possible that there could be risks, this can often bring out the best in people and rescue the business
• When the decision is taken put in place a clear, effective and rapid communications programme. Organise staff meetings, use video/teleconferencing if you are dealing with multiple sites, work to a scripted text to ensure consistency of message and involve senior executives
• Repeat yourself. With the initial shock people often hear the first part of the message only, retreating into their inner thoughts and therefore missing vital parts of the message
• Having communicated verbally and, where possible face to face, then send out an email with all of the basic points along with a carefully thought through Questions & Answers (Q&A) briefing note
• Don’t make a sham of the consultation period. Genuinely consult because there may be some clever and innovative ideas that emerge to save some jobs (or the business)
• During the consultation period continue to communicate. Even if those communications are simply updates such as ‘we have had another meeting with the union’ or ‘so far we have held discussions with one third of those affected’
• Don’t limit your communications to those at risk – communicate with everyone
• When you know who is leaving and who is staying then communicate in person to those leaving and follow it up with a written confirmation.

There is much more, but by now it should be clear that communication is vital when making people redundant. Currently we are working with several companies involved in making people redundant. They have treated their people with respect and dignity and they have communicated continuously throughout the process.

You cannot remove the fear and worry that such major change induces but you can leave people with a modicum of pride and send people into the jobs market with the reputation of your own company intact.

Reply to all is becoming a problem area in a number of offices. One client reported having around 300 emails a day. Analysis of those emails revealed that around 20 were of an urgent or important nature; the rest could have been deleted without any worry.

The problem, however, is that few people are prepared to delete emails without being sure that they are not important. The ensuing time wasted in opening emails of a trivial nature can become a costly time waster for any company.

Unfortunately people press the reply all button without thinking. The worst offenders are those who are responding to emails calling a meeting. They tend to reply to all to tell them that they will or cannot attend when only the sender of the original email needs to know.

Processing around 300 emails a day could take up to 90 minutes and when around 90% of them are of a trivial nature this is a costly and inefficient use of company time. It can also be a frustrating experience for the person concerned.

So here are a few tips to reduce your email workload.

1. When you send an email only send it to those who need to receive the information contained
2. If you are sending a meeting notice ask people to respond to you only
3. If you receive an email calling a meeting only send a response if requested or if you are unable to attend; and then only to the original sender
4. Don’t send an email when getting out of your chair and walking a dozen steps to talk directly to someone would be a quicker option
5. Don’t send trivia. The latest jokes, funny stories, pretty pictures and scandals may be great fun but they are incredibly time consuming
6. Keep information brief and to the point. Long wordy emails rarely get read. Use bullet points when possible and only tell those who really do genuinely need to know.

If you really want to be cutting edge (and daring!) then just for one day delete all your emails at the start of the day and get on with some real work. You will find that those people who sent you an important email will telephone you receipt. Then you can get them to send it again. Time wasters won’t bother because their first email reaction was enough to satisfy their needs.

There is one final thought on this subject. If an email is sent to a large number of people as a BCC blind copy and just one person uses reply all then all the original recipient’s email address details will be revealed to all.

Additionally the website held a lot of material, all of which was very relevant but was going to take hours to trawl through to find the nuggets I required.

Half an hour later I had discovered a wealth of information but there was just so much that I gave up. I had reached information overload. It took a teeth gritting moment to return to the various sites and many hours work to find everything I needed to produce my report.

It doesn’t have to be like that. Once I had worked out what each website and every downloadable brochure was all about I realised a number of things.

First of all the organisation was constructed into silos, each with its own hierarchy and each with its own way of presenting information. The degree of duplication across the websites was enormous and the room for error increased accordingly.

On some of the websites the information requirement had been sacrificed for snazzy layout; nice to scan but a horror to try and read.

Some of the content was poorly written and other parts produced conflicting information across the sites. The latter point came about because the sites had taken data and analysed it in different ways and across different time periods. This caused even more confusion and made decision making harder.

Across all of the sites there was a hidden agenda, a rivalry to produce more information than the other lot. So quality was sacrificed for quantity.

Information overload is not unusual in our linked up world. It is often found with emails where multiple people are ‘copied in’ and reports are lengthier than they need be because it is easy to ‘cut and paste’ material.

