Sunday, 17 January 2010

Pecha Kucha or the 20x20 presentation technique

Pecha Kucha or how to get your point across in less than seven minutes?

Do you want your audience to be hooked from the off? Then this is a presentation technique to explore

Pecha Kucha (pronounced peh-cha ku-cha) is a presentation technique especially for those that love PowerPoint, and this method ensures it is fun, fast and interesting. The approach limits the presentation to 20 slides and 20 seconds per slide – a maximum of 6 minutes 20 seconds. A unique structure for a presentation. Challenging for any event where one person is facilitating the whole event – but great for conferences and multiple speaker events.

Why Pecha Kucha?

At a time when every person in the world can use PowerPoint – badly, and we are increasingly exposed to more and more presentations it is time to look at what we inflict on other people.

Pecha Kucha is a brilliantly simple technique to ensue that a presentation is not word bound. Is not boring and irrelevant (well it helps) and is focused on the key issues the presenter wants and needs to communicate to their audience.

The concept of Pecha Kucha was originally developed for the world of “creatives” in architecture as a way of encouraging individuals to share their creativity and maintain the passion by all parties, without boring people to death!

In the context of these events the format works well, but the format has a wonderful role in the training and development of presentations skills of business and school based presentations.

Pecha Kucha Nights

What is a Pecha Kucha Night?

Pecha Kucha Nights were originally devised by Astrid Klein and Mark Dytham (Klein Dytham architecture), was conceived in 2003 as a place for young designers to meet, network, and show their work in public. But as we all know, give a microphone and stage to a designer (especially an architect) and you’ll be trapped for hours. The key to an effective Pecha Kucha Night is its patented system for avoiding this fate. Each presenter is allowed 20 images, each shown for 20 seconds each – giving 6 minutes 40 seconds of fame before the next presenter is up. This keeps presentations concise, the interest level up, and gives more people the chance to show.

Pecha Kucha (which is Japanese for the sound of conversation or chatter) has tapped into a demand for a forum in which creative work can be easily and informally shown, without having to rent a gallery or chat up a magazine editor. This is a demand that seems to be global – as Pecha Kucha Night, without any pushing, has spread virally to over 100 cities across the world.

If you are interested in starting a Pecha Kucha Night in your city, please contact : pechakucha@klein-dytham.com
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Application
While originally developed for open style events the approach is valid for all forms of presentations, training, business pitches and staff communications.

This approach does require considerable discipline and some practise (yes a good presentation does need a run through or two first!) it is a freeing and powerful approach to presentations in a multimedia age. It encourages presenters to break out of the PowerPoint template.

I am not convinced that you could or should run any full event or meeting using this strategy – it is a powerful approach for introductions or for summarising events and workshops.

Practical applications of Pecha Kucha?
If nothing else, the basic aproach of Pecha Kucha is good training and good practice for anyone involved in delivering to others.

Everyone should try Pecha Kucha at some time or another; it’s a great exercise for getting your story down even if you do not use the method exactly for your live talk in your work.

Unless attending a Pecha Kucha Night it does not matter whether or not you can implement the Pecha Kucha “20×20 6:40″ method exactly in your own organization, but the spirit behind it and the concept of “restrictions as liberators” can be applied to most any presentation situation.

Using this approach makes going into detail difficult. The key is to have a good discussion after a Pecha Kucha type of presentation and then it may work well in every situation

I can see trainees or students give this kind of presentation about their assignments or work followed by discussion and questioning and probing by tutors, facilitators and the class.

This approach would be more challenging for a student and a better indication of their knowledge and skills than a traditional 30-40 minute presentations

See an example:

Rules of Pecha Kucha – 20×20 6:40

Here is the simple yet powerful framework to deliver your own Pecha Kucha format presentation:

Use powerpoint to build 20 slides
Set the timing on each slide to 20 seconds
Use only simple words or a picture on each slide
Use the slides as a storyboard
Practice.. practice.. practice

The last slide is also only up for 20 seconds – when there are no more pictures – stop talking!
Then is the time for questions.

In this format it is easy to have four presentations per hour – 6:40 for the delivery and 8:20 for questions.

This is a great way of introducing a longer session or to summarise learning or material covered

Other formats

There are other formats of ‘quick’ presentations including:

Lightning Talk – less structured approach usually without slides and of a variable length (1-10 mins)

Ignite an almost identical format but created later by another media… http://rapidbi.com/management/pecha-kucha-or-the-20×20-presentation-technique/
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© RapidBI.com This article has been written by Mike Morrison or one of the RapidBI team. We welcome your comments. If you wish to use any text you are free to do so, however please credit us and link to our site.
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Saturday, 16 January 2010

Amazon Kindle, trainers and a Virtual Library

Amazon Kindle, trainers and a virtual library

Technology is changing all the time, but one thing that has moved (historically) least is display technology. The launch of “virtual paper” (e-Ink) displays is one of the ‘newer’ technologies, and being in a household that devours books I thought it was time to explore these, both for business and pleasure use.

What is the technology?

Virtual paper or e-Ink displays are very different from conventional LCD or the new oLED displays. there is no light emitted – it uses the ambient light reflected much like paper in a conventional book, so if you want to read these things in the dark you will need a torch!

Having looked at what was available I went for the Kindle 2. This product seems better supported than many of the competitors, we also went for the Kindle-2 rather than the DX as its size is more “travel friendly” and can be used wireless in the UK and Europe (unlike previous models).

The Kindle is easy to set up and download new content for, although at present there is not much in the way of business books available. You can order content easily on the Kindle website, or from the Kindle device itself. It has its own 3G mobile connection which allows you to browse the amazon store for free. It also has access to wikipedia (free in the UK & US). In the US you can also access almost the whole of the net! I hope this facility is added to the UK, even if we had to pay a small subscription.

The Kindle device is dispatched to a registered user, and only that user can re-assign the product and downloads to another Amazon user – this is the start of a neat security feature.

Books and…?

The Kindle will also store PDF and MP3 files, which can be emailed to the device from any registered email account – or directly via a USB cable.

The neat thing is as well as reading your books, this device can be used to read research PDFs you have stored, background reading, or indeed any PDF based document. Ok so its not in colour – but it is perfectly serviceable – and easier to read than many other portable devices (laptops, net-books, smart phones, iPhone etc).

Reading on the move

Maybe not for your novel, but if you want to catch-up on the latest report, reading on a train is one thing – but while driving? The Kindle has the great ability to read to you through headphones (text to speech) - so yes you can ‘read’ while driving. Ok not the best sound in the world, but functional.

Working on the move

As well as reading you can annotate pages or comments, which can be downloaded later as a text file. Now while the keyboard is not the best on the market, this added little feature will make it a boon for students revising, or for professionals reviewing material on the go.

Battery life on the Kindle

Because of the display technology you only use power when changing pages, this means a typical charge will last a week!

One potential problem with the Kindle – Security…

One of the features of the Kindle ebook reader is that it has access to your Amazon account for downloads. In the first week of use while browsing for titles I accidentally clicked on the product and it installed it and charged me – no warning or “are you sure” – in fact it was too easy. This was such an easy mistake I actually did it twice! Added to the fact that there is no password on the device if someone stile your device, they could have a spending spree, and provided they did not connect the device again would be there permanently! The great this is that Amazon via the Kindle service quickly refunded the costs and removed the files.

If you are unlucky enough to lose your kindle, because Amazon have a record of your purchases, if you buy a replacement you can download your products again for free!

Uses of a Kindle

As well as reading publications, it is easy to download PDF documents for catching up on research or other reports you have to read. How long will it be before journals start providing PDF versions that you can download at any time. With the search facility it will be easy to find that article just when you want it. And whats more with a storage capacity of 1500 books that is a lot of potential magazines to carry round with you!

This can lead to us having our own virtual library, with us at any time. This got me thinking about the future of books and reading…

The virtual library of the future

The new future of books and libraries is about to change beyond all recognition. With changes to lifestyle, technology and expectations, will the local authority municipal library survive?

With the advent and growth of digital book readers the landscape is changing, and will publishers beat the music industry at their own game?

What am I talking about?

With an increasing connected society, what if the book publishing world beat amazon and Google and put all content on line. Not for free but in a giant library where we paid a small fee to borrow the book for a week (say 50p or 50cents). With Kindle style digital rights management after a week either the product was deleted, renewed or purchased.

This would make any book accessible, and generate revenue.

The libraries could then operate a service where people could borrow a reader with the content they wanted if they did not have their own device

This approach will be good for the publishers, enabling a try before you buy, reduce physical printing costs, and generate a new market of print on demand local high street providers for people that wanted a hard copy of publications they had purchased.

Summary

A Kindle is a great little product, not the cheapest of its kind on the market, but easy to use, great to read from and increasingly flexible. I can see this technology really taking off, and if we can have a dual screen net-book with conventional screen and liquid paper screens we will start to have a great portable device…. but wait it is here The enTourage eDGe The next 2-3 years are going to be interesting for the whole of the publishing and tech market – the question is what format and provider will lead… where is Apple in this?

If you love reading, but weren’t sure if technology would replace the printed word – then be prepared to be surprised!

Now will the publishers of the books I have allow me through proof of ownership to provide me with a digital copy – even if for an admin… http://rapidbi.com/management/amazon-kindle-trainers-and/
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Amazon Kindle, trainers and a Virtual Library

Amazon Kindle, trainers and a virtual library

What is the technology?

The Kindle device is dispatched to a registered user, and only that user can re-assign the product and downloads to another Amazon user – this is the start of a neat security feature.

Books and…?

The Kindle will also store PDF and MP3 files, which can be emailed to the device from any registered email account – or directly via a USB cable.

Reading on the move

Working on the move

Battery life on the Kindle

Because of the display technology you only use power when changing pages, this means a typical charge will last a week!

One potential problem with the Kindle – Security…

If you are unlucky enough to lose your kindle, because Amazon have a record of your purchases, if you buy a replacement you can download your products again for free!

Uses of a Kindle

This can lead to us having our own virtual library, with us at any time. This got me thinking about the future of books and reading…

The virtual library of the future

The new future of books and libraries is about to change beyond all recognition. With changes to lifestyle, technology and expectations, will the local authority municipal library survive?

With the advent and growth of digital book readers the landscape is changing, and will publishers beat the music industry at their own game?

What am I talking about?

This would make any book accessible, and generate revenue.

The libraries could then operate a service where people could borrow a reader with the content they wanted if they did not have their own device

Summary

If you love reading, but weren’t sure if technology would replace the printed word – then be prepared to be surprised!

Amazon Kindle, trainers and a Virtual Library

Amazon Kindle, trainers and a virtual library

What is the technology?

The Kindle device is dispatched to a registered user, and only that user can re-assign the product and downloads to another Amazon user – this is the start of a neat security feature.

Books and…?

The Kindle will also store PDF and MP3 files, which can be emailed to the device from any registered email account – or directly via a USB cable.

Reading on the move

Working on the move

Battery life on the Kindle

Because of the display technology you only use power when changing pages, this means a typical charge will last a week!

One potential problem with the Kindle – Security…

If you are unlucky enough to lose your kindle, because Amazon have a record of your purchases, if you buy a replacement you can download your products again for free!

Uses of a Kindle

This can lead to us having our own virtual library, with us at any time. This got me thinking about the future of books and reading…

The virtual library of the future

The new future of books and libraries is about to change beyond all recognition. With changes to lifestyle, technology and expectations, will the local authority municipal library survive?

With the advent and growth of digital book readers the landscape is changing, and will publishers beat the music industry at their own game?

What am I talking about?

This would make any book accessible, and generate revenue.

The libraries could then operate a service where people could borrow a reader with the content they wanted if they did not have their own device

Summary

If you love reading, but weren’t sure if technology would replace the printed word – then be prepared to be surprised!

Monday, 11 January 2010

PRIMO-F model for business development

PRIMO-F the Business Growth Model

PRIMO-F business growth model
Often in organizations we use a SWOT analysis as a way of identifying priorities and areas for improvement. While the SWOT is a wonderfully flexible tool, it is too easy to miss out key elements. We tend to use a SWOT based on our experiences, rather than the actual situational needs.

As SWOT analysis is made up of two internal elements (SW) and two external elements (OT) it is helpful to use a structure to give us a guide for what should be included.

PRIMO-F model provides the structure for SWot
PESTLE analysis model provides the structure for swOT

The PRIMO-F model was developed by the RapidBI team as part of a SWOT analysis of an organization. It helps to provide a consistent framework for comparison and benchmarking either from within the organization or to benchmark against a previous analysis or benchmark against other organizations.

The PRIMO-F model was derived out of some work from Durham University Business School (DUBS), and research into what makes an organization and its management effective. This research demonstrated that an effective organization needed to fulfil the following equation:

Organizational Growth Effectiveness = Performance to date * Potential for the future.

Where Performance to date (FiMO) included:

Finance
Marketing
Operations

and Potential for the future (RECoIL) included:

Resources,
Controls and Systems
Innovation and
Leadership

This was sometimes called FiMO/ RECoIL.

One of the problems with this method was the lack of consistent application, as a tool or framework it is fine, however many managers, consultants and business advisor’s have their own priorities. For example a person who has a financial background will major on finance, a person with marketing will focus on marketing etc. After all we are all human. One of the problems with the model in the ‘field’ is that often key issues were missed. The BIR was developed to take these factors and review them consistently.

In many situations it is difficult for managers to differentiate between performance to date and potential for the future, as several areas overlapped, for example resources, operational leadership and management. In addition FiMO RECoIL was seen as too complex for many managers to use on a day to day basis. To solve this problem we developed the PRIMO-F. A simplified way of showing strengths and weaknesses in the relevant areas.

The PRIMO-F Model:

PRIMO-F

People
Resources
Innovation & Ideas
Marketing
Operations
Finance

Mapping PRIMO-F to FiMO RECoIL

Performance of the business:

How good is it in terms of its Finance, Marketing & its Operations?

Potential for Growth

People in terms of their experience, their leadership and the controls in place in the organization.

Experience: Age of the business, Management experience of:

borrowing
product development
different types of market
use of external agents
moving sites
managing growth

Leadership:

Involving a senior management
age of owner manager
occupational base of owner manager
personal objectives and ambition in line vision of the future
education and training

Operations – Control: Adequacy of information and control systems

Ability to use information
Degree of professionalism and Responsibilities of management
Adequacy of planning and monitoring
Level of delegation
How performance is assessed

Resources: Availability, utilization and appropriateness (fit for purpose)

Liquidity and availability of finance
Technology level and capability
Physical assets: age and state
Product range and life
Use of and access to appropriate external agents

Innovation & Ideas:

Number and source of ideas innovation is being considered
How they are assessed
Level of development or market testing of these ideas
Level of market planning of these ideas
How creative they are.

The PRIMO-F model is not in itself a solution – but a tool to enable that powerful too the SWOT to work more effectively.

PRIMO-F is © Mike Morrison & RapidBI 1998 - you may quote the model - but please include a link back to this... http://rapidbi.com/management/primo-f-business-development-model/
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© RapidBI.com This article has been written by Mike Morrison or one of the RapidBI team. We welcome your comments. If you wish to use any text you are free to do so, however please credit us and link to our site.
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Saturday, 9 January 2010

Twitter as a marketing tool for training courses & events

Using Twitter to market your training event

As the training market changes, increasingly more and more trainers are looking to promote their on-line and open courses events, But how do you get people to attend and how do you keep costs down?

If you are a member of TrainerBase or Training journal (TJonline), both have the ability to promote your events, however it is doubtful if either can fill a course. Some use paid for services, where a high percentage of the revenue goes to attracting participants. But how can you do this and retain the majority of the income for little cost? The real power to fill a course has traditionally been the email list – be that list self developed or a purchased list from many of the (reputable) list providers. But now times have changed. Twitter is the new key channel.

Twitter is a great way of engaging referrals from people you do not know – and we all know the power of referrals.

So "How, exactly, can I use Twitter to promote my event?"

Some approaches to twitter just will not be appropriate for all events, you approach will also vary depending on the twitter following you have currently.

One approach that is successful for many does not require you to have an established following. That is to create a twitter account specifically for an event or course for example:

@assertivnessinlondon

@salesingrantham

@leadershipinhealthcare

@publicsectorchangemanagement

This can act to attract people to the event based on specific needs. This then enables the course to have its own life and journey.

The more specific the name and the event the more success you are likely to get. Having a name like @leadershipworkshop means very little to people.

When you set your twitter account up – remember the bio and link to your dedicated event page. Also create a background for your twitter home page which provides additional information.

