Mixed feelings, again, after listenining to that, not because of the content, but the delivery.
Surely we can do better if the goal of these podcasts is to pique investor interest?
I'm curious. How do we all here, as retail investors, feel about Tony Dawe's performance both specifically in these podcasts and generally, in his role as Director of Global Investor Relations?
In my view, despite all the criticisms, Sean Hehir is actually quite a good communicator and totally carries these podcasts, but I find myself really struggling with the way they're presented, given they're not vlogs, and all we have to keep us engaged is the audio.
We have nothing to tether to but the voices delivering content and this stuff therefore needs to grab your interest from the get-go, especially when the target audience is largely retail investors whose response to these podcasts will have a correlating effect on the shareprice - something we should all be interested in.
Hehir was, and is, engaging and I retained info from his comments but the value I obtained was diminished by the underwhelming delivery by Tony Dawe of the initiating questions. The consistent points at which my time-poor and deeply challenged attention span was triggering me to click "x" and bail was always during TD's putting of selected investor questions or raising of general points of interest for Hehir's comments in elaboration.
I feel bad for saying this so bluntly, but it was excruciating listening to him. He was robotic, dull and forgettable. Right now, although I still have working memory of some of Sean Hehir's responses, I'd be hard-pressed to remember a single question Dawe put to him.
He made it hard for me to continue listening and Im someone who's genuinely interested in the topic being discussed!
He's like the High school Physics teacher that sits there at his desk, head down, no eye-contact, no interjectional/anecdotal by-the-by comments on points of interest that inspire him, just a monotonal reading of the textbook out to the class before asking them to then go ahead and quietly work on the activities attached and hand in your work on his desk at the end of class on your way out the door.
He's literally the human unironed tablecloth of BRN investor relations podcasting. (Only OG LTH kids will understand)
His role is investor relations, so this podcast is aimed more at keeping current and inspiring potential future shareholders and not necessarily at engaging clients of our product offerings. This is all about the sp, at the end of the day.
Now I'm not asking for marching bands, ticker-tape parades and Simpson's " monorail" marketing, but surely we can do better here?
His role in the podcasting needs to be outsourced to someone that is not just reading from a scripted questionairre with zero interest in the response. Someone that can put more enthusiasm and engagement into it than what felt like much the same energy as the reading of Ferris Buehler's name off the class attendance roll.
At least the unironed tablecloth was a subtle detraction from "the vibe of the thing" only picked up by astute observers or those desperately critical and focused on manipulating downward price action on our sp. The usual suspects.
These podcasts are is unavoidably right in our face on a regular basis and I was hoping that at least this one, delivered today following a great few weeks of good news on the deals struck front and upwards sp movement might inspire TD to put some energy into his delivery but listening to today's offering bothers me no end. I'm feel like I'm one of BRN's last remaining true-believer cheerleaders fighting the good fight on HC as davolatopia, but this lack of corporate insight into how critical a polished & professional PR interface is in maintaining interest in the Coy's endeavours and offerings and, ultimately, contributing to support of the shareprice, is getting me narky.
Especially when we're hot off the news of some great performance in Hehir's sealing long awaited deals and the titillating suggestions emanating from Sean that we ain't seen nothing yet with those 2 coming at the end of 2024 because "2025 is going to be a big year".
The SP has been ramping up nicely in the last few weeks and is suggesting we might be on the cusp of the "something big" in 2025 that Sean has piqued our attention with, and on the tail end of that momentum this podcast is released the DAY BEFORE 2025 officially kicks off and although Sean's contribution was, as always, engaging, TD's deadpan lifeless delivery yet again acts to detract from Sean's performance and has successfully underwhelmed me as a significant holdings long investor that shows more passion engaging and debating and discussing the exciting paradigm shifting tech BRN is bringing to the table in what feels like my self-imposed role as HC BRN pro bono defence counsel.
The guy getting paid to do the crowd-fluffing needs to up his game and if he doesn't have the skills or personality then he needs to delegate to someone within BRN who does or outsource to a professional.
I don't know why I'm so grumpy with the SP finally matching the news that's being delivered about the company's performance, it might be because I feel we're undevalued due to the egregious and defamatory conduct and sp manipulation of Dr Doogie Houser aka Plato that *no one* (Yes, I'm looking at you Mr Dawe, Director of Global Investor Relations) lifted a finger to deflect and if the Coy is going to continue to rely on communicating with the investor public via social media and podcasting rather than releasing formal updates utilising the ASX Anns portal then please, for the love of dog, invest some cash and energy on outsourcing or delegating the role to a more polished, charismatic, interesting, invested and engaging counterpart during the CEO fireside chats because I'm struggling to stay tuned to hear it all out to the good bits, and if you can't keep your biggest cheerleader enthused then you've got a problem.
Hi ya Miss Kitty.
I think TD has had one of the crappiest jobs in the world, particularly over the last couple of years, and that shows in his public performance.
I think he has been exhausted by it and has been perhaps struggling for some time.
With the closure of the Perth premises and de emphasis of Australian based resources he has been further isolated.
Ever the meat in the shit sandwich he has had to endure the go between role from hell.
Only being told what he "needs to know" he has had to "handle" the most vocal and worked up portion of the 40,000 shareholders including all the abuse you can imagine, along with both implied and real threats to his physical presence.
For these reasons I tend to cut the guy quite a lot of slack.
Beyond that, I tend to think that retail share holders in Australia only occupy a relatively small part of Sean's attention and these podcasts lately seem very much an afterthought slapped together by people without either much interest or competence in their construction.
Initiated by Rob Telson as you know, they were originally a quite quirky and down to earth medium to try and both advertise and ingratiate potential eco system prospects and would likely have finished when Sean took over.
I think he regarded Rob as dead wood and not capable of adapting to his new approach and slicker marketing style, a la Nandan.
But Sean has adopted and adapted them as a means to potentially full fill his noisy investor's requests for more contact.
Listening to the end product it would appear that written questions are submitted to Sean.
When he gets around to it, he records some answers to the various questions he wants to deal with in an ad hoc, technically primitive fashion, and then forwards these back to TD, who records the questions asked and other relevant filler, again on very basic equipment, and then cuts it together and makes it available to us. As someone who dabbles with this type of editing as a hobby, in my opinion, it is a pretty woeful job.
But pretty stock standard for people whose interests lay elsewhere, and of a standard which can be found in workplaces all over.
Could it be better produced and packaged? Absolutely.
Is it a hanging offence for TD?
Not in my book.
But, as per your reflection on table cloth gate, some get very exercised over relatively minor details.
And I don't think you can say they are wrong exactly to feel that way, perhaps just in possession of a more sensitive temperament.
Not all of us will agree with every detail, but I will defend your right to express it, particularly in as calm and a considerate way that you have here.