There is, nevertheless, something that can be done about information overload on a website.

Start by understanding you audience. Who are they and why are they coming to your website? Start to think like them and you will understand very quickly that the old acronym KISS is critical.

KISS stands for Keep It Short and Simple. The best form of information is carefully planned and then simply presented. Of course, if your aim is to look important (should that be self-important?) and intelligent then clutter away on your website and use lots of big words. But if your aim is to be helpful and informative then keep KISS in mind.

Take the politics out of the website. If there is an internal agenda, perhaps someone has fixed ideas about what should be presented and in what format, then keep them as far away as possible.

If there are multiple departments involved then ask them what they want to promote and then identify where there are duplications across departments. Remove duplications by creating a mind map or flow chart to work out what information you intend to publish and in what order. If necessary use hyperlinks across departments but better still try and think like one organisation.

Think layers. Start by presenting basic information. Then lead those that want more to deeper levels with greater degrees of information. Split the information up into obvious categories and present them in a logical order. But remember, more than three layers and the website can start to become incomprehensible.

Think about format. Simple websites may not win awards but they will win the plaudits of those that use them. If you have to make it snazzy, then at least get a graphic designer to help you present the information in obvious ways, using appropriately placed boxes and columns.

Provide easy solutions for researchers. If your website holds lots of information then have a well-structured site map and an even better search mechanism.

And finally, focus on quality not quantity; even if it takes you a little longer to present the information.

Information overload does not have to be a problem in our connected world if just a little imagination and forethought is given to the problem.

On 13th January the Costa Concordia cruise liner was wrecked off the coast of Tuscany with the loss of about 32 passengers and crew lives. The Captain was accused of abandoning the ship as passengers struggled to get off the liner. For several weeks the media covered the rescue of passengers and then the subsequent search for bodies in the half submerged wreck.

That was a very bad news story, but the parent firm acted quickly and agreed to refunds and other payments as well as offering further cruise opportunities.

Then disaster struck again. This time it was the Costa Allegra which found itself adrift in pirate waters near the Seychelles in the Indian ocean after a fire in the engine room. All passengers were safe but suffered for a number of days as the ship was towed into the Seychelles without electricity and therefore no air conditioning, lights or hot food.

In both cases the actions of the management would make or break the cruise line and its future viability. In both cases the cruise line management appear to have acted quickly and compassionately.

In the case of the Concordia they said that they would support the Captain in his legal case although they blamed him for the accident. In the second case they reacted quickly to ensure that people were well looked after when they arrived in the Seychelles.

That is not to say that there haven’t been plenty of bad stories coming out of both accidents, especially around poor management on the ships themselves.

Nevertheless, the Costa Cruises website has in place an easy to find section for each of the accidents and a dated and timed series of press releases giving important details to keep everyone informed. It isn’t the prettiest format ever designed, but the wording is well delivered and is fact rich.

So where do the numbers outweigh the bad news?

The cruise industry has grown massively in recent years and there is the potential for serious damage as a result of these accidents. Indeed one press report suggests that Costa cruise bookings are down by a third. That is not a great surprise because some people will be put off by the two incidents.

Nevertheless a scrutiny of online chat rooms and comments suggests that there are an equal number of cruise fanatics with stories to tell of great cruise holidays. These fanatics are willing to counter the gloom and doom merchants.

The Passenger Ship Association (PSA) website makes a strong case in its press section. They point out that between 2005 and 2011 around 117 million people enjoyed cruises around the world with 21 deaths recorded; a remarkably low rate.

The overall numbers will go up with the Costa Concordia statistics but not dramatically, although as the PSA point out, one death is one too many.

So it seems that this time the industry may well get away with a dip but not permanent damage. The cruise lines are aggressively lowering their rates and countering the news with massive promotions, making a cruise holiday a good deal at the moment.

No doubt at some point in the near future the parent company of Costa, Carnival Corporation, will conduct a low key rebranding of the Costa cruise line. They still have a series of court cases which will continue to remind people of the events of January and February. They should survive the news spillage from these court cases.

A crisis that, for once, appears to have been handled reasonably well, though we should never forget the loss of lives involved.

The reasons can be many. The mobile phone rings just as you are explaining the finer details of your new product. Everyone in the room focuses on the person taking the call; they are all curious to know what it is about. Then again it might be that someone comes in to the room, perhaps to prepare coffee for the break, or to whisper a message in to the ear of one of the attendees.