What to tweet? – or gain the attention of your intended audience

Well if your name is @salesingrantham not every message you send needs to say "Attend [xxxx course] in London" as what you are is in your name so you can start to be a little more creative. On twitter people appreciate value. Give value and they will follow you and re-tweet you, then if they do not attend the programme that are at least part of your marketing ‘team’!

For example a plan of you tweets could be:

First write a list of 4 key words that people would search for if looking for the event
Write a series of top 20 tips relevant to the topic
Find 10 quotes relevant to the course content
Have a page on a website which clearly says what the course is, who for, where, when and how much – AND a way of booking

Then run all of these as tweets, using the keywords as # (hash) tags – different tags on different posts.

Give information, useful stuff, if all you do is say "come sign-up to my event" you will disengage more people than you engage. Sure you can announce the event, IF you are going to do that, have one promotion every 15-20 posts or so – content first! Otherwise people will treat it as spam and not read what you have to say.

Next build your twitter following

Start sending the messages developed above – and retweet using your own account – remember to add the "please RT" at the end to encourage people to send your message to their followers.

As your name is the event name, each time you follow people, that name alone is a promotion of the event – if they are interested they will look you up. Its like sending each person a targeted email!

Next using the twitter search facility http://search.twitter.com find others that are interested in your keywords – follow them. Engage with people that have similar interests – talk is good. DON'T DIRECTLY PROMOTE YOUR EVENT TO THEM – let you name do that for you.

For example, if your event is about gaining sales, you could find other people who are Twittering on the subject of sales, gain their attention, and by engaging with them via direct responses and getting them to follow you, you also gain the attention of all the people following them. It works.

If you subscribe to tools like hootsuit, tweetspinner or socialoomph, you can use there follower building tools too, again use your keywords.

You need to gain momentum, so make sure that this twitter account is linked to your LinkedIn profile – so that others in your network see. If you can encourage people to tweet about that fact that they are attending (or in the case of on-line events participating) this also build momentum

Twitter is a great way to aggregate the attention of like-minded individuals. This lends itself well to cultivating an audience towards which you can promote your events over time.

Twitter and other 'update' or micro-blogging services is more effective than e-mail, timely Twittering can keep your audience connected to your messages. In the persona of your next event, post links, share resources and call attention to any of the ideas you consider important. Then, when you're ready to promote your next event, you'll have a ready audience of potential attendees right at your fingertips.

TOP TIP – offer people that retweet you a discount to attend the event! say 5% for one RT, 10% for 10 RTs….

TOP TIP – keep the account live after the first event – use the momentum to deliver maore particimants to future events

For more information on using Twitter see our other Twitter marketing… http://rapidbi.com/management/2010/01/twitter-marketing-tool-training-courses-events/
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Thursday, 7 January 2010

Transactional Analysis (TA) - is it relevant to todays world

Is Transactional Analysis (TA) relevant?

ERIC-BERNE-TA-transactional-analysis In the first of a multi part series written by RapidBI team associate Vince Whittle, we look at Transactional Analysis and its application in management and people development.

Introduction to TA

Many people have heard of Transactional Analysis (TA) and it was popular a number of years ago in management development programmes but how relevant is a psychoanalytic tool developed in the '50s to today's managers and consultants in industry and commerce?

There is scepticism about the role of a host of 'psychological' interventions and tools and the legitimacy of their use in the work place or of the consultant peddling their “snake oil” as a cure all for organisation problems – and rightly so. But what of a straight forward model for understanding the behaviour of our self and others that can give a rich insight into the complexities of human relations?

I would argue that knowledge and experience of Transactional Analysis as part of personal development provides a very useful understanding of individuals, relationships and communication which is at the heart of management and organisational effectiveness.

History of Transactional Analysis (TA)

TA has its roots firmly in the therapeutic arena. It was developed as an approach to psychotherapy by Dr Eric Berne, a Canadian Psychiatrist who had become increasingly frustrated with approaches to psychotherapy in the late 1950s. His revolutionary approach led to an effective theory of personality and systematic psychotherapy with a wide range of applications from clinical approaches to psychopathology, child development, communication and therapy for individuals, couples, groups and families. However the great legacy is its application outside the therapeutic field in education, social work, management and organisations.

The models that Dr Berne developed are readily accessible and provide insight into the dynamics of human relationships. He published Games People Play in 1964 which became a best seller. According to Dr. Berne:

“… games are ritualistic transactions or behaviour patterns between individuals that can indicate hidden feelings or emotions – you can think of a game as a series of interactions (words, body language, facial expressions, etc.) between two or more people that follow a predictable pattern. The interactions ultimately progress to an outcome in which one individual obtains a “payoff” or “goal.” In most cases, the participants of the games are unaware that they are “playing.”"

All models are based on some key assumptions and in the case of TA the philosophical assumptions are that:

People are OK – Both you and I have worth, value and dignity which is unconditional
We all have the capacity to think – and be responsible to decide what we want and face up to the consequences
We decide our destiny – strategies and 'games' we play even if decided on as children are our decisions and these decision can be changed

So how can some of the TA concepts help?

In TA, ego states are sets of related behaviours, thoughts and feelings. Individuals have a limited repertoire of these that can manifest themselves at different times. The repertoire can be can be sorted into three categories, ego states that resemble those of parental figures (referred to as Parent), those that are directed towards an objective appraisal of reality (referred to as Adult) and those which represent relics but which are still active and where fixated in early childhood. Movement between these states can explain some of the shifts in behaviour we observe in others and are all components of a person's personality. It is important to remember that each of these states is quite distinct and that movement between them can be rapid. When two or more people interact we have what is called a "transaction" and that is when this understanding of structure becomes interesting,

Complimentary transactions are the basis of appropriate interchanges for example in Adult to Adult exchanges where there is some stimulus which is correctly interpreted and a complementary response is given. These complementary transactions lead to smooth communication, however when the transactions are crossed then communication breaks down. A classic example of this is where there is a stimulus that produces an inappropriate response, if the Adult to Adult stimulus was a question such as "Maybe we need to find out why you've been putting on weight recently?" the appropriate Adult to Adult response would be "Maybe we should I would really like to know" However if the person retorts angrily " You are always criticising me just like my Dad, I hate you" you are getting a Child to Parent response and the Adult concerns about weight will be suspended until the transactions can be realigned.

The workplace has many such examples of "crossed wires".

When people transact they acknowledge each other by an act of recognition – these are called strokes and are necessary for people to maintain both their physical and psychological wellbeing. Different strokes for different folks, is very true as many a naughty child will play up just to get the attention – even if it hurts! I bet you already recognise this in a number of your colleagues or clients! But understanding and recognising the need for strokes is fundamental in developing positive working relationships.

As children we write for ourselves a life script, it's a story of our life with beginning, middle and end. The basic plot is formed in infancy and most of the rest is completed by age seven. Whilst most of us will not consciously remember what we determined for ourselves we are likely to live it out without being aware of it tending to set up our lives to move towards the final scene we decided upon when very small. Becoming aware of your own life script can help people understand how they may, unconsciously, set up problems for themselves – and how they may resolve them. Jerry B Harvey recognised this in his brilliantly titled book "How come every time I get stabbed in the back my fingerprints are on the knife?"

Games are ongoing series of complementary ulterior transactions which progress to well-defined and predictable outcomes. Dr Berne details thirty-five games in his book each of which results in a "payoff" for at least one of the players. Recognising what is happening in social interactions is sometimes difficult which is why TA therapists undergo extensive training. However having a knowledge and understanding of the nature of games gives managers and consultants some choices about how they approach engaging with others which can realise benefits for both.

TA – a summary

In summary the models developed by Eric Berne are readily accessible and straightforward, he uses simple language to describe some of the complexities of personality and social interaction and on the whole it is a very "user friendly" approach which clearly explains many of the truths we experience in our personal and work lives. That understanding gives choices in the way we manage our own communication and interaction helping us be more authentic and effective.

More to follow in coming pieces – how to use these concepts in practice

VJ Whittle… http://rapidbi.com/management/2010/01/transactional-analysis-ta/
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Saturday, 2 January 2010

Tuesday, 29 December 2009

Twitter as a marketing & CRM tool

Twitter: your CRM & marketing channel

Its about more than just followers…

Over the past 12 months in my twitter contributions I have often included tips to help those involved in using twitter for their business (marketing). I often get requests to publish a full set – so here is a list of my current thinking about using twitter as a tool for building relationships for future business. In no particular order (other than alphabetical)…

Add value – share interesting or useful info, blogs etc
Add good description & link for something that would be too short in a post
ALWAYS keep it clean & professional
ALWAYS professional NEVER personal unless it is praise or thanks
As far as getting followers goes; I find just being friendly and helpful does wonders. And of course shared interests help to.
Be honest. Have fun. Don't try to sell anything.
Big followers – does not mean many listeners – the RTs tell that story
Change your BIO regularly
Change your twitter habits – make sure you don’t include links in most of your tweets, some tools treat this as spam & unfollow
contribute positively to conversations going on inside twitter
Don't follow more people than you can handle. If you've got too much going on, you miss a lot of the good stuff.
Don’t expect Twitter to deliver revenue alone, it is only ONE element of the strategy
Efficient is the key to Twitter. short & sweet. Basically, get right to the point.
Even an attentive follower won’t read all your messages
Follow people who are in your field or area of interest
Follow the advice of people that have demonstrated competence – not think they know how to…
Frequent Twitter updates demand desktop or server side clients
funny, informative and catchy: choose two.
Getting followers is not a right its a privilege
Give – don’t take
Have an avatar (picture) of your face or company logo
Help promote the dreams of other people, and they may return the favour
If someone RT re-Tweets a message – send them a thank you
If you are going to auto DM only send a welcome message
If you post info of any kind, leave plenty of room for retweeting
In marketing messages use appropriate keywords
Interact and communicate with others, it's a social media tool, so be social
Its not the number of followers but the number of Re-Tweets you get
Join the conversation, there are too many blog promoters on twitter who just broadcast. Learn @ and start networking
Keep it short
Keep your Twitter updated and the followers will come. Stay up-to-date and you will reap the benefits.
Learn what people care about
Limit what you automate
Look beyond the obvious (traffic, sales etc.) Add value. Build relationships. Think LONG term.
Make sure your BIO is up to date and human
Make use of other Twitter tools to make the most of Twitter (and so it doesn't suck up all your time)
NEVER DM a request to follow you on another social networking site ie FaceBook
NEVER DM or tweet a MLM program
NEVER DM or tweet a traffic follower program
NEVER sign up to any of the Twitter ad services-it undermines your position
NEVER tweet when drunk, angry or think you have just won the lottery!
NEVER tweet cat or baby anecdotes!
Occasionally ask people to RT a post, if you ask every time they wont
Only @ people you know – & only with a link if invited, otherwise its SPAM!
Only promote your services less than once every 10-20 tweets
ONLY use a DM for personal messages or if you must to welcome a follower
Open up a bit.ly account for short URLs
Please report (@spam) unfollow & Block Twitter Spammers
Remember what you tweet is around for ever!
Rerunning tweets occasionally is a good idea
Respect the people you follow. Be interesting. Listen first, tweet second. Never waste words
Set your wallpaper to promote your message
Share interesting resources, not just what you ate for lunch. Twitter often, and use it to test potential blog topics.
Share links, share ideas, ask questions, answer questions anything but what are you doing? unless it's really interesting
Share links. share insights and trends, things that are new or timely/current. Be personal. Don't link only to yourself
Share thoughts and links from others (RT)
Share thoughts more than actions: Identi.ca will kill Twitter vs. I'm going to the toilet
Stop thinking that twitter is pointless and just try it. It's all about community reach out and be a part of it
Thank people who re-tweet you. Either DM, @ reply, or re-tweet something of theirs
Think before you hit send. 140 characters have the power to help, heal or be miss-understood
This often goes unsaid, but I would suggest not having twitter open while writing. It can become very distracting
This was my problem at first, I just lurked. Get active and follow others. Great tool for tossing around ideas.
Treat followers with respect & courtesy & every now & then thank them
Tweet real stuff – highs and lows
Tweet regularly – at least 4 times a day
Tweet to show you are human
Tweet to show you are more than a marketing machine
Tweet what you read on others blogs
Twitter about stuff that has to do with your blog, but also Twitter stuff that has nothing to do with your blog
Twitter is not an IM service-keep private discussions short
Use a # in front of #keywords
Use an username as short as possible so you can twit more
Use favourites to save and show brand/product testimonials
Use travel time to tweet & read tweets on smartphones
Use twitpic or other photo services occasionally
Use Twitter to meet up with your new contacts
Use twitterfeed. Instant feedback from readers is the best part of Twitter. Listen to others; engage them; have a conversation
Want more followers? Re-tweet the good stuff you find
When you have over 100 friends use tweetdeck or Seesmic to help you to manage
Work on building a relationship-not pushing message to people
Write each word like it matters, because it does
You don’t have to follow everyone, only those of interest

Remember Twitter is not a silver bullet – or the universal hammer, it is but one tool in our communication toolbox. Done well and Twitter can be a key part of your communication strategy – do it wrong and it can undermine all of your marketing and brand development activity.

Twitter is not just for marketing – it is for learning, so make sure that you learn from others and they can learn from you. For twitter to work as a training, learning or CRM tool, people need to trust you and what you put out. As a big brand it can me all about me-me-me, however as a small business, we must be part of a community, we must respect others share the ideas of others and re-tweet their messages and blogs. Its about collaboration and win/ win. Those that only tweet their own messages will soon lose readership.

Readership is not just about followers – its the people that read and act on your messages.

From my experience I have people I am not connected to RT my messages and blog entries, so they must read the streams or use the search rather than just follow. Indeed once someone has over 200 followers, especially if they are active contributers to the twitter stream, it will be impossible to look at what they put out – so we must make it interesting and engaging that they keep looking at our material.

What are you favourite tips – share them… http://rapidbi.com/management/2009/12/twitter-as-a-marketing-crm-tool/
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Tuesday, 22 December 2009

You reap WHAT you sow - what does this mean in marketing?

Social media marketing – tips for success in 2010

Read my 9 top tips for social media marketing below.

As entrepreneurs and smaller businesses marketing is a vital yet difficult concept for many of us. Many of us hate it and want to find the “quick fix”.

What prompted me to write this article was receipt this morning of a ‘newsletter’ I get that goes straight to my junk mail. It is from Kenneth Yu ”the Puppet Master” (take care with his sites as they take a lot of processing power and clever pop ups). To be honest I liked the hype he created but his newsletter are for me are too frequent and contain little of depth or value. Is he a one trick pony? His latest however caught my eye. He included the message:

"You reap what you sow…"

In other words, the more time, resources and energy you put into something, the bigger the harvest you'll reap — be it financially, relationally or spiritually. So if you put in your elbow grease and late nights, you're guaranteed success right? WRONG!

Or more rather, the Sowing and Reaping analogy is only a half truth.

You see, we followed this principle to the tee… We "slaved like dogs", yet we were "rewarded" with disappointment, stress and relationship strain.

Have you ever wondered why sometimes you work so hard, and yet don't seem to reap the bountiful harvest you deserve?

Here's something that may come as surprise for you…

There's a missing dimension to the concept of sowing and reaping. If you miss this, you're potentially setting yourself back months, even years from where you're supposed to be.

In one of the Biblical parables, Jesus talked about the parable of the sower.

The gist of it was that the farmer was scattering seed across the land. However, he was rather indiscriminate about it and the seeds fell on stony paths, thorny soil, shallow earth and fertile ground.

The seeds that fell on the former 3 types of soil ended up with stunted growth, or worse… Not growing at all.

Here's the awesome part…

The seed that fell on fertile ground produced a magnificent harvest of tenfold, hundredfold… and even a thousand-fold!

What made the difference?

It's about WHERE the sower threw his seed.

That's right. WHERE you sow is probably more important then HOW MUCH you sow.

It's a principle we call STRATEGIC SOWING. And we believe it's the single most important trait of mega-successful entrepreneurs.

Once you master this, you'll get a return on investment that'll blow your socks off. Because every ounce of blood, sweat and tears is going to give you a windfall.

One of the biggest bittersweet lessons we learned is that Laura and I may be world-class marketers, but we're still newbies in terms of building a long-term sustainable business.

The single most vital trait that separates entrepreneurs from marketers is the ability to effectively allocate one's limited resources. Unfortunately, it's an ability that comes from hard-worn experience rather than any $997 home study course.

