bout de papier, Vol. 29, No. 1 (2015), p. 36
GUERILLA COMMUNICATIONS, by Eduardo del Buey, 2014, Friesen Press, Victoria, B.C., 155 pp.
SPOKESPERSONRY: A GUIDE TO CONNECTING, by Eduardo del Buey, 2015, Friesen Press, Victoria, B.C., 165 pp.
www friesenpress com
Eduardo del Buey is a consultant in Washington, D.C. and worked close to four decades as a Canadian diplomat. He served at six Canadian missions and as the official spokesperson at the Organization of American States and the Commonwealth and as a deputy spokesperson for the Secretary General of the United Nations. He is also the author of two new and interrelated books.
Guerilla Communications is a practical guide to effective communications, no matter one’s place in an organization. It begins by discussing context, the importance of internal and external communications and of networking. It then addresses the tools of the trade, from the role of the spokesperson, to press releases, conferences, speeches, effective messaging and crisis communications. It is well organized, pithy at just 155 pages, disarmingly simple, funny and wise. Divided into 19 short parts, its logic is easy to follow. Del Buey marshals his arguments and lets the reader follow his reasoning so that we come share his insights and conclusions.
Presumably responding to client needs as a consultant and trainer, del Buey’s second book, Spokespersonry, provides further insights on how organizations can use “spokespersonry” to achieve their major communications objectives and connect effectively with the audience. Del Buey explains that this is best done by arousing feelings in the audience through words, images, stories and props (creating a “wow” moment), and by engaging in honest discourse. The story and its delivery must be fully researched and consulted, using internal and external assets, anticipating all contingencies, most importantly potential or current crises. He illustrates his basic thesis by moving the reader crisply through six chapters that cover much of the same territory as his first book. However, there is much greater emphasis on crisis communications and the art of presentation. These cover almost two thirds of the book’s 166 pages; the remaining third are about setting the bar realistically (not promising more than you can deliver), and adapting your communications “endgame” to respond to changing circumstances in real time.
Both books are greatly strengthened by the way that the material is organized and by the story telling approach del Buey advocates. He practices what he preaches. Parts/sub parts, chapters/sub chapters, are kept brief. All are enlivened by the extensive use of anecdotes and quotes. The chapter on Crisis Communications in the second book has 20 different case studies compressed into in 62 pages. That results in two books that are highly readable and memorable. The reader is able to connect to the messages in the stories, to relate them to her/his work situation, to benefit from the experience of those described, and from the lessons and knowledge that they impart. Clearly del Buey has been collecting his anecdotes and quotes for decades, no doubt supplemented by relevant anthologies and the wonder that is the internet search function.
Del Buey’s focus is on professional technique, stressing the importance of sound preparation and execution. The “how to” takes precedence over the “why”. He does address the latter but no more than he, and likely his editor, judge necessary to his purpose. This makes for a tightly presented, compelling read but leaves the reader wanting more of the back story on how precisely a spokesperson, and her/his team, would negotiate both a suitably flexile and comprehensive mandate from senior management at the outset, and for the later, inevitable re-calibrations.
The much greater emphasis in the second book on crisis communications and changing your endgame may reflect an and decisions made in I almost always based on mation. Such constraint del Buey also seems to yes, of course, but in the on with the task at hand’
All good advice for a sional, but how does a sp« with sometimes deep di: an organization’s missior and substantive challens complicating the mes: tackles that question at both books by making s to pertinent case studies
The lessons del Buey i cumulative and useful fo practitioners. But what a organization? I conclude have been well-served if] his insights in a more sys a chapter or special sec have facilitated the abili person or communicatio engage other colleagues communications policy well as the necessary pro ideas, and delivering t broader framework of tl business lines and progr:
The benefits of such ai work both ways. Other c: engage with the spokespe her/him of the relevancy of their work as part of al communications strategy tise that the spokespers engaging with senior n target audiences, such a indirect admission that as a spokesperson, you may only be able to get conditional buy-in from senior management and your audience. It also takes into account the real-
ity of judgments real time that are
Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 29, No. 1 (2015), p. 36. Read the rest of this issue →