Whatever the reason, wandering minds are a serious cause of communication breakdown. They can’t be helped, they can’t be avoided, but they can be handled.

Preparation, as always, is key to the solution. If you are about to attend an interview, give a sales presentation or deliver a project proposal to senior managers then prepare well in advance.

Find out where the meeting will take place. If it is in the person’s office then be aware that they will be concentrating on the papers around them and not you. So whenever possible hold the meeting on neutral ground. If there are windows then close the blinds to prevent outside distraction.

If at all possible try and find out who will be attending. Find out as much about them as you can. The more senior the person the more likely that they will have half a mind on other things as you are delivering your message. Get to know their likes and dislikes, try and find something that you have in common and watch out for the time of day.

The time of day you are speaking can be critical. If you have a choice then make your presentation mid morning or mid afternoon. First thing in the morning they are keen to answer all those emails that came in overnight. Late morning they are thinking about lunch, after lunch they are sleepy and late afternoon they are panicking about all the jobs they haven’t done. Perhaps an oversimplification, but timing is everything to gain attention.

If you are expecting to speak for fifteen minutes, then aim for ten to twelve minutes. Don’t cram too much into the presentation. People only take in about 40% of what they are told. So it is better to concentrate on three key points, say them clearly and often and then repeat them (by saying them in slightly different ways).

Make sure that you get your key points made within the first three minutes, the optimum time for holding attention. This is most easily done by using the old technique of telling them what you are about to say, then saying it and at the end telling them what you have said.

Remember KISS – Keep It Short and Simple. Short, simple and to the point presentations are easier to follow and much easier to remember.

If your listeners are interrupted then take them back to the key points you had been making before the interruption. Help them to re-engage by giving them a summary of what you had said before the interruption.

If they look worried or absorbed after the interruption, then pause. Give them time to think about the problem and wait until they re-focus on you. Then repeat again what you were saying.

In extremis abandon the meeting and try to rearrange. You are a busy person too. If they clearly show little interest in you and your product then withdraw politely and find a better time or place when they are less distracted.

There are three ways in which you can be more active on LinkedIn which will help to raise your profile; they are through adding more connections, joining groups and answering questions.

LinkedIn, like most online social media, can absorb a lot of your time and it needs to be carefully managed. Whilst out of work, it could be worth your while giving an hour a day to using LinkedIn, more than that and the potential returns drop off quite quickly.

Moving on to the three methods outlined above, the most obvious first move is to increase your connections. Again, be careful and be sure to develop a strategy. Some people work on the basis of getting lots of Connections; anything over 500 and you are designated a LION or LinkedIn Online Networker. If you go down this route then you will be connecting with anyone and everyone that approaches you as well as spending a lot of time seeking out other people.

Alternatively keep your connections limited and professional. That means deciding on what sort of person you are happy to have as a Connection. Almost certainly people in the same profession; definitely people who are opinion formers and influential in your line of work. Probably not more junior people than yourself. Avoid adding lots of friends and family, use your Facebook account for those people.

If you are starting out then prepare a list of people you know with whom you would like to connect. Then go up to the Search box (top right on the top navigation bar), type in the name and see if you can find them. If you can, then go in to their profile just to check that it is the correct person. You will see a yellow button to the right of their profile box, it says ‘Connect’, press that and you will be invited to connect with the person. Complete the box and click on ‘Send Invitation’. If they don’t wish to connect with you then you will hear nothing further. If they do connect then you will get an email telling you as much from LinkedIn.

Another way to add connections is to use the top right hand box on your home page entitled ‘People You May Know’. Click ‘see more’ and scroll down to see if you recognise any names or see any useful job titles. To the right of each name is a ‘Connect’ heading. Click on that and then follow the simple procedure.

Using these two methods you can quickly build up a useful Connections list. On your home page you will see what it is that these people are doing once you have connected. Equally if you have a Twitter account, a blog or just by using the ‘Share an Update’ box at the top of the main column on your LinkedIn Home Page you can tell them what is on your mind.

Try a very simple, ‘Hi Everyone, I have just left XXX and am looking for my next big opportunity.’ It will reap rewards.