This was as a reflection to his own business performance over the last few months, Insightful – yes – accurate – no!

The saying “You reap what you sow” actually is a little different from the account given here.

Lets look at the phrase – what it is saying is you get back from WHAT you sow. Sure the location (WHERE) is important – but more so is the quality of the seeds you sow – sow seeds that are dead and nothing will grow no matter how much hard work you put in. What we agree on is the effort in terms of hours is not the key here.

Kenneth was right about the location – like any good marketing strategy we need to understand the environment in which we operate, the strengths and weaknesses of our service and marketing messages, we also need to look at the detail and quality of what we are sowing.

In social media marketing it is common for volume to rule the day (HOW we sow), but it is the content (WHAT) and location (WHERE which site/ social media vehicle) we put our messages that count.

The social media “marketing gurus”

Without exception all of these ‘marketing gurus’ talk glibly about keywords and other technical terms, yet all fail to inform the reader of HOW to go about identifying these things. Keywords and search engine optimisation is not that difficult, however what is more difficult it really identifying your niche. Many of the web based marketing sites talk about finding your niche – what they fail to tell you is YOU & I are their niche! – people trying to sell or promote their business on the internet. They have their niche – and on the web it is one of the easiest groups to find! We all want quick fix solutions.

So the next time you work extra long hours, look at WHAT you are doing and WHERE you are doing it. If you are a regular contributer on more than 3-5 forums or communities – then it suggests that you are spreading yourself too thinly – over the holiday period cut some out…

9 Top tips to focus your social media marketing strategy:

Identify 5 keywords which your customers will use to find you
Identify 1 site where your peers are (for CPD & networking) – stay with them for up to 12 months & evaluate
Identify 2 (max) physical networking groups and get active – remember networking is about relationships NOT sales – stay with them for up to 12 months & evaluate
Identify 3 sites where your customers are (for sales) – stay with them for up to 12 months & evaluate
Using your 5 key words only contribute to those that use and focus on the keywords
On twitter identify 5 search keywords and set your twitter app to look at those – ignore your time line
Find up to 10 blogs that add value to you and add them to your outlook/ RSS feed reader
Turn Google off being your home page
Print a sheet of paper listing this information, put a heading on it: If I’m doing anything other than these STOP NOW and put it up in a place you can read it while working

Do we reap what we sow? – well only if we are careful with what, where and how we sow

Wishing all my readers a wonderful and successful 2010 and… http://rapidbi.com/management/2009/12/you-reap-what-you-sow-what-does-this-mean-in-marketing/
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Wednesday, 16 December 2009

6 ways for social media (twitter) to work for marketing

What makes a successful social media marketing strategy?

As more and more people go freelance, marketing is increasingly important. Yet at a time when there are more freelance trainer, consultants & advisers, only a few seem to get the importance of having a serious approach to marketing.

Often I get questions in email and phone calls from people about why some people get success and some don't get success from social media and twitter as marketing tools.

Where social marketing includes: forums, blogs, wikis, microblogs, online networks etc.

So, why do 95% of people either not see the point or fail? Similarly, what's the secret to success for the other 5% that make a success of it?

There are lots of answers to these questions, but here are 6 of the most common.

Success & Reward: We never really get after it. To be honest, I think this is one of the biggest reasons for failure. Some of us again say that we "want" success, that we "want" freedom, but rolling up our sleeves and getting after it is another story. If being successful was easy, we would see a lot more people driving prestige cars.
Belief: We don't believe in what we are doing. All too often we get into this game "wanting" to be successful, yet we don't fully believe in what we do. Doubting the approach we have undertaken is a guaranteed route to failure.
Hobbies: We treat marketing like a part-time hobby. Marketing activity is a key business activity and must be treated as such. Just like becoming a consultant requires education and experience, so does learning to become a skilled marketer.
Lies: We lie to ourselves and those around us. We often kid ourselves into believing we are actually doing income generating activities, yet the reality is that many of us are simply being busy. If we aren't actively prospecting & exposing, we really are not doing marketing….
Fickle: We hop from technique to technique. The grass often seems greener on the other side. It rarely is. The solution to this is not in another approach. The solution includes application of effort, working on you, your skills, and your work ethic. Stick with one approach and really work it, have evaluation measures. If the measure are not being hit (after a reasonable time) consider changing the platform. The goal is to master one before moving to another (keeping the previous one going with equal effort!)
Blame: We place blame everywhere else but on ourselves. Those of us that who don't create sales quickly point the finger at the technique, the site, the tools or any other myriad of choices. Bottom line: If others are making money using the same techniques and we aren't, look in the mirror.

If these are the things the 95% of people do – what are the top 6 things the 5% of successful people do?

The team at RapidBI use a mix of blogs, forums and microblogging platforms (inc twitter) as an integrated part of our social media marketing strategy.

What are the secrets to success in marketing your business?

Secrets: There are no secrets to twitter or social media marketing Success at anything requires hard, consistent work that is concentrated on developing your skills & knowledge. Every day requires diligent effort that is on task and relevant to your business (note business not just the delivery part!).
Thinking patterns/ Habits: There are many "self development gurus" that say that you have to work on your thought patterns, it is said that we are who we believe ourselves to be. Our beliefs about ourselves, our company, our abilities… all affect how we interact with others and will either build our business or destroy it.
Focus: Concentrate on the business. People who change every month or quarter to a new model or strategy are kidding themselves. If this is your habit or pattern, it's likely that you need to work on yourself first.
Effort: Work harder & longer than you have before. If this business is something you really want, you'll put in the time and effort required, even when you don't feel like it.
Associate with success: It's said that you are the average of the five closest people around you. If the people closest to you have the same things as you have, you're not going anywhere! You must surround yourself with successful people. Start making friends with people who inspire you. Expand your thinking by taking in what they do. It's all about self development, so that you get a stronger belief in who you are and what you're capable of.
Leadership: This type of self development allows you to build on your leadership skills. No-one will ever consciously buy from you just because it's such a great opportunity. People, customers, want your leadership & guidance. The unique things that you bring to the relationship. They are joining you and this we must get used to.
Keep going: When the going gets tough the tough get going… never, ever, ever give up. Often it may seem easier to quit, however the most successful people in any sector know that little worthwhile comes from taking the easy route. It may be uncomfortable, even demoralising at times, but each day is a new opportunity to improve on the day before. A missed sale/ opportunity is a missed sale. It happens. There will be more opportunities.

Obviously there are more details related to guaranteeing your success in marketing your business. But this is how I see the start. Having an understanding of SEO (search engine optimisation) is also important. Its all very well doing all of the above if the content does not work!

I urge you to learn more about yourself, your sector and how you can achieve marketing success. Find people who's writing inspires you, network and attend workshops and seminars. On twitter follow people like @garygorman &

Tuesday, 15 December 2009

Free calender from the CIPD 2010

A free calender for 2010?

It’s not often that something for free has intrinsic value, however here is an offer with a difference.

The CIPD contribute every year to a calender which provides a range of multi-faith days, holidays and festivals. This calender is being made available on their site for all – members and non-members alike.

This calendar is a practical and attractive resource produced in association with Diversiton; each month includes details of all the main religious and secular dates – including bank holidays (UK).

It can help to ensure that meetings and events are not planned for dates when key sections of the workforce or customer base cannot participate.

If you are not UK based, this can help as it includes our “bank holidays” – dates traditionally when people in the UK do not work.

Please take the opportunity to read through the calendar and learn more about the important dates in 2010.

Download the CIPD Diversity Calender 2010 via this link (link goes to the CIPD site).

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Monday, 14 December 2009

New Management/ Leadership & Coaching Models

More… more… you wanted more so here they come…

Thanks to the success of our 100 management models, RapidBI is proud to announce the launch of set #2 – another 100+ management models. Again in a simple graphical form you can use in your presentations and training courses.

As 2010 is almost upon us the old set have been updated and refined. A new cleaner style has been developed by one of our designers.

The new set contains more models covering:

Management
Leadership
Training
Learning
HRM
Change management
Project management
Talent management
Brainstorming
Organizational Development

Purchasers of the current set will be sent a discount code to purchase set 2 early in 2010 – so watch this space.

Also being developed to show off these models and graphics is a new gallery – come back just before Christmas

In addition to this exciting addition to our downloadable products, RapidBI will be launching an e-book which will contain not only 50+ of our most asked for models, but guidance as to how to use the models in your practice. Watch this… http://rapidbi.com/management/2009/12/new-management-leadership-coaching-models/
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Saturday, 12 December 2009

DEEPLIST Analysis - marketing acronym

DEEPLIST analysis – an alternative to the PESTLE analysis

Is DEEPLIST better than PEST or PESTLE?

In 2000 Paul N Finlay had a book published called "Strategic management: an introduction to business and corporate strategy". In this book Finlay used the Acronym DEEPLIST as a way of prompting readers of the key areas that needed to be explored when looking at the "remote environment for the business" or the environment in which the business operates, which it cannot control or influence. Constraints if you like.

Traditionally marketing and business strategists have used PEST or PESTLE analysis.

In DEEPLIST the factors to be explored are:

Demographics
Economic
Environmental
Political
Legal
Informational
Social
Technological

Where all but Informational are directly included in PESTLE. Demographics is an important element, but can it really be separated from social? many supporters of the ‘original’ PEST say that differentiating between Legal and Political is also difficult in some situations. Having more is not always better. Knowing how to use a model, theory or tool is far more important. I suspect that if increasingly long acronyms are created this will only lead to increased confusion by students trying to understand how to apply it in the first place.

I wonder if many courses are starting to use this model as it is 'new & sexy' compared to PEST or PESTLE, or is it that people need handholding more in terms of the areas that they need to research and explore as part of the strategic planning process.

In summary:

Deeplist – Demographics:

Where people live
Who they are – Age, sex, race etc..
Social circumstances – Education, income and lifestyle

dEeplist – Economic:

The extent to which the markets in which you operate is prosperous (or not) and the competitive environment
Factors such as taxation, monetary and competition policies of your target markets.

deEplist – Environmental:

What is the perception of the environment in your sector? What are customers attitudes to environmental or green issues. What about availability of materials?

deePlist – Political

In the political landscape in which you operate (both source materials & deliver product) – what will help/ hinder operations and products

deepList – Legal

What are the limits or constraints on what you do. What may change?

deeplIst – Informational

What data do you have? As the connected world changes with ever increasing use of the internet and social media what is being said about you, your market and your competitors? It is about access a to information and what you can and cannot control.

deepliSt – Social

The needs and wants of both target markets, social attitudes to the types of products and services you offer. How your organisation is seen by the outside world

deeplisT – Technology

What is changing in the world of technology which will impact your products or services.? This will include new innovations, adaptations and adoption rates of new technologies

Personally I prefer PESTLE, we know and understand the model. Maybe we need to change PESTLE to iPESTLE (or iPEST) where I is Information.

iPESTLE or DEEPLIST can be used to best effect when the results of this analysis are used in a SWOT analysis.

Footnote

One of the reasons why DEEPLIST is becoming popular in the UK is its adoption by CIMA in its course content.

One disadvantage of DEEPLIST over PESTLE is that DEEPLIST is © Finlay and this may cause organisations that promote it difficulties in the future, this is in addition to increasing the separation of some element’s that may well create difficulties in application (Political/ Legal, Demographics/ Social… http://rapidbi.com/management/2009/12/deeplist-analysis-marketing/
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Thursday, 10 December 2009

Twitter as a marketing tool for SMEs

Low cost marketing for smaller businesses on Twitter

Budgets are tight, time is short and the emphasis for many businesses is sales, sales, sales. And this is correct – for today… but what about the sales next week, month, year?

Gaining sales from existing customers is by far the most effective cost per sale according to much of the research, however gaining access to markets is getting harder. In the UK once upon a time it was easy:

2 commercial TV stations
Few commercial radio choices
A local paper
2 local business based telephone directories
Local town centre shopping for posters
Business Link networks
Chamber of commerce

Advertising was limited in breadth, but you knew that your audience would be there…

Now however things are very different:

100’s of TV channels
Commercial radio stations able to operate nationally, so 100’s of them
Most local papers full with property and little else
What telephone directories?
Out of town shopping in multiple centres that do not permit post type adverts
1000’s of web sites
You-tube
Text messaging
Twitter
Facebook
LinkedIn
Business Link networks
Chamber of commerce

Getting your message across is getting harder, although it is also cheaper than ever.

In the past the most successful adverts and promotions have been through word of mouth, viral if you like. Well now for the first time ever viral marketing is available to ordinary business owners – its called Twitter.

Twitter is in essence an ‘opt in’ marketplace, where you have 140 characters to promote your idea or thought, when someone likes what you are saying they will ReTweet (forward your message) to other users, then if enough people find the message of value it can go viral (sent to lots of people).

So how can you use Twitter as a marketing tool?

Get a name, the shorter the better with either your company name or a word that promotes your business/ product. The shorter the name is the easier it is for others to promote your product! Use your company name for the twitter name (i.e. @rapidbi) and your real name as the user.

Design your home page. As well as the messages you send, your homepage can contain a link, a bio of your business and other information that people can read about your offer. You can change this periodically.

Getting enough followers (people that want to listen to you) can take several months, and while there are tools that will build this quickly, its quality not quantity you want. Remember the goal is for OTHERS to send your messages, so even if only 100 people hear your message, and 10 sent that to their 1000 followers, and 10 of them send that to their 1000 followers, that is over 30000 people that have read your message!

You need to spend time finding people that are interested in the sector you operate, or the products/ services you provide. There are “keyword” software tools that can help do this such as http://www.socialoomph.com/ and http://www.tweetspinner.com/ .

Next you plan on what to say to people, just pushing your advert will bore people very quickly and they will stop following you and certainly wont be ReTweeting (broadcasting) your messages out on your behalf. One thing to to is to write 100 tips on how to… and put these out as regular messages, no links, no adverts, just good value added. Then once every 10-20 “Tweets” you can send a promotional message. The more interesting or curious it is the more chance it has of being broadcast by your followers. If you have any ‘end of line’ offers or seasonal discounts promote those too

Be human, one of the elements that most business users forget is that Twitter is SOCIAL MEDIA, this means that people are interested in the person behind the business. So every few days tweet something personal, to show you are human. The goal is for people to trust you and your company.

If your business operates a blog to help people in your industry or users of your products, link your blog to twitter using one of the many twitter plug-ins. This is a great way of telling the world that you have a new article, it is also liked by the search engines, so a win win! If you don’t operate a blog yet to support your business, then consider it now! Most of our product sales are on the back of our blog articles.

Press Releases – using twitter as a marketing tool

Every time you put a press release out, tweet it, get your PR firm to tweet it too. If your PR firm are not using broadcast technology like Twitter or other social media platforms, re-consider who you are using.

Why does Twitter work as a marketing tool?

Twitter is about right here, right now, and if you happen to promote that you have a product that does x, and the person reading the stream has a problem that requires x, then guess what, if the message was a ReTweet, then in effect that is a recommendation, and we know how powerful recommendations are.

This great value also makes the marketing challenge slightly more difficult, as of course we need to send our message out regularly, but without being seen to spam. If twitter (or a user) thinks you are spamming you will be investigated and have your account deactivated, so we need to be careful here. Both of the tools listed above offer a text spinning facility, where the text in a message can be random, thus creating a different message. for example in a sentence:

The cat sat on the mat

Could be replaced by The [cat:dog:mouse] sat on the [mat:chair:table]

The dog sat on the mat
The mouse sat on the table
The cat sat on the chair

In essence it is the same message, but with text changes. this is a highly effective way of constructing a single message that can be re-used without spamming.

Give credit to others

If there are other twitter users that put out content you think your customers will value from then it is up to you to ReTweet their messages, If you only ever send your material then there is less reason for people to follow you. Sure the very big players can get away with this – but the world of social media is changing and they will lose out in the longer term. This is supposed to be a social media platform after all, so pay it forward and it will come back. Sites like http://www.twitterfeed.com can help you tweet your blog, and the blogs of others

Customer service

Twitter is more than a marketing tool, it can be a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) tool. As your customers can follow you, they can also message you directly, this is a powerful way to show you care. If you offer poor customer care DON’T use twitter – word will get out! The odd problem can be resolved really quickly and act as good PR

Make the most of Twitter as a marketing tool

Twitter is so much more than on the basic Twitter website, look at software tools like tweetdeck, seesmic or hootsuit, as they allow you to see and interact more easily with messages and content that is more relevant to you.

