How to abuse an audience

At an awards dinner last week, (delighted to be finalists sadly no trophy) we were subjected to a perfectly awful celebrity keynote speaker. It was painful for many reasons. firstly, he clearly didn't want to be there - his boredom was tangible - and secondly, he had no respect for the audience. With hands in pockets while doing a poor imitation of a foppish Hugh Grant, he proceeded to show slides of his TV antics in the style of someone showing their holiday snaps! And pretty dull ones at that.

The privilege of the platform comes with huge responsibility - entertain or inspire. This speaker did neither, although he could easily have done both given a little thought. The damage done to his personal brand was immense. Had he been authentic then the principles of digging deep and always being the best you can be would have been applied.

We all have off days I guess - my own feeling is to confine these to duvet days rather than when we're with others......every encounter counts, whether you're a celeb or a check-out operator.