Talking points

Today i got a blog post in my email that linked to another blog post, and together the two of them gave one interesting piece of advice - how to steer an interview in the direction you want it to go even when you can't choose the questions you'll be asked. Both posts are by Penelope Trunk, and the first one tells what talking points are, and the second one explains better how to use them.

The quote i found most interesting was this:

When President Bush walks into a press conference, he doesn’t worry what journalists are going to ask him because he already has the answers he’s going to provide — no matter what the questions are. Such answers are called talking points.

Politicians want to frame an issue, so they listen to a question and then decide which of their talking points they’ll use to answer that question. In this way, each question they’re asked is an opportunity to get their own points across.

Her main emphasis is that this is a good tool in job interviews, but it seems like it would be really useful for youth ministers in a lot of situations - anywhere that we want to present ourselves well and get our message across clearly, like when someone is asking us why a particular ministry is worth the time/money/effort/mess/hassle/noise.