Summary – Top Tips for using Twitter as a marketing tool:

First things first – Make sure your account is set up correctly with all your details so that others can find you.
Target the right people – people that are potentially interested in your product/ service
Quantity vs quality followers – go for quality every time
Get involved with other Tweeters – reply & comment on discussions
It's all for the love of the links – but not too often
Have a great avatar – have a photo (a professional one) rather than your company logo
Have an effective background on your twitter page
Update regularly – 1-6 times a day
Don't be a pest – do not use auto DM’s or auto replies
Promote your twitter name on your email footers, blogs and business forums
Twitter is only ONE communication channel – never rely on one strategy for your marketing
The personal and business link is critical for success in social media based marketing

WARNING

There are many sites on the web that claim to grow your followers fast – please avoid them, many also tweet adverts to your followers, and they look like spam, you have been warned. Never give a site your twitter name and password, remember this is YOUR brand image we are talking about!

What are people saying about your industry or company? check it out at http://search.twitter.com/

Note - This blog article is based on our experience of using twitter as a marketing tool over the past 12 months. If a person is going to train you in these things, please ensure that they use the tools for their business, if they have only a few hundred followers and an out of date blog, then ask the question why are they not doing this effectively? Many of the tips on so called expert sites just do not work, everything I have written about here has worked in the field.

Twitter as a marketing tool, Twitter as a communication tool, Twitter as a training… http://rapidbi.com/management/2009/12/twitter-as-a-marketing-tool-for-smes/
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50 tips for using Twitter in business

Twitter is the Communications tool of the moment. A here and now channel to market, and for market research and PR. A tool to link business with customers.

Attitudes to web 2.0 and some of the products and services are changing faster than ever. A year ago if you had asked anyone about Twitter they would have though you a bit of a geek – now many people are using it on a daily basis and it is proving valuable for business (i.e. Dell).

If you are using Twitter for business purposes, consider having two accounts – one for personal and the other for business use. Keep the business one ‘human’ rather than just ‘push’ type messages.

Twitter is a powerful way to hear about the ‘hear and now’ thoughts on a key topic – not just from people you know or follow you – but from anyone interested in the topic – all in 140 character bite sizes pieces.

For Twitter to ‘work’ for you, below are some ‘rules’ or netiquette to follow, the key is to develop a style of your own. Don’t expect quick results, building trust and relationships takes tenacity and time.

50 tips for using twitter as a learning vehicle:

1 ) Add value – share interesting or useful info, blogs (others as well as your own) etc
2 ) Always respond to peoples @ messages
3 ) Avoid political, religious and other subjects which people will find offencive
4 ) Big followers – does not mean many listeners – the RTs tell that story
5 ) Change your BIO regularly
6 ) Don’t expect Twitter to deliver revenue alone, it is only ONE element of the strategy
7 ) Even an attentive follower won’t read all your messages
8 ) Follow people who are in your field or area of interest
9 ) Follow the advice of people that have demonstrated competence – not think they know how to…
10) FollowFriday send a message saying why people should follow them
11) Getting followers is not a right its a privilege
12) Give – don’t take
13) Have an avatar (picture) of your face or company logo
14) Help promote the dreams of other people, and they may return the favour
15) If someone RT re-Tweets a message – send them a thank you
16) If you are going to auto DM only send a welcome message
17) If you post info of any kind, leave plenty of room for retweeting
18) In marketing messages use appropriate keywords
19) Its not the number of followers but the number of Re-Tweets you get
20) Limit what you automate
21) Make sure your BIO is up to date and human
22) NEVER DM a request to follow you on another social networking site ie FaceBook
23) NEVER DM or tweet a MLM program
24) NEVER DM or tweet a traffic follower program
25) NEVER sign up to any of the Twitter ad services-it undermines your position
26) NEVER tweet when drunk or under the influence
27) Occasionally ask people to RT a post, if you ask every time they wont
28) Only promote your services less than once every 10-20 tweets
29) ONLY use a DM for personal messages or if you must to welcome a follower
30) Open up a bit.ly account for short URLs
31) Please report (@spam) unfollow & Block Twitter Spammers
32) Rerunning tweets occasionally is a good idea
33) Set your wallpaper to promote your message
34) Share thoughts and links from others (RT)
35) Thank people who re-tweet you. Either DM, @ reply, or re-tweet something of theirs
36) Treat followers with respect & courtesy & every now & then thank them
37) Tweet real stuff – highs and lows
38) Tweet regularly – at least 4 times a day – well OK at least once a day…
39) Tweet to show you are human
40) Tweet to show you are more than a marketing machine
41) Twitter is not an Instant Messenger service – keep private discussions short
42) Use a # in front of #keywords – it helps people track useful information
43) Use favourites to save and show brand/product testimonials
44) Use travel time to tweet and read tweets on smartphones
45) Use twitpic or other photo services occasionally
46) Use Twitter to meet up with your new contacts
47) Want more followers? Re-tweet the good stuff you find
48) When you have over 100 friends use Tweetdeck or Seesmic to help you to manage
49) Work on building a relationship-not pushing message to people
50) You don’t have to follow everyone, only those of interest

Above all have fun and share the learning.

Remember Twitter is about engaging with people – if they ask – answer…

51) Ask questions too – you will be amazed at the response you can get – great market research – just don’t do it too often

52) NEVER promote a blog or product in a DM – keep this for a welcome (if you have to) or personal communications only

Mike Morrison is director of RapidBI and an avid user of social media for learning, OD and business use.

Twitter tips, great tips, power tips, business tips, ideas, thoughts, learning tool, change tool, communications tool, communications strategy, 100, 25,... http://rapidbi.com/management/2009/08/50-tips-for-using-twitter-in-business/

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Tuesday, 8 December 2009

Help protect Children on the internet and in other environments

The Children’s Safety Education Foundation

The team at RapidBI support a number of charities, however we are aware that one we support has lost sponsors and is looking for new ones (no matter how little you can give), we do not usually promote this type of activity on our site, however feel that using our market presence can only help this cause.

Please look and support them if you can.

Each year 1000’s of children are given computers, iPhones and other devices for Christmas and birthdays that allow them to connect on the web, but are they safe? This is one of the dangers that the CSEF seek to address as part of their community education programmes.

The Children’s Safety Education Foundation reduce the number of child victims caused by needless accidents by providing vital preventative safety education on issues like Road, Rail & Water Safety, Drugs, Bullying and much more. Take a quick look at their website at csef.net

Their appeal this Christmas is to increase and replace the donors they have lost during the recession by encouraging their existing donors (like me me) to contact people in business (like you), that I feel would consider supporting the great work they do with children.

I thought you might be able to help them out this Christmas, like I do. You never know, we could win the opportunity to have lunch at The House of Lords.

All you have to do initially is e-mail the Regional Fund-raising Manager, Danny Hall, at danny.hall@csef.net briefly explaining that I've (RapidBI) put you in touch. He’ll then call you and send out a donor pack. It's that simple really.

If not you can still give a little through JustGiving.com and quote DA3014102

Please act BEFORE Christmas this year.

If you cannot donate – not a problem, please pass the details of this page to readers of your blog or newsletters, marketing is almost as important as cash (well nearly!)

"We Are CSEF“

…….Always there, from Credit Crunch to Christmas Crunch and still 1.5 Million Children Reached"

We receive no direct government funding, and approximately 80% of the Foundation's income comes

from people like you, from the business community.

The Children’s Safety Education Foundation is a registered charity in England and Wales (1103344) and in Scotland (SC037714)

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Thursday, 19 November 2009

Closing Keynote - Panel session

Closing keynote

A new leadership paradigm

Vicky Wright opens the closing session

An inspiring event – socialising, networking… we needed a session for the end of the is to continue this theme.

What sort of leaders do we need for the sustainable futures of our orgs?

An engaging and powerful introduction.

The session will be presided over by John Humphries

Gave a humorous intro, providing an insight into the intelligence of leaders based on his experience as chair of Mastermind and interviewing as a hack.

Sir Christopher Kelly

Successful leadership is defined by results. His focus in his role in public sector is about ethical leadership

7 principles of public life

1. Selfless

2. Integrity

3. Honesty

4. Openness

5. objectivity

6. accountability

7. Leadership

See http://www.archive.official-documents.co.uk/document/parlment/nolan/seven.htm

Good orgs need to look at how they do things not just what they do

A healthy ethical culture is likely to build in public trust and more likely to engage with people.

When there is an absence of openness and trust you can only expect problems to occur – look at the situation in government around MPs expenses

JH – can you impose ethical standards? CK you need strong leadership, its difficult to impose.

Steve Easterbrook – McDonalds

Leadership – context & qualities

Context of leadership has changes over the last few years – and those that were successful are now falling by the wayside. The context is much more complex than it used to be. It is impossible to meet all stakeholders needs at the same time – the role of the leaders is to identify the right solution in a given context.

To succeed in the new paradigm – will need 3 qualities

1. Integrity

2. Collaboration

3. Sustainability

Its cannot be the icing on the cake – it needs to be the cake.

Things need to be ethical sustainable

Values led decision making, decisions must be taken at the front line – have the values and stick to them – it provides quick and consistent solutions.

The Google generation – they have answers at their fingertips. The new generation use collaboration.

The silver approach is no longer realistic. Business in the past could have changes their position with a marketing campaign or IT system – that is no longer the case.

Senior team need to take collaboration to a new level with their peers – its no longer about silo thinking at any level

A means of creating value in and with employees.

Collaboration does not mean decision making by committee or abdication – but open communication channels

“I’ve looked at all the statues in all the parts and I have yet to see a statue of a committee”

There comes a time when we need to stop raking over the ashes and allow the new people at the top to get on with the job in front of them – not behind then

A new paragigm not just for leadership, but for HR as well.

JH – can you move on while some of those that got us into difficulties are still in post

SE – there must be a limit and allow people to move forward.

Sháá Wasmund – http://www.smarta.com/ @shaawasmund

Historically leaders have been judged on results – recently many leaders have failed us. Where does that leave us?

Too much power in the hands of too few is a dangerous thing – but what are the options – democracy is not the best of systems – but the best we have

It will be interesting to see how social media will evolve in this area.

We are all in our own ways leaders – I want to see a future where leaders do not have the title – a future where we are all leaders and we all have responsibilities.

Stakeholders have changes

Old school thinking was a monolog – a one way communication – today things have changes – it is so very different and a dialogue

Tools like twitter share views and the importance of leadership starts to filter into every persons role.

The role of HR is changing, we can no longer look at leadership of the top few, but leadership of all employees, we need to develop these skills. Each and everyone of us lead in public life

Ethical leadership is vital as it will now be the public will judge through medis We must be genuine and honest. Do people lead out of authenticity or greed?

We will all be judges for this.

In this paradigm – we are at the beginning of the journey – not the end of it. Our responsibilities is for us to communicate these messages back to our orgs

We are all leaders – leaders without title

- - - - - - - -

JH – what is this new paradigm? Lets go back to basics – what is this?

Leader have changed for single decision making, but now they need to facilitate

The context in which we operate requires a different type of leadership not just at the top – but throughout the org. you want leaders at every level and right across the org.

Its not just about the given service deliveries – not we have to do more – environment.

The speed of feedback and communications has increased and is more transparent

A paradigm shift is a change, a shift, evolution

You cannot control social media conversations but you can influence them, we need to be seen to engage with them. The public do not expect perfection, but they do expect humans

If you offer silence – people will fill it –

When in a hole – stop digging – the only difference now is the hole is much more visible than it has ever been.

The person that makes the decision, should be held responsible for that decision.

Change is faster, expectations higher, more people having their say.

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DRAFT post

Session L2 - Releasing your peoples creative genius

Session L2

Releasing your peoples creative genius

Karen Ver - Chair

Gordon Peterson –

Set the scene by measuring the energy in the group..

“has elvis left the building?”

Bono when going round asks “who is the elvis here?” what he is looking for is charisma, attitude

There is a little bit of elvis in everyone and our goal is to unleash the little bit of elvis in us

In pairs – face each other and looking at each other say I like you without smiling or laughing

As a Jedi – can you say “I love you” without laughing and smiling – they say it is impossible

There are some challenges that require us to use our social oomph

Told us a personal story of personal change, and how we often try to change but do not use the strategies that work and we wonder why.. we need to play to our strengths.

Innovation is about change, and sometimes we try to make change too early and not in the right context.

Introduces Yin/ Yang – all about balance.- doing-being

What gets lost in the doing stuff is the being how we do things.

Using simple mindsets can help us get into the mindset of

Productive creativity

The habit of doing new things to make a positive difference

Habit is counter intuitive – you don’t associate habit with doing nw things – you can build a habit of doing new things. Its not about crazytivity, its about something that can take us forward.

There is no right or wrong

Positive minded – you need a vision – how good are you and your organisations at killing ideas – 1-10

How do we kill ideas – write a report, do a business case, money, tried that before…. We are very good at killing ideas

Being able to nurture ideas is vital.

Story

walk along a path – 3 little shoots – a genie appears

choose one…

1. rose

2. oak tree

3. gorse

what do you do? – wait nurture? See what is growing and changing

easy to say – difficult to do

in pairs – person 1 comes up with ideas to make the cipd conf better next yr

person 2 answers everyone with yes.. but

Say in your pairs

Remember that you felt like

Person 1 offers ideas to improve the conference

Person 2 answers with yes… and – offers ways of building

Recap on how people felt

When someone craps on someone’s ideas you sapp their power

How often do you have conversations of the second type – less judge mental and more supportive.

You need to be clear of what you expect from people – this is what de-bonos 6 hats is about. Being clear means you need to be careful about the language you use.

When we ask the question “what do you think?”

A better q would be “how could we make this better?”

Chris kissing the fish – there is a story behind this chris never used to like fish, he would go to dinner parties and be offered fish & DECLINED it – people took pitty on him. One day he tried it as he was wondering what he was missing out on. He tried it, found he liked it

Getting Fresh

Do you travel to work the same way?

Fav restaurant/ dish

Read the same mag/ news paper

Even when staying away sleep on the same side of the bed.

Why do we stay with our habits/ favourites.

Studies show that we can recall almost every piece of data we have ever been exposed to. We can hold an unlimited amount of data..

Why might having a lot of diff ideas in your mind – when you are looking to solve problems, if you have different experiences you have a wider pool of ideas to select from – fresh ideas

Get fresh, explore the ideas, get a fresh perspective. Buy a diff mag, go a different way to work. Consider doing something different every day – this may be as simple as going into a shop you would not otherwise go into, read a mag of something different that you would chose to read

Lighten-up! – do something frivolous

REAL – a fav company of mine is IDEO

Philosophy –

Get people engaged, bring the idea to life

Ask yourself the question – how can you bring your idea to life

FAST

Virgin spent months looking at virgin cola for months – then one day righard branson on morning TV answered the question “what is next?” he said in 6 ½ weeks is virgin cola – none of the project team knew this and were shocked, but the team delivered 6 ½ weeks later!.

MOVEMENT

BIG – do it, say it – take a personal risk. If you wait you will miss the moment. Be brave. If you take something away from this week be brave – do something

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DRAFT POST

Workshop w10 Building Innovation Capability

Building Innovation Capability

Facilitated by Ian Plover http://www.businessofchange.com/ & Cris Beswick http://www.letsthinkbeyond.com/

22 people in the workshop where there were spaces for 32, strange as innovation is a key theme for many at the moment, I would have thought the session would have been full (31 people were expected)

Cris works in Innovation, Ian in Change management

Notes, flipcharts and other materials that are developed on the day will be sent to us later.

Ian gave the story of a former MD at Anglian Water that was your typical MD – unassuming, then took some time out & went to Harvard. When he returned he was gushing with ideas and drove change through involvement and participation.

Innovation as a tool – the challenge is to create an org that can thrive in a rapidly changing world.

Who feels that they work in an innovative org? many feel that they have innovation IN their org but not as a whole

Innovation is often seen as product or service and it is often seen to have covert teams at the top level that are innovative.

How do we increase or capacity for innovation?

To use innovation – we need to understand it.

1) innovation is not the sole domain of R&D, high tech industries or specialists

2) is not about being first

3) not about being the biggest and best

Innovation is about diversity – about people. Innovation comes from how we mix stuff together.

GM spent $8B on innovation/ R&D and they went bust – that is $1/4M per employee – but they did not innovate internally.

Strategy-people-community-physical environment-creativity-risk-leadership

Strategy – it has to be core of what we do. The word “innovation” has been bastardised by marketing teams which no longer add value. What we need to do is to pump people some value into innovation

Do you have a HR strategy? A business strategy – are they aligned?

