Standing up to stand out

I recently finished a stand-up comedy course and have now performed at a couple of gigs.

Why did I do it?

Well, to start it’s another of those itches that I needed to scratch, and get out of my system, just like the radio presenting and singing. I get bored of routine and I’m always looking for the next challenge in my work and my personal life.

Top Tips for Terrific Technical Talks

I love going to conferences, dare I say I am a conference junkie, hence I attend and speak at around 10 conferences each year. The conferences I go to are usually academic or technical in nature where the speakers present their latest research, ideas and innovations. I also help organise the biannual Workplace Trends and annual Learning Environments conferences for which I select the speakers, and also receive feedback from the audience on the speakers. 

After attending 100s of conferences across the globe over the years I have concluded that, in general, there are two types of technical speaker: 1. those with fantastic content but have poor delivery, and 2. those that present well but have poor content. Speakers with good content who can also communicate in an interesting and engaging manner are the unicorns of the conference circuit – that is they are rare and magical beasts. It always seems a shame to me that the years of hard graft conducting original and valuable research is ultimately lost amidst a poorly constructed and delivered presentation. So here are my top tips for a terrific technical talk. 

Toastmasters - Red Coat or Red Herring

I was recently invited to guest blog on why I like Toastmasters. So here it is.

When I was first asked if I was interested in joining Toastmasters I instantly imagined formidable and pompous gentlemen in red tuxedos toasting the queen and her realms and territories. But my vision was far from reality, the red coat is a red herring.

My inaugural visit to Berkhamsted Toastmasters was to the “humorous speaking contest” – an evening of pre-prepared, often amusing and often just weird, presentations on a wide variety of subjects. One of the speeches that I still clearly recall detailed what happens after the coffin goes beyond the curtains at a crematorium. The speaker regaled us with how the coffin is re-used and the poor departed repays society as the latest bio-fuel. This is black humour by any standards, and I’m an avid fan of “the league of gentlemen”.

Soc Med 4 Biz Innit

I recently chaired the Social Media for Business conference, aka Soc Med 4 Biz if you want to get down with the kids. As well as chairing I joined in with the live tweeting (#sm4bconf) and captured the tweets and presentations in Storify; I donned my “googles” and spent the day fully immersed in social media. The conference was well received by the audience of wide-eyed (rabbit in the headlights) construction industry professionals, all wondering what this soc med stuff is all about and if it is of any use in business or just another bandwagon. So much so that the organisers are planning a second conference this autumn.

The aim here is for me to blog, what our American cousins call, the takeaways. What were the practical and most useful outcomes of the conference that I can just get on with. I do not profess to being a social media expert, rather an enthusiastic user, so what I spout here is simple regurgitation of things that the speakers said that made good sense to me and that I can remember.

Personality & Communication

I recently read an interesting article in the Toastmasters Magazine on the Power of Introverts by Susan Cain. The article prompted me to share some of my own thoughts on personality theory and communication. These ideas informed my research into The Psychology of Collaboration, carried out on behalf of Herman Miller, which I hope to be published soon. Hopefully you will find my review useful in you day-to-day lives and at work.

 

Eysenck's super-trait personality model

So what is personality? Well“Persona” is Latin for "mask", so it suggests personality is the mask we present to the world. But interestingly there does not appear to be any agreed definition of personality amongst psychologists. My own mash-up of definitions is: “Personality is an individual’s unique set of traits and consistent pattern of thinking and behaviour that persists over time and across situations”. Personality is stable but not absolutely fixed. It is a proclivity for certain traits (or characteristics) that in turn affect our behaviour.

 

My Path to Workplace Consulting

Workplace Consulting is a relatively new and specialist profession. Based on the description provided by the Workplace Consulting Organisation (WCO), it appears to be:

“using a range of techniques, including engagement with the business and end user, to gather data that will determine an organisation’s requirements for their current or future working environments”.

There is no formal training in Workplace Consulting, no Masters courses nor accreditation. Even determining the basic criteria for who qualifies to call themselves a Workplace Consultant proved difficult for the Workplace Consulting Organisation, see their website for more details. I am therefore fascinated by how people came to work in Workplace Consulting. I know fellow consultants who have entered the profession via architecture, design, HR, FM and IT. Below is the story of my journey into the Wonderful World of Workplace Consulting.

 

An Afternoon in the Pub

Some of you are aware by now that I have become a bit of a fan of an Afternoon in the Pub(AitP). According to the website:

"an Afternoon in the Pub was conceived as a ‘business social’ event to bring together local businesses to chat and have a drink in an informal, friendly setting with no rules … it is most certainly NOT a business meeting, nor is it a networking group. It’s a place where you can feel relaxed in the company of like-minded local businesspeople in an informal environment with no pressures at all. You won’t see a name badge or hear an ‘elevator pitch’, nor will anyone thrust their business card into your face for no apparent reason whatsoever."

Thanks to Si, Matt, Tom and Chrissie for coming up with a simple but great idea. I have become so much a fan of AitP that I have offered to help organise their first Berkhamsted event. So what drew me to AitP?

Afternooners meeting on a sunny afternoon in the pub.