To join groups, all you need do is go to the top navigation bar on your Home Page, find Groups and then click on Groups Directory. LinkedIn will give you some suggestions based upon your profile, but better still use the Search box on the top left. Where it says Keywords, type in your professional keywords. Account Manager, for example, brought up 97 groups. You can click on a group to find out more about them before you make your decision.

Don’t join too many groups, about six or seven is more than enough. Join the right groups for you and then get involved. Answer questions, pose questions and most of all, keep yourself informed about the latest developments in your particular professional domain.

Groups are also a good way of connecting with like minded people who may know about jobs. Beware joining too many recruitment agency groups; you will find yourself inundated with information about jobs that are of little interest to you.

Finally, it is worth exploring Answers. Go to the top navigation bar once more and find ‘More’; now click on ‘Answers’. This will take you into the public arena for LinkedIn where anyone can ask or answer a question. A golden rule is to answer more questions (ratio about 10:1) than ask questions. There are plenty of silly people on LinkedIn and you will quickly identify serious questions from the flippant and attention grabbers.

In the right hand column you will find a section entitled ‘Browse’. This has a broad list of professional types. Find your professional interest and then narrow down your search. You will find a rich seam of questions and some interesting answers. By answering questions in a knowledgeable way the person answering the question can nominate you as an expert which will raise your profile further.

In each of the three methods mentioned above you will need to find your niche, decide on the amount of time you want to commit to the project and then be consistent. If you use all three methods then you will widen your network, get connected to people with the same professional interests and, as a result, get noticed.

You need to start on your LinkedIn Home page. In the right hand column you will see a section entitled ‘Jobs you may be interested in’. In the box there will be a selection of three or four jobs.

It is worth checking those jobs every day. The jobs will be targeted towards whatever it is that you have populated your profile with in terms of key words and industry sectors. That is why so much emphasis was laid on getting your keywords right in the first blog of this series.

If you click on one of the jobs in the box you will go into the advertisement page for that job. Usually it contains a job description or detailed description of the job.

If you look to the top right of the script in the advert you will see a small box that says ‘Posted by’. This is a useful tool which ordinary jobsites don’t give you.

By clicking on the name in the box you get to find out something about the person who filed the advertisement. You could, if you felt inclined, make a connection with that person or get an introduction through your contacts. As a minimum, it will be worth looking over the person’s profile to see what you can find out about them.

The person concerned will almost certainly have the name of the employer and possibly their website address on their profile, which in turn means you can check out the organisational site and find their website very easily.

If you can find the website for the organisation then check out if they have a careers or jobs section. If they do then that is always the better way of applying. Better still, get a telephone number from their ‘Contact Us’ page and ring the person direct to see if you match their requirements. The personal contact always works best when searching for a job.

To go back to the LinkedIn site, you can decide if you are a good match for that job and if so you could select to apply for the job by clicking on the ‘Apply Now’ button at the bottom. Ideally, have your CV and covering letter prepared and ready to attach.

At the very bottom of the page you will see two very useful additions. A section entitled ‘People who viewed this job also viewed’ and Search more jobs’. Both give you additional search options. If you look at the ‘Search more jobs’ it will help you to narrow down the categories that are most appropriate to you. This will open you out into a myriad of further jobs in that subcategory.

Naturally, the jobs you are shown are only as good as the information in your profile. Equally, the jobs categories you see in the ‘Search for more jobs’ section relate to the particular type of job you are viewing. For example, you may be looking for a job in internal communications, but the job you clicked on may be more marketing oriented. In which case the categories you will see will be more marketing focussed.

You can overcome this problem by going back to the Home page. Go to the top navigation bar and click on jobs. Put in a job title in the ‘Search for Jobs’ box. This will bring up further jobs options. Look at the left hand column on this new page and you will see that you can refine your search even further.

LinkedIn will encourage you to join up to their Job Seeker Premium service. This will cost you £12.95 a month for the basic and up to £32.95 for the Job seeker Plus. Don’t sign up for the annual subscription unless you expect to be out of work for that long. The value of this service remains questionable at present.

By now you should have found a large number of potential jobs. Now the hard work of filtering through those jobs begins.

In the third and final blog on finding a job on LinkedIn the focus will be on raising your profile even further in order to get you noticed.