People – as an MD I want great people – if we have poor people I want them out-quickly

Community – I want people thinking of the community in the org – doing things for other teams, not just their own – its about more than “culture” – Jim Collins – how can you be a help to others

Environment – Tom Peter – “cultivate great talent by creating great places to work-eliminate cubical slavery” look at Google, they have done things to make the workspace a place people want to be

Creativity – creativity is not about designers & wacky stuff – its about thinking differently – 20% time in Google – 20% of their time to work on ‘stuff’ they feel is the next….. this is Google giving people “white space” in their diaries. How can we give people time to help think differently? Create the environment and the time to use it.

RISK – the big one…. Risk is all relative – if we want people to be creative, if we want – mark Twain ”if you always do what you have always done..” If you don’t risk anything you risk everything. Risk is about what R&D do and call prototyping – they rarely get it right first time – they take risks, they have time for risks – but the final output is proven. Google “to organise the world’s information and make it universally accessible & useful” leadership is key to drive the vision.

Customers need to put the label “innovation” on something – not the creators…

Ian

The “Human Beings” department – rarely have I heard of HR & innovation mentioned in the same sentence

Thers is something about HR – we get on with the job and hide our lights under a bush. That is a shame as HR people are more innovative and we need to tell our businesses what we have done. If we want to be a real “business partner” we cannot wait for people to ask us – we need to take the imitative. You often see a FD on the right hand side of the MD – you rarely see HR on the left hand side.

12 yrs ago Ulrich said HR needs to be in 4 areas, HR are no good at selling ourselves – we need to learn the language of finance and marketing. David’s (Ulrich) message has never really be understood – HR has focused on T&C of work, it should be T&C of the work place. The only people that can make HR a business partner is for us to invite ourselves to the table – lead by doing and using business language.
HR is often seen as transactional, and until we change this we will never be a real “BP”
Interesting session – innovation in the org and political commentary about our role – innovation is a reason to be invited to the org

HR & Strategy

HR & People

HR & Community

HR & Environment – physical & psychological

HR & Creativity – how often are people allowed & told they are creative

HR & Risk – not about putting people lives at risk

HR & Leadership

Ulrick change agent is about changing the org in the area of human capital

Change through people not through gantt charts. No-one else in an org has the ability to change people like HR have.
Group task – brainstorm innovative areas – what great innovations have your done yourself, come across of heard of - nominate someone to feedback not to us but to everyone else in the room. – the ideas will be sent to us later.

Some innovative ideas –

1 + 3 = 5 one person carried 2 roles CEO & ops director (mat cover) devolved her roles to 3 managers where they did 5 months each, and the OPPs mgr on maternity was available to each of the managers. At the end of the period the company had significantly increased its Human capital
Confidence and competency

Keep-in-touch – diverse locations where people don’t meet, use of touch screen tech to allow people more access to intranets and social networks for people that are IT resistant

Proudly received – proudly given – a drive to share ideas openly

People want to be involved more – dialogue or monologue?

Incremental or radical innovation

If you put in the reward system people are more inclined to participate (but what is reward – we need to look at this) – In Qatar they pay managers extra to coach employees and the reward suggestion schemes with high value rewards – multiples of salary!

Tesco – where managers go “back to the floor” on a regular basis

We are about to go for a break – when you come back – leave your ‘HR’ hat outside and come back with a line manager hat on, without all the limitations of HR policy, regulations etc.

As managers – tell me what I can do – not what I cannot do

Exercise to build a culture where people want to work for and your customers want to spend money for.
We were given a scenario and asked to explore that in the context of the 7 steps from a business perspective – the what not the how at this stage.
Groups shared their thinking and ideas. This material will be “codified” and sent to us – I’ll add it here when we get it.
One concept that came up was based on the concept that Jim Collins mentioned which was to have a “not to do list” and from an L&D perspective and talent management perspectives what about having a “do not develop” list
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DRAFT post

Social media come of age at CIPD conference 2009

It’s the start of day three of the annual CIPD conference 2009 - the premier conference and exhibition for Human Resources in the UK.

Last night there was a small but important informal meeting of like minded people... a tweetup, more than 10 influential members of the institute met informally for the first time face to face

those that met included:

@joningham

@HRrecSolutions

@NAlexandrou

@stevebridger

@HRZone

@CIPD_Events

@HRPUK - a fellow lead of a (competing) HR group on LinkedIn

and of course yours truly... @rapidbi

we met @thenorthpolebar in Manchester

Also throughout the day there were meet up of : the CIPD communities group, the opportunity to meet some of the regular faces, the CIPDmembers group on LinkedIn met for lunch. People that have 'met' online start to meet and build alliances in the real world.

Why is this significant? In the press we often hear of HR functions blocking or barring social networking sites - well here is a group of professionals that met online, communicated, learnt from each other and then yesterday took the leap from virtual connections to real connections.

In a rapidly changing world HR and everyone in business need to think about communication, decision making and innovation in a different way. the future is very much about collabouation, and not just internal collaboration - but collaboration with anyone, anywhere that has the expertise and passion to contribute. The future of organisations is changing and it is likely that what is currently called "social networking" will be at the vanguard of change.

What is in a name?

Social networking as a label sounds like it is informal and an option - ell this is not so for the business world. We need to communicate and learn faster than we have ever done before, these online networks are the only technology available which can link and respond fast enough. So what should it be called?

• Business collaboration network

• business innovation networks

• business learning networks

• Human capital network

• competitive advantage network

Ok the last thing we as HR need is more jargon, however when the current name does not work for us, much like "Cif" or "Marathon" a re-brand is required.

The amount of Tweeting from this event is significant, and not from just one player - from many, most providing added value about key messages (some about marketing messages only), however most of those were exhibiting and this was 'fair game'.

This year marks more content published on blogs and twitter from 'peers' than from the HR press. I also believe that even in the coming weeks the word count from this event will outweigh that from the 'professional journalists' 3:1

There is also a difference in content. That published by many of the journalists seems to focus on political decisions and report outcomes - the 'bloggers' seem to be focused on content to help other learn from the event. This shift is an important one, and one that will grow- peer based content.

The future

The future of HR conferences in the UK will never be the same again. Organisers need to consider the needs of social networkers by providing:

• Event wide wifi - free and not timing out every 15 mins

• Power sockets to charge laptops/ smartphones

• Seating with tables for netbooks to allow bloggers to work more effectively

• Stop messages telling delegates to turn off mobile devices!

• Provide twitter streams to allow audiences to communicate with speakers

• Start to stream presentations on the web (if speakers refuse then do not use them!

• Provide more time in between session for networking - i.e. at least 1/2 hr between sessions

• Ensure there is always a Q&A session with the audience and speakers

Wednesday, 18 November 2009

session F1 Harnessing the power of social media in the workplace

Nick Shackleton-Jones - BBC
On-line learning at the BBC

Its not about getting the information out – its about their behaviour – if they care enough they will look it up.

When you share something memorable, you get the relationship to a different level
Social networking is not about technology its about connections and trust.

The model of wanting people to learn is all about data – we are not, humans are not like computers, we tend to remember things that have emotional references. We surround data with a sort of emotional metadata

Blogs are more authentic then newsletters – it’s a personal insight, it comes from the heart. Internal communications & blogs are technically the same but have more human, emotional links

Social learning technologies is a bottom up approach. Most learning is informal 80% so it makes sense to use social technologies to harness this.

Most effective learning is informal through stories (metaphor) i.e. don’t touch that button, I did that once and….

In history you got to be an expert by being around for a long time, now as things change faster, expertise belongs to those that know, and seniority is no longer relevant.

Nokia have a concept of reverse mentoring, where new people mentor more senior people on technology based issues.

Social networks

Generation y is not an age thing its an attitude thing.

Formal learning is not good for retention (see long tail graph) on the other hand informal learning retention increases, the trend is that for formal learning to be squeezed to only mandatory training.
Rapid development tools are on the increase, in time this will be much more co-created, and is in effect gaining ownership and the devolvement of training.

The new role of the L&D professional is to work with the champion to transfer skills and to assist/ project manage.
Wikis are ok, they are mostly used for information dump – there is little/ no emotional engagement.

Blogs are not used (in the BBC anyone can create one – they have 300) in the way people originally thought. These people are increasingly seen as thought leaders. The impact that these blogs have are greater then traditional communications. The blog enables the story behind the decision, not just the outcome, but the process. The human element.
These social networks provide people with the opportunity to contribute. There ideas and thoughts at a peer level. To drive contribution a competition was set and the best videos on the bbc MOO site are chose to be commissioned into programmes for bbc3

This approach uses a croudsourcing methodology.

Does it work

The truth is if you try to introduce one in your org it tends not to work, this is mainly as most people like to lurk, rather than contribute.

You need to drive the environment artificially (pump prime) so that people start to see and feel comfortable. Feed it with best practice content, open it up to comments, then open t so that anyone can contribute.

The biggest problem is that most orgs have not determined if they want it or if it is legitimate yet.
This requires a shift in the role of L&D, we need to stop being experts and be seen ore as curators and coaches.
The trick is not about technology, but to find someone with passion.

This enables agility

The best models of L&D take best practice and strive to share

These blogs and environments need to be ‘informal’ they do not work as well when they are seen to be official.

Elearning professionals group on Facebook run by nick, currently has over 5000 members.

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Draft post

Session D1 Beyond Employee Engagement

Rober Browton – Hay group insight

Clare Marriot – Rentokil pest control

Robert started by saying “hello Manchester”.. unfortunately the audience were not as engaging.

We were given the opportunity to talk with the person sitting next to us about yesterdays and our experience.

Robert wants our views on things.. is he expecting these things to be blogged or tweeted?

Today is about the idea of engagement and how you can measure it differently

Engagement is about unlocking peoples potential at work… what is your elevator pitch about it.. what does it mean to you? Passion, motivation, commitment were some of the ideas given from the floor.

Engagement is about enabling people to deliver there potential and the benefits it provides orgs..

The best orgs that do have EE are pulling ahead of the competition in the current downturn

84% of people say they are willing to help their team

85% say they are committed to helping their org to survive

People may think they are doing this – but are they actually doing it? Thought from the floor

63% feel their org is not appreciating the effort they are putting in

The leadership function is critical for engagement and having that engagement drive business performance and results.

To go beyond employee engagement we need to deliver – engagement-enablement-employee effectiveness. We need to look at a 4 box grid showing engagement-v-enablement

This matrix needs to be applied within the boundaries of the sector (i.e. finance) and to a lesser extent system limits.

Hand over to Clare

Clare gave on intro to the business and the scope that its 7000 people cover. With over 20 native languages, communication across the org can be a challenge.

Has earlier this year introduces new values – Service, Relationships, Teamwork – this was done to align all of the rentokil initial group. These were derived from global focus groups.

Measuring both customer and supplier engagement are linked and the org uses both for trend spotting and evaluation

With a show of hands 45-50% run staff surveys

30% use surveys to measure customer feedback

How many compare these two sets of results 5-10% - this beyond engagement is about looking beyond and customer surveys is a key part of this.

EE is linked to development of the brand of the company. Buy-in from the top of the business and BUMs for looking at EE was critical.

To gain the buy-in the key was to communicate, communicate, communicate and had conference calls every 2 weeks to manage and co-ordinate the process.

Communication included posters, reports. Powerpoint and this year an intranet site where the data is managed and feedback is available where resources are available for managers to help them improve key points. This is new this year but the group are excited about its possibilities.

Initial Rentokil run this annually in September and do the process on paper across the whole business. The survey window is 4 weeks long, and feedback is returned 3 weeks later.Rather than just feedback on the company, the system provides locally, and relevant results. The system produces powerpoint format presentation for each manager automatically

Recently the group has adopted the new Hay enablement survey as part of the process. Reports are produced for all teams greater than 5 people in size, this means that action is more likely to be taken on a team by team basis.

Response rates were 93% and have recently increased to 97% - this was much more than originally expected, this puts pressure on taking actions to deliver on survey findings.

Managers are targeted through objectives to improve results and included in every managers PDR

Key factors to make this work:

Invest in the management of the programme
Attention to detail
Link to everything – data internal and external

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Draft post

Employee engagement surveys

Session c2 Unlocking Leadership Talent

Javier Bajer

On a 10 point scale look at you as a leader as how proud/ satisfied you are with the impact you have had over the world so far..?

Leadership development be more like yourself..

For years we have spent trying to be more like others

We profile ourselves to se how much we are not like xx famous people

The one thing leaders have in common is not style, but they are themselves. There is coherence between what they believe, say, do….

Only when we realise that talent lives in the individual the quicker the return on investment

Our goal is to unlock human talent – help them to be themselves

This is very different from where we have been developing people.

HSBC – have invested in leadership, they are reporting 50% increase in sales where this programme has been launched

Helping individuals to find themselves as a natural leader.

Individuals grow as their value as a leader, its about alignment

LAT leadership alignment tool…

Leadership – the ability to generate changes that add value

Beliefs

Intentions

Promise

Action

These things need to be aligned

The cost of staying misaligned is more than the change to get aligned. Doing this with many in the org at one time is a large lever for change

Opposite of leadership – victimship not being able to make anything happen but having a good reason for it

Victimship has an ongoing cost for you as a human being… how will this impact how you feel about your contribution?

If you want to see the real changes associated with leadership we need to get people out of victimship – and it is risky for those in it.

The minute we see challenges as a problem we are missing the point

The contextual stuff is exactly what we need for great leadership.

Forget about memorising the values.. based on what we do and HOW we do it what do you think the values are?

The brain is looking for patterns and this is critical – if we say look out for x things but only give y their brain feels trapped (thinking traps) – I,e all or nothing

Normal distribution – most of us fall in a normal boring world – the brain however like extremes.

The brain also over generalises..

The problem is when we over generalise in the negative – this can stop change in its tracks.

Fortune telling is another brain trap – “I know exactly what is going to happen”…the belief that I know the future stops people from trying change

When pushing resistance becomes a habit then you move towards the tipping point and culture change starts.

Take some of these concepts and start to challenge
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Draft post

Session b2 Transformational leadership

James Longwell – Cadbury

Values

Performance

Quality

Respect

Integrity

Responsibility

Performance driven, values led

Most of our growth will come from emerging markets and this means diversity at a senior mgt level

Double solid line reporting:

Functional boss and business unit boss

In the past leadership dev programmes were for the top 100 or so people –i.e. those in post, we realised that we needed to look at those with potential.

The next step was a programme for those that would be in the top 100 in the coming 1-2 years. What they then needed to do was to start to build the pipeline.

This was built from scratch to meet the org needs.

“total business leaders” no longer able to rely on their functional expertise.

Model of leadership – Judgement, Drive, Influence triangle model.

Important “drive to have impact” and “self awareness” are important to the org and

Spotting issues and framing are key strategic skills

The programme stretches participants self awareness

Looked to use ‘volunteering’ as a key part of the programme – where there was a win for the ‘client’ and learning for the leader.

A simple idea…. 3 circle model

IT – the “it” of leadership – the IT is massive

Me

Us

Most people attending the org are focused on IT and they realise that ME & US is important – the goal is to achieve balance.

The programme is summarised as “meet ALICE”

Align

Leverage

Immerse

Connect

Evaluate

This is a 5 day learning event. A lot of stakeholder engagement was used to achieve the duration of the programme – at both business & functional levels.

The research suggested that a standalone programme we integrated the prog with coaching – 4 pre event calls and 3 post event

We also coach the line manager of the delegate, so that they experience some of the context what their people were going through.

See photo, bits in pink were with the voluntary org and ‘real’ work to be completed by the end of day 5

Fantastic leadership can lead to sustainability
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Draft post

Session A2- Emanmanuel Gobillot

Emanmanuel Gobillot

Leadership is contextual not situational

Welcomed us to leave our technology on and tweet!

Showed video clip “shifthappend.wikispaces.com did you know

Its not just about the data in the film, but how it came to be –

We live in a world where content is being generated and distributed differently

What are the trends for leadership?

4 trends:

1) Data

2) Expertise – but models are changing

3) Attention

4) Democratic

Leadership is DEAD

Increasingly we are working with people who are not like is

Companies v-s org

Mass customization – crowdsourcing – mass participation – mass collaboration

Why have an org? it used to be cheaper to bring people together to produce. When you bring people in you shut talent out.

Where to focus – one –to-one one-to-many….

How can I follow you if I don’t know you are there?

