the mayor of positano will charm you now
A key part of our New Professionalism keynote examines the power of rapport, presence and charm in an AI world. We want you to create true, deep connections with both existing and potential clients – and each other.
The Mayor of Positano is the nickname Paul coined for his great, late friend the Australian TV and radio comedian and presenter Jono Coleman. He was a man of many talents.
'Jono was a TV interviewer, breakfast radio star and awards host, but perhaps his greatest roles was one he never got paid for. Many was the time I was awe-struck to walk the streets of London or Sydney with him and see the apparently effortless way he’d smile and banter and chat with everyone and anyone – whether they recognised him or not.
'In the shops, in restaurants, in cabs, Jono met the world with a smile, a comment, a question, all the while exuding a hugely warm, beneficent energy like he was the Mayor of his favourite Italian town, Positano, moving among the locals who’ve known and voted for him for decades.
Maybe you’ve just read this and thought – well, that’s easy for him to do. Jono was a famous funny man with his face on the side of London buses. Of course he had the skills, the confidence and the implied permission to talk to anyone. It’s what expected of him. It comes with the territory.
Except it doesn’t, does it? The vast majority of celebrities and famous people hide away behind tinted windows or lenses, actively dis-engaging from the world to preserve their privacy and keep fans and passers-by at bay. Very few chat to strangers and if they do, it’s likely to all about them rather than the person serving them in a shop or standing next to them at the crossing.
Paul is sure Jono knew better. Not only because… well, where’s the joy in a life like that that turns its back on the power of tiny, everyday human connections? Where are the stories and the insights and the who knows what other gains you get from chatting for a few moments with someone you don’t know?
'Jono would ask me, how can you talk to people like their friends on air if you can’t be friendly to them in real life? He was the Mayor of Positano because those small, often insignificant conversations were, as he saw it, as much a part of his idea of himself as TV and Radio Professional - yes, he absolutely thought of himself like that - as anything he said in a radio or TV studio. In his book, how could he really do his job well without it?
These days our social habits are mostly the opposite of a Mayoral sunny stroll through the streets of a notional Positano. We constantly move around the world with our headphones on or staring at our phones, our eyes deep in our screens, our ears hearing only our own sounds, meeting no one we don’t know already. But here’s a True Human Advantage question for you. Unless YOUR job as a Professional in an AI world involves you going through your life in permanent stealth mode, what micro-interactions are you leaning into whenever you can to help you do yours?