The 8th thing you need to know before your first day on the job. 

Public speaking and media interviews

Dear Frank,
I have just spoken to the manager I'll be working for, and she confirmed I will have an experienced deputy working with me, so that's good.
She also mentioned that I'm going to have to give speeches and interviews with the media as the program progresses. I'm a little nervous about this. I never had to do it in my private sector jobs, not for a crowd bigger than a dozen or so company insiders.
Can you give me some guidance on how to approach this?

Yours,
Fernando

Dear Fernando,

Many government officials make speeches, and you will seldom hear complete frankness from political appointees or senior career officials. One notable exception to this was David Walker, the former Comptroller General of the Government Accountability Office (GAO), which is Congress's watchdog agency. President Clinton appointed him, but because the position has a 15-year term, his service carried over into George W. Bush's presidency.

He was always very frank in his public speeches. He emphasized that a tsunami was looming in the form of the massive public debt that Bush and his appointees created. Walker spoke publicly 150 times a year. Because of his fifteen-year appointment, he could speak frankly, as few others can, without fearing losing his position.

Walker could say things like "The U.S. government does not have a strategic plan and never has” or "Today we have government without representation." He could say these things and still have a desk to go to the next day. You will have many opportunities to give speeches, but you will not have a guaranteed 15-year appointment, so you will need to be more circumspect when you are at the podium in a public forum.

All conference organizers chase after the new face in town. They are happy for you to show up and speak, even early in your job when you have produced no results and are still planning. You will have so many requests to give speeches that you could easily find yourself spending more time behind lecterns than in your office. As one example, President Obama appointed Vivek Kundra to be the Chief Information Officer for the federal government on March 5, 2009. Seven days later, too early to know much about the job he accepted, he spoke as the conference keynoter at the FOSE conference, one of the biggest annual technology conferences in Washington D.C.

I advise you to give some speeches, but mostly at conferences held here in Washington D.C. Flying to Hawaii or San Francisco to speak to 30 people for an hour is not worth your time in most cases. Choose the speaking opportunities that allow government and industry officials to get to know you and what you are trying to do. Discussing your program in front of the right people can help to convince them of the value of the program. In addition, the contacts can help you to get a good private sector job when the time eventually comes to leave the government.

When conference managers invite you to speak, ask how many people will attend the conference. Understand that conference organizers tend to overstate the anticipated audience when asking government officials to speak. You should assume the real number will be half what they tell you. Then ask where your speech comes on the schedule.

The earlier you speak the better. For example, if it's a three-day conference, the morning of the first day is the best time to speak because all of the people who will attend the affair will be present and attentive. The audience will start to thin out after that. By late afternoon of the second day, some attendees will be out sightseeing, doing office work or just taking a break from the conference. And, by the third day, many attendees will have already left.

On each day, expect the audience to begin to slip away two hours before the scheduled end time.

Find out when you will speak and decide if there will be enough people in the audience at that time for it to be worthwhile. Also, understand that the conference organizers might try to change your scheduled time after you agree. As the conference draws near, some speakers drop out and organizers re-work the schedule. If they move you from a good position to a bad one, you can drop out as well. .

The other question you should ask is whether you will speak in a plenary role as a featured speaker, or as a member of a panel. Conference organizers and many audiences like panels. The organizers can put more names on the agenda to attract additional attendees. More important, seven panels over three days with six participants on each panel will ensure that at least 42 people will attend the conference.

I would not participate on a 55-minute panel that had more than three people on it. And, if the panel is not scheduled in prime time, I would question whether it made sense to participate.

If you decline an invitation based on your calculation that you will be speaking to a room of empty chairs, the conference organizer will probably push back, saying that it is not the numbers of people you speak to, but the number of the right people. That is true, but the truly right people are not likely to be there in the first place.

Reporters representing trade publications such as Government Executive, Federal Computer Week, and Government Computer News can help to publicize your program. Reporters representing industry trade papers are normally trustworthy, and if they want to interview you, it's usually good to agree. They will present you and your program in a generally favorable light, and their reporters are likely to understand how the government works. However if the New York Times, the Washington Post or a television network calls, you need to be more careful. Normally, they are investigating something. They smell a story. You should smell danger.

Interviews with national media reporters can provide an opportunity for disaster, or an opportunity to deliver a message to a wider audience. When they call, make an excuse to get off the phone -- promising to call them back in an hour -- and think about what you want to say. You may want to dry run possible responses with your deputy or the public affairs staff in your agency. Do not to enter into an extemporaneous discussion with a reporter for a national newspaper until you have had time to develop your message.

Hope that helps.
Frank