If you are not followed you are not leading

The “ikeazation” of work… you are involved in the design, resourcing assembly etc…throughout this experience we are faced with different roles

What it means to work is changing

Work used to define us…

We need engagement, alignment

Engagement – we engage through clarity, this is a fundamental misunderstanding of what people want is mess, what we don’t want is mess to the point of being stressful

Rather than clarity we want simplicity simplicity=simplification + coherence

Coherence = punctualisation (functions.. makes sense…)

Humans align through narratives…. We share stories, people know what we mean through our tone and story..

The Elvis fallacy is everywhere a like less conversation more action – this is not true, if you restrict conversations, your directives need to be more comprehensive.

How do you achieve a sense of accountability – Roles

You have to be clear of the tasks and want to do it – why you do it does not matter.

Some tasks are maintenance & accountability if there is coherence then people will do the tasks that they don’t want to for the ‘greater good’

Commitment – how do you get commitment – you buy it. It feels like commitment but it is not commitment – its prostitution.. when someone else offers more they are gone. The commitment is gone. Love is our ability to value, nurture and help other people to grow – remember the advert – everyone remembers a great teacher.

“have I made that person feel stronger and more capable?” if you have you have ‘loved them’

Coronary heart disease – 90% of people with this choose death few chose to change.. so even when faced with the data and reality, many fail to make a decision and take appropriate action.
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draft post

CIPD 2009 Keynote session & welcome

Jackie Orme

Reflection on a turbulent economy

Last year was the days after the collapse of Lehman broths

We are in a stat of flux. Some say the recession is over, but most feel that the recession is hitting

Predicting the end is not important, what is, is dealing with the current

High calibre HR professionals are important. It is clear now that the nature of the orgs we create is critical for the performance of our orgs.

The difference for the success is leadership and culture – when an org out grows its ability to provide talent leads to a collapse. Sustainable performance is critical

Hr needs to be a broad church – generalists & specialists – and those with a diverse background.

HR need to understand the interplay between people and business process – not just what you do but how you do it.

Deep understanding or your org and its context enables you to devise strategy to lead the organisation and create the greatest impact.

Understanding or your org is your starting point.

Knowledge – activity & behaviour

Jim Collins – the quest for greatness

His 2nd only visit to the UK the last was to Harrogate 5 yrs ago

Everyone in the room shares a passion – the right people and the right who

Far more important than what we do, is who we do it with… first who then what.

It all goes back to a driving force for curiosity –

Its not just about success – but CONTRAST – who were in the same situation and the comparisons did not make that success – contrast the ones that did not make the leap are those are those that figured out what to do then find the people – the great get the people then found out what to do (30 yr time line graphic)

Give the same circumstances – some become great others don’t – its is not the context/ circumstance – it’s a function of choice and discipline.

We learn as much from failure as we do from success – studying failure is of value.

Both grow at the same rate – but at some point one may fall (how the mighty fall) the process of decline is scary.
Like cancer – you look healthy on the outside but be ill on the inside (decline unlike cancer is self inflicted)

Five stages of decline – three of them look healthy from the outside.
You can fall to the end of stage 4 and come back as a great enterprise.

Is the journey depressing? We are all vulnerable to a point and to know that even if you stumble, it is still in our own hands to come back – gives me some hope.

The world is challenging for us – rate the environment in which you operate – 1 everything is in your control (1-10) 10 is environment big forces, high uncertainty turbulence
Put your hand up if you are… 1-4 5-7 8-9
Control of our destiny is in our choices not our environment – decline is self inflicted, so is growth!

Light – success… dark – failure
Lets look at both sides

What do you need to do differently?

It never hurts to reinforce the basics – level 5 leadership
Why would orgs fail to succeed.. ???

Fail to embrace the new

Fail to apply the fundamentals consistently and brilliantly
Hubris – outrageous suffering (look this up)
The moment you think you are great… you are not!
The very greatest orgs gave the greatest credit to others rather than themselves, even when the evidence suggests otherwise. If you ‘worry’ that you are lucky then you tend to work hard at success – if you think it is you, we tend to stop (Mike - remember status group)
I’m a leadership sceptic, you cannot remove a leader and expect good results? Many good to great ‘leaders’ have had a charisma bypass…

The type of leadership is what matter.. in great they had level 5 leaders – the contrast level 4
The difference between level 4 & 5 – humility – obsessive compulsion for the cause – not for themselves – their ego is channelled outward – not about them.

Level 5 is not about personality, some have it some don’t
The relevant question is.. What are you in it for? Great CEOs would die for their culture…
Those in power, root causes – what is the truth of their ambition, stripped for the truth – are they really in it first for themselves? In ever single case for decline at the end of stage 2 there is a problematic succession of power issue
No single person can make a great enterprise

On a downswing, the wrong person with power can single handed can bring the organisation down.
What are you doing to ensure that does not happen.
You may think that orgs fail because they become complacement – this is true, nut not how the mighty fall – over-reaching – too much growth…
How would you know if you are overreaching? There are few ‘laws’ of management – “Packard’s law” (from HP Packard)

Look at Rubbermaid – too many new products too often.

If you allow growth to exceed your ability to have enough of the right people in the right seats to manage that growth – you will fall
Great leaders say “I don’t know” because they don’t know what is going to happen
The data suggests that the great people do not vision the future – what they do better is they prepare for what they cannot predict.
Get the right people on the bus, get the wrong people off the buss – then the right people in the right seats.
Use whatever competencies you have – that when fin are discussed an even more important number is discussed – number of seats and right people on the bus – how many key seats, is it filled with the right people is it going up or down? Do this before any other business numbers. We love numbers this is the uber number.
Can you get that accomplish this before you attend next year?
Is your team on the way up or down?
When something is ugly – that is the thing to look at and examine.
Look at the Stockdale paradox – Admiral Stockdale – how did the situation not ‘put him down’ “I never wavered in my faith that I would get out, and that I would value the experiences” who did not make it out – the optimists.. those that said we would be out by Christmas… then Christmas would come and go…you must never confuse the need to face the facts with the unwavering faith that you will win in the end.

Like Shirlock Holmes – it’s the dogs that do not bark that give more away that is apparent at first.

No incentive system can transform good to great leaders

The right people are self motivating – the role of leaders is not to motivate,

The task is to find self motivated people and find ways not to de-motivate them

You do not need external people to ‘light’ the organisation.
Stag 4 grasping for survival – how do you respond? – basics.. right people, right seats…. Or do we grasp for salvation with a new leaders from the outside? If that silver bullet does not work.. well get another? If you stay here long enough you will go to stage 5

No leaders can do anything useful in less than 7 years –
Change does not happen overnight

Keep pushing in a consistent and intelligent direction.. it’s the small consistent steps that work not the sliver bullet

3 circles…. Focus on the middle.. we need the discipline to stay in the 3 circles

Think about it from a people standpoint – its not just an org value.
Imagine not taking a job unless the job fits your 3 circles.

Passion--best in the world--economic

If you have a to do list – do you have a stop doing list?
You have to have a personal reason to succeed….the reason to be must be much greater than just increasing shareholder value – it needs to be emotionally tangible
When we are under pressure do not compromise values – you will not have the strength to endure.

Hold your value – change your practices (yin yang slide)

The signature of mediatory is chronic inconsistency.

In the last 10 mins I would like to give you a to do list..

Be productively subservice to your orgs

1) conduct your diagnostics – a diagnostic tool – good to great diagnostic)

2) before you return you somehow implement Packards law – how many seats

3) build a personal board of directors – chosen not for their success but for their character

4) turn off you electronic gadgets – discipline thoughts take time to process give ‘white space’ time engage in thinking at least 3 days every 2 weeks

5) what is your questions to statements ratio, can you double it ----focus on being interested rather than interesting….

6) Help org build a council and make sure the co focuses on its 3 circles

7) Start your stop doing list – work is infinite – time is not?

8) Replace titles with responsibilities – the right people have resp not jobs

9) Re articulate and re commit to the value, no matter what the pressure you will not budge from

10) Set your Big Hairy Audacious goals BHAGS – 15-25 years in the future

Its easy to focus on survival…. The real question is… How can you be useful?

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This entry is a raw input from notes taken in the session, in the coming weeks these will be refined

Monday, 16 November 2009

its all go in Manchester

I have just had a look around the new venue for the annual conference and exhibition for 2009 and it looks great... Although there are a lot of busy exhibiters getting ready.

Signs on Lamp-posts welcome visitors

Ouch - those bushes are prickly!

late Mon afternoon - its all coming together.

Here is to a short evening to you all

See you in the morning

CIPD09 and beyond

Are you attending this years annual CIPD exhibition and conference?

Remember the http://myevent.cipd.co.uk/ event site containing blogs, discussions and networking opportunities.

If you are a user of the CIPD communities then this link will prove invaluable - Latest posts

For those that want to network "outside" the CIPD systems there is always the CIPDmembers group on LinkedIn and the conference networking group

You can also follow the action on Twitter

Hope to see you there

Sunday, 1 November 2009

CIPD Manchester 2009 - speakers

Mark Adams

HR Director

Abbey Facing up to Global HR Challenges

Mark Adlestone

Managing Director

Beaverbrooks the Jewellers All You Need is Love

Sanjiv Ahuja

Chairman and CEO

Augere and former CEO, Orange SA Transformational Leadership

Greig Aitken

Group Head of Human Capital Strategy

Royal bank of Scotland Group Developing HR Metrics that Support the Organisational Strategy

Lacey All

Head, Strategic Talent Initiatives

Starbucks Coffee Co. Building a Strategic Workforce Planning Framework

Mike Anderson

Head of Corporate Strategy

DEFRA Working Together for Sustained Organisational Performance

Julie Armstrong

HR Director

Manchester Airport Communicating with impact: achieving buy-in and engagement

Anthony Arter

Partner, Head of Pensions

Eversheds Recession Driven Employment Law and Pension Issues

Javier Bajer

Founding CEO

The Talent Foundation Unlocking Leadership Talent

Christine Bamford

Director of Leadership

National Leadership and Innovation Agency for Healthcare Fighting Back Through Talent Innovation

Chris Barez-Brown

Founder, Upping Your Elvis, author of How to Have Kick Ass Ideas and former Global Head of Innovation Capability and Director

?What If! Releasing Your People’s Creative Genius

Angela Baron

Adviser, Employee Engagement

CIPD Demonstrating How Performance Management Drives Organisational Improvement

Sylvia Baumgartner

Director

Labyrinth Coaching & Consulting, Embodied Learning and Transformation (formerly OD Principal Consultant for Roffey Park Institute) Facilitating OD Interventions

Nick Baylis

Director for Training in the Skills of Well-being

The Cambridge Well-being Consultancy The Rough Guide to Happiness

John Beadle

Group Head, Human Capital Performance

Standard Chartered Bank The Death of Performance Related Pay and the Bonus Culture?

David Benson

Head of Talent and Resourcing

Oxfam GB Building Capability: the agile organisation

Sir Howard Bernstein

Chief Executive

Manchester City Council Driving Transformational Change

Cris Beswick

Managing Director

Let’s Think Beyond Building Innovation Capability

Stephanie Bird

Director HR Capability

CIPD Leading the HR Function

Christine Brereton

Deputy Director for People and Development

Greater Manchester Police HR: Adding Value and Driving Change

W. Warner Burke

Edward Lee Thorndike Professor of Psychology and Education, and Chair, Department of Organisation and Leadership, Teachers College, Columbia University Organisational Development

Lou Burrows

Global People Team Leader

?What If! Harnessing the Power of Social Media in the Workplace

Cathy Butterworth

Director of People and Development

Greater Manchester Police HR: Adding Value and Driving Change

Steven Cahill

Partner

Global Employer Services, Deloitte LLP The Death of Performance Related Pay and the Bonus Culture?

Andrew Campbell

Director

Ashridge Strategic Management Centre and co-author of Designing Effective Organisations Organisation Design

Janice Caplan

Partner

The Scala Group and the ACE Network Europe Developing People Across Cultural and National Boundaries

Peter Cheese

Managing Director, Talent and Organisation Performance

Accenture A New Approach to Talent Management

Rebecca Clake

Adviser – HR Practice Development

CIPD Developing a Leadership Culture

Deborah Clarke

Joint Director of HR

London borough of Tower Hamlets and Tower Hamlets Primary Care Trust Window on the Future of Business, Diversity and Inclusion

Nita Clarke

Director

Involvement and Participation Association (IPA) The Government Engagement Review: findings and the next steps

Wayne Clarke

Managing Partner

Best Companies All You Need is Love

Jim Collins

Author of Good to Great and Co-author of Built to Last

The Quest for Greatness

An Audience with Jim Collins

Joe Connor

National Regional Resourcing Manager

Royal Mail HR Services, Royal Mail Transformational Leadership

Anne Copeland

Director of HR

Department for Children, Schools and Families Building Capability: the agile organisation

Charles Cotton

Public Policy, Adviser

Reward, CIPD The Perfect Pensions Storm

Richard Crouch

Head of HR and OD

Somerset County Council HR’s Role in Organisational Development

Siobhan Cummins

Managing Director Europe

ORC Worldwide Facing up to Global HR Challenges

Andy Dickson

General Manager

Impact International Practically Engaging

Practically Engaging

Sharon Doherty

Group HR and Organisational Effectiveness Director

Laing O’Rouke Beyond Business Partnering: truly aligning HR with the business

Joe Dugdale

Director of Human Resources & Organisational Directorate

UK Border Agency Transforming HR Efficiency in the Public Sector

Steve Easterbrook

President and Chief Executive Officer

McDonald’s UK, President, Northern Division, McDonald’s Europe A New Leadership Paradigm

Mary Edmunds

Head of HR, OD and Talent

Barclays Bank Beyond Employee Engagement

Rick Emslie - Principal - Emslie Analytics

Tuesday, 20 October 2009

Don't let SEO burst your budget

SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is specialist, expensive and you need to know what you are doing.. don’t you?

SEO-image-small Right?… wrong!

The commercial and financial climate that we are operating in is causing most of us to tighten our belts and think twice about spending. This especially true for Training, HR and other small consultancies and entrepreneurs.

The challenges for new startup firms and those that are trading but need a change of strategy to keep the work coming is:

“How are we going to get seen on the web in order to market ourselves effectively?”

Who can do this for us – it’s hard to get seen on the web isn’t it?

Your web designer will say that they can offer SEO and indeed a search on the web will give you 1000s of people and firms promising to get you on page one of Google. And all for £500-£1000 per month… ouch!

In good trading times this may be hard to justify – but in tough times?

The reality is that it is easy to get seen on page one of Google or other search engines – the ‘con’ a lot of providers will do is to help you find a “key word phrase” that is almost unique to you, and get that on page one of Google – easy.

Take a look at the phrase “squarespace template design” if I search for the term without quotes I get:

(See the current results yourself here – http://bit.ly/ASXKQ )

And with the quotes we get:

(See the current results yourself here – http://bit.ly/B4dRS )

This is a great ‘trick’ with the first search term Google only shows 6,730 results, getting to the top of only 6000 pages is not that difficult. On the second example where the search is for the exact phrase, there are only 4 results. Now after this blog is published the results will be very different. So using some simple techniques (that I will share with you) watch the results change over time. (this article is being written on 10/10/09).

The real test of SEO is getting to the first page for a popular search term- one with 10,000s or millions of results.

I say this is a ‘con’ as who would look for a product name? very few in the business world – our customers are looking for solutions to their problems. They wont be looking for “ABC Inc” – they will be looking for “train the trainer provider” or “train the trainer provider in London”. You need to think like your clients and find key words and phrases that they will be looking for.

So what are the secrets to doing SEO for yourself?

1) Research your customers and find out what they are looking for – you need to discover key words and phrases. (if it is things like “leadership development” “management development” or “train the trainer” then good luck for there are millions of sites with these words and while it is possible, it is very tough and time consuming. One way of making the achievable is to have a specialism i.e.:

Management development in the care sector
Train the trainer in Berkshire
Leadership development for women

The more specialist you can be the more likely your success at getting seen on the web .

2) Get your web developer to add your keywords to your site – in the title, in the description and in the other meta-tag areas of your pages – have different key words and phrases for each page

3) Write copy for those pages which make use of your keywords – repeat the phrase 3-5 times (each page MUST be very different)

4) Write a blog(off your site and free Wordpress or blogger), ensure that the content is supportive of your key words and include these in some of your articles – then have these articles link to your site (relevant pages) – yes put the links in the article, not just links on the blog itself

5) Promote your blog – on forums, on other blogs and on twitter. The ‘trick’ or secret is content and links. One powerful and low cost strategy is:

Where you use tools like Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Ning and forums to promote content that you have written on your blog. These are articles that are of interest to your audience. Your goal is to build a ‘name’ in your potential clients heads that you:

a) can be trusted

b) that you know what you are taking about

c) that you can solve their problems

d) you are confident enough that you ‘give away’ valuable material

As Robin Elliot said “Enthusiasm is contagious. When you are absolutely convinced, sold, passionate, enthusiastic and confident about what you're offering, it's hard NOT to sell.”

