The Blair 'witched' project

Experts on movie production have long warned people that making sequels or “Part II” projects can be a dangerous thing. You either strike it rich if the sequel flies or your project comes down in flames.

In the case of the “Tony Blair Leadership Conference”, the project qualifies as an emergency landing where the former prime minister saved the day. Other than that, the only thing of value that came out of the event was a notebook on “How not to do a sequel” entitled: “An Eventologist, you are not”.

This article is not meant to be a harsh criticism of the event considering all the hard work that obviously went into the event, plus the fact that the organizers only had three weeks to pull off the miracle. Consider it more of a “post mortem” or an autopsy that I hope would somehow teach events managers what to avoid.

Follow the path of past success

Go with what works. The first Leadership Conference, which featured former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, was a complete success. The venue, the program, the ambiance all came together for a relaxed learning environment.

According to my sources, the Tony Blair visit to the Philippines cost a total of $275,000 for his professional fee. It would then be safe to assume that the event organizers needed to collect much more than for the Giuliani visit. Their solution may have been their undoing.

“MORE” is not necessarily the right answer.

The organizers chose to go for a bigger crowd either to raise more ticket sales or let more people in on the experience. But bigger crowds create bigger problems. You need a bigger venue; more security precautions, more parking and thus you have more headaches.

Packing nearly a thousand people inside an air-conditioned tent at midday on a hot summer month qualifies as pushing your luck! I felt under dressed wearing a long sleeved shirt, but I was so relieved after seeing so many “suits” dying in their Boss and Armani.

Asking for a government issued identification card and withholding them from their owners for the duration of the event qualifies as testing people’s patience especially Filipinos. The claim is that this security requirement was imposed by the Presidential Security Group. If so the organizers should have brought in scanners or photocopy machines to avoid the hassle of reclaiming the IDs.

It’s not a simple matter if you happen to be a pregnant foreigner sweltering in the heat while the staff is clueless as to what happened to your license!

 Making the cream of the crop sit in crowded rows of uncomfortable seats a couple of hours before the main speaker show up was bad judgment. Making them come an hour and a half early, then go through a two-hour “front act” seriously pissed off a number of people who had deadlines, meetings and businesses to run. An oft-repeated comment was “I came for Blair, nothing else”.

Not imposing a tight program flow for introductions and presentations was a guarantee for a messy show. The one thing I learned from events expert Ms. Roni Merk is always demand for a copy of their speech, time the speech and make sure all intros are short and straight to the point. Better to be stiff and short than long and messy.

If you already messed things up, don’t add insult to injury. The introduction and the actual speech of retired Chief Justice Art Panganiban apparently ate up a lot of the time. In a panic, the program coordinator decided to do a running time reduction on businessman Cecillio Pedro. Instead of letting Pedro make his presentation on “Negotiation in business”, they kept cutting his time down almost to the point of asking him to leave the stage because the right honorable Tony Blair was already in the building.

Insulting one guest in consideration of the celebrity guest is plain amateurish. Blair did not have a Harrier jet parked poolside to whisk him off if they made him wait five minutes for his turn to speak. In fact in his modesty he did not go to the stage but sat in the front row beside the British Ambassador. The organizers owe Cecillio Pedro a BIG apology. To his credit, the man was calm and kind, displaying his true Christian character. 

Finally Blair but . . .

There was no doubt that Blair has flair. He immediately connects to the crowd in a “seemingly” humble and disarming way. But since I was already busy paying attention to details, I could not shake the question: why is this conference talking about “The Leader as a principled negotiator”? Didn’t we just host the Irish Member of Parliament who apparently made a visit to make pitch for “renegotiation” with the rebels in the south?

Then Blair in mid-speech says, “I have been asked” to share some of my experiences in the negotiations with the IRA or Irish Republican Army. That to me was a giveaway.

What relevance has “principled negotiations” have in our current business or political environment? Our urgent concerns are about the economy, corruption, unemployment, food security and elections to name a few. Principled negotiations with Islamic extremists or criminal elements involved in kidnapping of members of the International Community of the Red Cross is not exactly closest in the hearts and minds of most Filipinos, certainly not the businessmen or leaders.

I seriously wonder if the planners of the conference carefully considered the real needs of their intended audience, or did they simply try to fit the wrong shoe on the right foot, meaning using the IRA peace process as the excuse for Blair’s participation.

Or did someone plot to use Blair’s persona and experience to soften people’s resistance to peace negotiations with rebel extremists. Forgive my conspiracy theories but he was asked and from the looks of it he was used, while the rest of the audience paid the price!