Have compelling reasons in your blog for readers to explore your site.

6) Encourage others to promote your blog, use Linkedin and other vehicles - with great content people will link to your blog – I recently (yesterday!) had a major US training provider send a link to a blog post to over 14000 of their clients – wonderful

7) Have good value material on your site, answer the questions purchasers want to ask, make sure your contact details are easily found – keep the site up to date. the site does not need to be large – but it must be kept fresh.

In SEO content is king.

The more you specialise the easier it is to write unique content, the more niche the content the greater the opportunity you have of attracting visitors, the more visitors the greater conversions you will have. SEO is no longer about the technical “stuff” that developers do – its is all about content and people valuing your content

The ultimate goal is to have people buy you and your service not you having to pitch and sell.

Purchasing SEO

Before you pay anyone for SEO work on your site check out their site. If they advocate using a blog – what is their blog look like? If they claim to be able to get you on page 1 of Google for your search terms – look and see if they have done it for themselves (use view source in your browser and Google the text they are using under “keywords”) – make sure they walk their talk – if they don’t – walk away!

Summary

Wow this is a lot of content for you to get your head around.

In follow-up articles I will share:

Step by step HOW to do each of the above (not the meta-tag – best left to the programmers)

I’ve already told you all you need to know – i.e. the WHAT

Then WHERE and WHEN will also feature.

SEO is best done by yourself, or in the very least as a partnership – don’t outsource this core part of your business – your Internet reputation.

PS if you want to check out these techniques for yourself, I have a ’secret’ project running. For 3 weeks I have been trying to get “train the trainer” with and without the quotes ranked in Google. This is a difficult one to break, I tried once before using old techniques and failed.

I am now hovering between pages 1 & 2 with over 3m results! Watch my progress http://bit.ly/sXDXE (staying on page 1 is my goal – not being at the top)

You do not need to do ALL the things I have talked about, but do link your strategies… http://rapidbi.com/management/2009/10/dont-let-seo-burst-your-budget/
tracking

Saturday, 10 October 2009

Don't let SEO burst your budget

SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is specialist, expensive and you need to know what you are doing.. don’t you?

SEO-image-small Right?… wrong!

The challenges for new startup firms and those that are trading but need a change of strategy to keep the work coming is:

“How are we going to get seen on the web in order to market ourselves effectively?”

Who can do this for us – it’s hard to get seen on the web isn’t it?

In good trading times this may be hard to justify – but in tough times?

Take a look at the phrase “squarespace template design” if I search for the term without quotes I get:

(See the current results yourself here – http://bit.ly/ASXKQ )

And with the quotes we get:

(See the current results yourself here – http://bit.ly/B4dRS )

The real test of SEO is getting to the first page for a popular search term- one with 10,000s or millions of results.

So what are the secrets to doing SEO for yourself?

Management development in the care sector
Train the trainer in Berkshire
Leadership development for women

The more specialist you can be the more likely your success at getting seen on the web .

3) Write copy for those pages which make use of your keywords – repeat the phrase 3-5 times (each page MUST be very different)

5) Promote your blog – on forums, on other blogs and on twitter. The ‘trick’ or secret is content and links. One powerful and low cost strategy is:

a) can be trusted

b) that you know what you are taking about

c) that you can solve their problems

d) you are confident enough that you ‘give away’ valuable material

As Robin Elliot said “Enthusiasm is contagious. When you are absolutely convinced, sold, passionate, enthusiastic and confident about what you're offering, it's hard NOT to sell.”

Have compelling reasons in your blog for readers to explore your site.

In SEO content is king.

The ultimate goal is to have people buy you and your service not you having to pitch and sell.

Purchasing SEO

Summary

Wow this is a lot of content for you to get your head around.

In follow-up articles I will share:

Step by step HOW to do each of the above (not the meta-tag – best left to the programmers)

I’ve already told you all you need to know – i.e. the WHAT

Then WHERE and WHEN will also feature.

SEO is best done by yourself, or in the very least as a partnership – don’t outsource this core part of your business – your Internet reputation.

I am now hovering between pages 1 & 2 with over 3m results! Watch my progress http://bit.ly/sXDXE (staying on page 1 is my goal – not being at the top)

You do not need to do ALL the things I have talked about, but do link your strategies… http://rapidbi.com/management/2009/10/dont-let-seo-burst-your-budget/
tracking

Innovation in a recession

How do you innovate when budgets are cut, prices of high tech are increasing and you have less people to do more with?

Innovation in a recession

Innovation is about more than new products and technologies – its about ideas – and ideas from your brain and the brains of your people and networks can be free – all you need to do is give permission to be creative harness the ideas that result – some you can use – most you wont be able to… yet.

In her book The Innovation Equation, Jacqueline Byrd looks beyond invention and looks at innovation as a behaviour – something that can add value in all parts of a company – no matter how big or small.

Byrd defines an innovative organisation as one which;

Encourages its members to operate independently
Rewards people for being inner-directed and developing their own ideas
Values the uniqueness and talents of every contributor
Demonstrates resilience when confronted with setbacks
Knows how to thrive in ambiguous circumstances
Fosters an environment in which individuals are values and rewarded for being authentic
Exhibits self-accepting behaviours “we’re good”

No matter how big or small – no matter how cash rich or poor you are, you can innovate in a recession – indeed it may be the only sustainable competitive advantage you have.

For more information on Byrd’s approach to Innovation through the… http://rapidbi.com/management/2009/08/innovation-in-a-recession/
tracking

Innovation in a recession

How do you innovate when budgets are cut, prices of high tech are increasing and you have less people to do more with?

Innovation in a recession

Byrd defines an innovative organisation as one which;

Encourages its members to operate independently
Rewards people for being inner-directed and developing their own ideas
Values the uniqueness and talents of every contributor
Demonstrates resilience when confronted with setbacks
Knows how to thrive in ambiguous circumstances
Fosters an environment in which individuals are values and rewarded for being authentic
Exhibits self-accepting behaviours “we’re good”

No matter how big or small – no matter how cash rich or poor you are, you can innovate in a recession – indeed it may be the only sustainable competitive advantage you have.

For more information on Byrd’s approach to Innovation through the… http://rapidbi.com/management/2009/08/innovation-in-a-recession/
tracking

Friday, 9 October 2009

Why Organisational Development often fails to deliver

organisation pieces Organisational Development (OD) is the name or label given to many HR and training related strategies, but it is more than that.

Bennis in his early work “Organizational Development: nature, origins & prospects” defines OD as:

“a response to change, a complex educational strategy intended to change the beliefs, attitudes, values and structure of organizations so that they can better adapt to new technologies, markets and challenges”

This is just as true today as it was in 1969!

Research carried out within the Business Link organisation in the late 1990s and Warwick university looked at SME (Small and Medium sized Enterprises) (50-500 employees as an autonomous business unit or legal entity) with the view of identifying why management development strategies did not work. In summary the conclusions were:

Activity not linked to organisational objectives
No overall strategy for corporate development
Corporate culture not taken into account
Purchasers not clear about what they are buying
Suppliers finding solutions to problems they can solve
Lack of evaluation
Time pressures on managers
Change process not managed

These factors were found to be true for: training, organisational development, change and business support and improvement activity.

Starting out on the right foot

Some time ago I undertook a survey called “Developing the Developers” and one of the significant findings of this was the fact that the missing element in the majority of interventions was that of appropriate diagnosis. This is also true in organisational development at a holistic level. For any OD strategy to be effective we need to have a base of understanding of “where are we now”, we need to undertake a review of our business that can act as a benchmark measure. This will also enable evaluation of policy and strategy to be more effective. In other words before undertaking any OD activity we need to undertake some form of quantitative diagnostic process. This will then act as a reference point for all future development interventions and aid the evaluation of success (ROI etc).

Get the diagnostic process right and you have a great chance of success, miss it out or get it wrong and the chances of success are little to none. As the saying goes “fail to plan… plan to fail” planning in an OD context is diagnosis AND prioritisation.

The Business Improvement Review was designed to provide a holistic overview of an organisation with the view of undertaking OD or business improvement… http://rapidbi.com/management/2009/01/why-organisational-development-fails-to-deliver/
tracking

Tuesday, 6 October 2009

Innovation, the first step - dare, change, take a risk

Innovation is about the first step

Innovation is the buzzword of the late naughties, but what does it mean?

“Innovation is the act of introducing something new“

Often we focus on the act of creating, indeed many training and development programmes look to developing creativity in order to create innovative cultures. Is this right?

Innovation can mean two very different things, I suspect that often we confuse the two. many organizations take innovation to be something to do with product and R&D or technology. This is indeed a very specialist area, however it is not for the technology people to hijack a valuable culture and change methodology and approach. In the service sector, in public sector and the NHS we need to look at the culture (how we do things) and the behaviours to deliver added value. This piece looks at innovation as a strategy everyone in an organisation can use to increase productivity, morale and the business as a whole.

You only need to look around. Look at - peoples houses, their gardens, their cars, their sense of fashion – creativity is everywhere. Unfortunately the culture of many work places encourages people to leave their creative brains at the door when they come to work every day. We need to focus not of the act of creation, but the ability to allow people to be creative. To do something with the ideas. This is about culture.

In western society we seem to treat risk as bad. Indeed even the dictionary defines it as:

The possibility of suffering harm or loss; danger

A factor, thing, element, or course involving uncertain danger; a hazard

source: answers.com

Without a ‘risk of loss’ there is no opportunity of gain. Lets look at how we may feel if we change the definition:

The possibility of winning or being successful

A factor, thing, element, or course involving uncertain success or achievement

source: rapidbi.com

The ability to “take a risk” is essential if we want to change the status quo. We need to embrace change. Indeed I would go as far as to say:

Innovation is achieved through creativity AND change preparedness

What are the barriers for you taking a chance, daring do take the first step. I love this video – what does it mean for you in the context of innovation and change?

In the Innovation Equation by Byrd & Brown Innovation is defined as:

Innovation = Risk Taking * Innovation

If Risk taking (act of doing something) is the same as change preparedness – then this is indeed a valuable approach to changing the culture in our organizations.

What will you dare to do… http://rapidbi.com/management/2009/10/innovation-the-first-step-dare-change-take-a-risk/
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Monday, 5 October 2009

Action Learning & Action Learning Sets - Reg Revans

Action Learning & Action Learning Sets

Introduction to Action learning

So what is Action Learning?

A definition of Action Learning

Action Learning Set Who is in it?

A ‘Set’ Meeting

Action Learning Projects

Participating in an Action Learning Set

Structuring your time

Introduction to Action learning

When devising a management development programme, it is important to ensure that participants are not only ‘taught’ or trained, but that they have an opportunity to put learning into action. Experience has shown us that unless we practice new skills and ideas soon after a programme we tend to forget the lessons learnt.

Action Learning is one of the methods effective programmes use to help participants apply learning. Other formal approaches will include your Line manager and your mentor.

Action Learning works best when a ‘Set’ of individuals are put together as a support group for the duration of the learning activity.

Action learning is a form of experiential learning, where “

Experiential Learning is the process of making meaning from direct experience”

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So what is Action Learning?

Action learning is based upon the concept of learning by reflection (or reviewing) on an experience. It is underpinned by the cycle of experiential learning as shown below, where the stages of reviewing and concluding are worked through with the Set.

In practice many of us tend to short circuit this cycle and often ship the reviewing phase as it is often difficult to do out of context.

Action learning will help ‘close the loop’ and ensure our learning is as effective as possible (more about learning cycles in module one). Action Learning Sets are primarily focused on the individual’s learning.

An Action Learning programme involves the following key elements:

The Set: a group of 6 – 8 people who meet regularly.
The Projects: each participant works on a project or task over the life of the set

The Set Adviser: a facilitator who helps the group to work and learn together.

Although Action Learning is flexible, it is not unstructured and focuses on the individual and their need NOT on the programme.

Participants on Action Learning Programmes have quoted many benefits which they have gained from action learning:

learning a more ‘disciplined’ way of working
learning to network
learning to relate to, and communicate with, others more effectively
gaining increased self-confidence
gaining increased awareness
gaining increased readiness to take responsibility and initiative.

In summary, the values which underpin action learning are:

membership of a set is voluntary
commitment must be demonstrated in making the process work
a positive, constructive approach to life
reflection as the key to learning
the presenter is focused (on her/his own issue)

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A definition of Action Learning

“Action Learning is an approach to the development of people in organisations which takes the task as the vehicle for learning. It is based on the premise that there is no learning without action and no sober and deliberate action without learning.

The method has three main components: people who accept responsibility for taking action on a particular issue; problems, or the task that people set themselves; and a set of six or so colleagues who support and challenge each other to make progress on problems. Action Learning implies both self-development and organisation development.” Mike Pedler (1991)

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Action Learning Set Who is in it?

An Action Learning Set is a group of 6-8 people who meet regularly to help each other to learn from their experiences. A Set Adviser is appointed to help manage the process. The set is not a team since its focus is on the actions of the individuals within it rather than on a shared set of work objectives.

Experience has shown that sets often work better when participants come with a similar level of experience. The Set Adviser is part of the set in one sense but has a particular responsibility to create a learning environment by encouraging, challenging and focusing on learning. Some Action Learning Sets are self-facilitated.

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A ‘Set’ Meeting

The Set will decide on its own way of working but usually a ‘meeting’ involves a series of individual time slots where participants take turns in presenting their project/ challenge/ issue to the set. This will normally involve:

an update of progress on actions from the last meeting
a presentation of current issues/problems
an agreement on actions for the future.

Throughout this, other participants will work with the presenter (by listening and questioning) to help them to decide what actions to take.

Time is always a limited resource in a set meeting and the Set Adviser must ensure that set participants get their full allocation (it is not a free discussion).

Some Sets develop a fixed agenda to speed up the start of the meeting but in any case, all participants should come fully prepared for the meeting.

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Action Learning Projects

The project is the piece of work around which the participant learns. It does not need to be linked to specific outcomes such as setting up a safety audit carrying out a particular task but could also be about acquiring skills or knowledge. For the purposes of this programme, however, the project must have a learning focus.

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Participating in an Action Learning Set

Preparing for a Set meeting:

Before the meeting it will help to get the best out of the session if participants can think through what to focus on with their set. The set may be somewhere that participants can ‘experiment’ with different behaviours such as consciously asking more questions than usual or being more reflective if they are usually very talkative. Presenters should:

prepare for meetings
structure their time
be clear about what they want – or want the set to – focus on
learn to ask for what they want
listen
generate action points for them self.

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Structuring your time:

Usually, the presenter will use their time to report on action taken as a result of the previous set meeting. It is useful to think about:

what I did
what happened
what was different from what I expected
what I did not do – why – what I did instead
what can I/have I learned from this?

This can form the basis for reporting back to the set who will then ask questions. The presenter can continue with:

what is the issue now
what actions could I take now
what action points can I identify

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Alternative Approaches
A presenter may wish to concentrate on a particular aspect of their project that s/he thinks the set can really help with. This gives a depth of focus which may be a more appropriate use of time than an overview.

Alternatively, the presenter may wish to ask the set to talk about a particular problem and s/he will listen and only ask for clarification at the end of an agreed time. This is helpful if the presenter is stuck for ideas to take the work forward.

The reverse of this is where the audience remains silent and the presenter talks through the project. A listening, attentive audience may help the presenter to clarify thinks for her/himself.

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Reviewing your time
At the end of each participant’s time slot it is useful for the presenter to review with the set the process by which the action points have been identified. S/he might ask for feedback on how s/he presented the project or might give the set feedback on what was helpful or unhelpful about the set’s interventions.

This can also be done by the whole set near to the end of the meeting. It helps the set to develop a supportive learning climate to work in.

A typical meeting might follow this format:

Introduction – a warm-up activity and confirmation of programme for the meeting
In agreed order each person in the Set:
- 10 Minute presentation of current ’state of play’/ position
- 10 minute of exploratory questions from the Set to help the presenter think through the issue
- 5 minute presentation to the Set on the action plan.
Closing session – time taken for the whole group to finish the meeting rather than drift off at the end. Would include an element of evaluation – what will we do differently next time.

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For more information on Action Learning & Action Learning Sets contact Mike
Morrison @ tracking

How to receive feedback from your manager

As my good friend @Quicklearn said on twitter a few days ago:

“So much written on how to give feedback. What help is out there for those destined to receive it?”

It promoted me to think.. in this light hearted reply (well it is the August silly season) lets look at the feedback methods and what they actually mean for you the recipient:

The feedback sandwich:

Praise (Bread)
‘Feedback’ (Meat)
Praise (Bread)

This approach is not to help us the recipient feel good – it is to soften the message for the giver. We all learn very quickly that when ‘good’ stuff is mentioned we know that “here come the message” – we hear the criticism and are so busy focused on the negative that we do not hear the follow on good stuff. This is not helped as the ‘good stuff’ is usually so fluffy that it is meaningless.

Managers – do not use this.

McGill provide these useful suggestions about giving effective feedback, here with comments for the recipients as to what is attempting to be achieved:

Clarity — Be clear about what you want to say. - as recipients we understand the purpose
Emphasise the positive — This isn't being collusive in the person’s dilemma – we are not all bad just this one mistake
Be specific — Avoid general comments and clarify pronouns such as "it," "that," etc. – we need to know exactly what we did wrong/ incorrectly
Focus on behaviour rather than the person – we are human and our intension was positive although our action may not have been appropriate
Refer to behaviour that can be changed – the manager is trying to help us here
Be descriptive rather than evaluative – they are giving use the facts as they see it without bias
Own the feedback – Use 'I' statements – the feedback is from them as a person
Generalisations – Notice "all," "never," "always," etc., and ask to get more specificity — often these words are arbitrary limits on behaviour - the more general the manager makes the feedback the more defencive we get as it feels like we are being attacked.
Be very careful with advice – People rarely struggle with an issue because of the lack of some specific piece of information; often, the best help is helping the person to come to a better understanding of their issue, how it developed, and how they can identify actions to address the issue more effectively.- we will only listen to ‘advice’ if we trust the person and have respect for their views

Ref Action learning: A practitioner's guide”, London: Kogan Page, 1994, p. 159-163

What good and bad experiences have you… http://rapidbi.com/management/2009/08/how-to-receive-feedback-from-your-manager/
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Friday, 2 October 2009

25 great tips on employee engagement - morale boosters

25 great tips on employee engagement – morale boosters

In difficult and tough economic times we still need to engage with our employees. While the big budgets may not be available any more there are lots of things that we can do which are effective.

The strategy for boosting employee morale – fast, is based on Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of five basic human needs. He arranged these needs in the shape of a pyramid with each level forming the foundation for the next level.

Maslow hierarchy of needs

Self-Actualization needs – realising personal potential, self-fulfilment, seeking personal growth and peak experiences.
Esteem needs – self-esteem, achievement, mastery, independence, status, dominance, prestige, managerial responsibility, etc.
Belongingness and Love needs – work group, family, affection, relationships, etc.
Safety needs – protection from elements, security, order, law, limits, stability, etc.
Biological and Physiological needs – air, food, drink, shelter, warmth, sex, sleep, etc.

Below are ten ideas to start your thinking. many of these are obvious, but they are good to have in your employee engagement and morale-building tool-kit:

Praise people – look to “Catch People Doing it Right”, rather than trying to catch people out
Welcome Ideas – employee morale improves when people feel they are valued. Share and implement their innovations and ideas
Say thank-you. Even when there’s no money that changes hands, it can be extremely rewarding for an employee to know that his/her boss appreciate the work he/she is doing. Use the SMART approach – be specific about what you are thanking people for
Write a letter or email of appreciation. This doesn’t have to be expensive or even on a greeting card that is bought from a shop
Award a certificate of appreciation. The real value to the employee is in the realisation that their contribution is recognised and appreciated
Take the employee to lunch or out for a cup of coffee. Simply spending time together with the opportunity to say thanks and to exchange ideas is valuable
Buy a scratch-card or a lottery ticket (assuming doing so is compatible with everyone’s values) and give it along with a short note or card. Lottery tickets are fairly inexpensive, but can be fun and (in some instances) financially rewarding
Bring in donuts (or a selection of fruit if you’re health-conscious) for your people
Have a pot-luck breakfast or lunch. This is something that everyone can participate in and enjoy. The cost is manageable and it provides an opportunity for some enjoyable interaction
Hold a silly contest. In an office context, for example, you could award a prize for the most cheerful office or around holiday time in December for the most brightly decorated office or office-space
Give a new, interesting assignment. The key here is to make sure it’s something interesting to the employee. Sometimes all that’s needed to boost morale is a little bit of variety and a change of pace
Do a short employee survey to find out what employees like and don’t like about their jobs – and take action (where possible and sensible) to minimise the dislikes
Ensure that all senior managers spend a day on the ’shop-floor’ or customer-facing once a month
Have senior managers have lunch/ breaks with staff on a regular basis
On hot days arrange for ice-creams or iced drinks to be provided
Have senior people say ’sorry’ publicly when something has gone wrong (I am sorry – not we are sorry – needs to be personal)
Make time for fun. Incorporating some fun into your workday is a terrific morale booster
Encourage peer recognition. “People like to be recognised personally by their peers”
Encourage people to ‘decorate’ or personalise their working space – people perform better in comfortable surroundings
If deadlines or targets have been met then let people go home early on a Friday (not every week – its supposed to be a reward not an expectation)
Offer stress relief activities. Hire a local massage school to offer free 10-minute chair massages
Help people feel valuable. Talk with employees about the types of projects, training, or experiences they would like to have. Times may be diffivult and tough for people to get jobs, but your best people are also the most marketable
Celebrate peoples birthdays. Empower managers to ‘do something different’ for each person, help them feel special
Measure It, keeping a watch on the levels of morale in your business/ organization/ firm by regularly measuring employee satisfaction
Fire Staff. Sometimes the root cause of low employee morale can be an employee whose negativity brings down the team. Even a top performer can bring down staff behind your back (didn’t see this one coming… or did you?)

Remember these are meant to be boosters – so the effects they will have are short term individually – but a culture of going the extra mile and doing the ‘little things’ builds engagement. These techniques work best when they are not done to a formula – this feels impersonal and will defeat the objective.

For information on RapidBI’s cost effective on-line (customisable) employee engagement and satisfaction survey - The EESS.

Feel free to add your top morale booster tips as comments:
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Tuesday, 29 September 2009

CIPD annual conference 2009 - Manchester

As this years CIPD annual conference and exhibition gets closer - have you booked yet?

This is the first year that the CIPD is moving its conference from Harrogate to Manchester on the 17-19 November. It will be interesting to see how this move works. certainly moving from Harrogate - when it was the only conference in town, to Manchester where there will be other events on at the same time will be a cultural change for the event in many ways.

In days gone by, the CIPD 'main event' was surrounded by a number of unofficial fringe events - will the move to Manchester spark that same level of entrepreneurship?

Are you planning to go?

If you are into twitter check out hash-code #cipd09

Saturday, 26 September 2009

Twitter as a learning aid - learning beyond university to informal learning

Learning beyond university to informal learning using micro-blogging

formal university learning Twitter can be used as a great aid to learning, but is it a replacement for traditional learning strategies?

Following the publication of a recent post Why Twitter is good for learning we have received a significant amount of supportive feedback. However some academic based sites have criticised the piece without understanding some of the fundamentals of learning and what Twitter and other micro-blogging platforms are capable of offering. Certainly learning appears to be stuck in the confines of “formal learning”, apparently missing the 80% of real learning that most of us do on a day to day basis.

It is interesting, as I sit and write this I am thinking about getting ready to attend the IITT annual training conference, one of only two “formal learning” interventions I will have undertaken for several months. But is this the only learning I do? .. no. I learn far more in an informal way from reading blogs , twitter and networking with like (and unlike) people.

This short piece has been written to provide some clarity on the application of the first article.

Firstly let me clarify my thoughts:

I am not advocating that Twitter can replace e-learning, classrooms or books, nor indeed any formal learning tool or strategy, however I am advocating use of twitter as an adjunct to learning strategies as a blended approach to re-enforce learning and key messages. We know that the most effective learning needs to be ‘just in time’, in a styles (learning or communication) that suits the learner, and that repetition helps.

Having read comments on other sites about this piece it is interesting that some people equate learning to be education, and only effective from university or books. Learning to me is very different from education and knowledge. Indeed our own model:

Knowledge >>> Understanding >>> Action = Learning

shows this – where education often only provides the knowledge.

Our work over the past 10 years with many owner-managers and entrepreneurs (many educated at some of the worlds leading MBA courses, UK, US & EU) clearly demonstrate that people gain knowledge on such courses, however real Understanding comes from making real world mistakes after putting it into action. Not from comprehension at an academic level. Many exiting from MBAs and other such programmes believe they have understanding – however as is often shown using the model – the four steps to learning we don't know what we don't know (unconscious competence), is often the mental state we are in after completing such a course. This is not to say that these programmes are not of value, they are – but not in the way many expect.

Not all learning occurs within the confines of a university or other establishment

Twitter is a tool which appears to have been adopted more by those in the age group 30-45 and little in the group 18-25. This says a lot about the platform and its relevance. Twitter as a learning tool is by its nature adhoc, sporadic, informal and most of all unstructured. Exactly the way we learn when we are not on a fixed programme of study. It is very much about learning what you need to learn at a given point in time.

So twitter and other micro-blogging tools:

great to create a spark – a desire to learn
great to find current thinking – and to start the journey of learning in a given area
excellent for adhoc information and knowledge acquisition
excellent as a refresher to existing learning
excellent for learning from peers and their experiences

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Wednesday, 23 September 2009

2-minute Twitter guide for marketing

Twitter is currently one of the fastest growing communication tools available to organizations big and small. While origionally designed as a social networking/ chat tool, it is rapidly finding its way as a marketing and training tool.

Twitter is both a social and marketing tool – don’t abuse either approach. If your tweets are mainly business – tell people in your bio or DM (if you must). If its mainly personal declare it too – sure you many lose some followers in the short term, but gain in the long term.

Some simple rules to help you get the most out of this marketing tool:

* Don't over-promote. Twitter is not just a marketing tool
* Send a key message a couple of times at different times of the day
* Don’t send the same message begging people to support your site 100s of times – let them choose to support or not
* Be helpful. Offer advice and useful links – not just to your site
* Don't stay on Twitter all day. Treat it like a visit to the coffee machine
* ReTweet messages you think your followers will value
* ReTweet reciprocal tweets to blogs from your followers and they will do the same
* Ask questions, get involved in debates
* Be polite
* Be yourself. Never pretend to be someone else
* If you want to send something sensitive, send a direct message
* Never swear
* Never flame
* Have fun – lots of it

See 24/7 tweet on Twitter
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Tuesday, 22 September 2009

What is happening in the world of L&D (Training)? Is it changing?

Experienced L&D people are bleeding out of organisations and going freelance

training room While talking to a colleague, he confirmed that there appears to be a trend in the training world at the moment. This trend is supported by the change in readership of both my site and blog are getting.

Here is the thought – I’d appreciate your views on this:

Experienced professionals are leaving organisations and going freelance, leaving behind managers and less experienced individuals to carry on delivering.

The evidence:

Times are tough for many organisations and firms are looking to reduce costs. Learning and Development (Training) is seen as a “luxury” so cuts are targeted. People with experience and significant qualifications and competence are seeing the opportunity to take redundancy and “go freelance”.

At networking events there is a distinct increase in the number of “new” coaches and trainers – mainly coaches!

On forums and online networks, there is a trend for a lot of self promotion, and on the whole it looks like people new to the industry, rather than established people “desperate for work”. This activity I have seen on a number of forums and discussion groups I moderate (TrainingZone and LinkedIn)

Types of articles being read. There is certainly (on this site) a trend towards some of the basic articles on “basics of training”, the How to… type of article. The reading numbers for these have gone from 10-12 a day to 30-50, for each article. The numbers here are going through the roof. The extent to which this is L&D professionals looking to information, or people from outside L&D (managers) I do not know – maybe I should add a poll to the site… now there is a thought…

E-Learning

Are those colleagues left behind looking to e-learning as a cost effective way of meeting their organisations needs? certainly, some of our advisers have just undertaken significant contracts providing “Instructional Design” expertise to some of the UKs biggest E-learning providers, as they have a large and growing order book.

Is it that E-learning is more effective? or because it is easier to purchase? E-learning is great for knowledge based acquisition, but not effective (at the low cost end) for behavioural change and improvement. It also requires little skill from the purchaser to have a product, as the role of the “training professional” is to write the basic spec and project manage, not to look at the design itself.

Coaching

Why are so many people leaving industry and setting up as “coaches”? Why are so many people still confused by coaching? Well this latter question is harder to answer – why are new people going freelance and calling themselves “coaches” – simple.. research being published by organisations like the CIPD show that coaching is on the increase, and must be in demand. over the past 2-4 years many people have completed “accredited” and prestigious coaching courses so deem themselves ready for the coaching market.

The CIPD reports says that “90% of organisations now use coaching” which in the context of “Coaching at work” is correct – coaching as a MANAGEMENT STYLE is prolific and has been encouraged. However the growth of the executive or performance coach market (from a purchasers point of view) has not increased at the same rate. Indeed one-to-one coaching seems to be on the cost cutting list. Coaching at work and employing external coaches are not the same thing.

People that call themselves “coaches” but actually deliver “training” are doing themselves and there clients a disservice.

Sustainability

Sustainability needs to be maintained both within the organisation, sustainable standards, skills abilities etc, and in the market place. If too many people pitch for the same work, then often the purchaser will use price as a differentiator. This is not healthy for either side in the long run. A freelance individual must have a sustainable business model, and client organisations must have a sustainable supplier. If you are paying £100 for a current service – what will you do when that provider goes bust – and the going rate is £1000? How long will your budget last?

Outsourcing

One advantage of outsourcing e-learning is that the activity can be done anywhere in the world. India and other parts of the world have high quality software people, but English and grammar is not as good as many of us require it to be. Outsourcing has its own dangers.

Conclusions

When looking to cut costs – be careful what the “price” is of that activity – better to get added value than a “lower cost”.

While an experienced L&D professional my look expensive on the budget sheet, what is the overall saving they are providing your organisation over a year? The purchase of one wrong. ineffective training intervention can easily outweigh the salary and benefits package of a good performer.
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Wednesday, 16 September 2009

Flow - The formula for optimal success (Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi)

Flow is a concept developed by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, in his book “FLOW” he describes peoples experience of what makes an experience genuinely satisfying or what it is like to be in the state of flow.

Flow is a state of consciousness which can be achieved on an individual path, providing optimal performance.

Dynamics of flow or optimal experience

In the book Csikszentmihalyi lists a number of fact which accompany an experience of flow:

1. Clear goals (expectations and rules are discernible and goals are attainable and align appropriately with one’s skill set and abilities).

2. Concentrating and focusing, a high degree of concentration on a limited field of attention (a person engaged in the activity will have the opportunity to focus and to delve deeply into it).

3. A loss of the feeling of self-consciousness, the merging of action and awareness.

4. Distorted sense of time, one’s subjective experience of time is altered.

5. Direct and immediate feedback (successes and failures in the course of the activity are apparent, so that behaviour can be adjusted as needed).

6. Balance between ability level and challenge (the activity is neither too easy nor too difficult).

7. A sense of personal control over the situation or activity.

8. The activity is intrinsically rewarding, so there is an effortlessness of action.

9. People become absorbed in their activity, and focus of awareness is narrowed down to the activity itself, action awareness merging.

Not all are needed for flow to be experienced.

In the past when looking at top performers, business has looked towards sport, and in particular individual based events like athletics. The concept of “being in the zone” during an athletic performance fits within Csikszentmihalyi’s description of the flow experience.

Flow can happen when you're "really into" what you're doing. It also has positive benefits. When you're in a flow state, you're not normally thinking "I'm happy doing this" or "I love this," because you're too focused on the activity. Afterward, though, you might think something like: "That was fun."

Some points about flow:

“People seem to get more flow from what they do on their jobs than from leisure activities in free time.” It turns out that watching TV is not at all a flowful activity. People generally report higher levels of stress, depression, and tension after watching TV. It seems that TV’s main virtue is that it occupies the mind undemandingly. Flow is hard to achieve without effort. Flow is not “wasting time”.
Some activities lend themselves to flow. Immediate feedback, commensurate challenges and skills, and clear goals are all precursors to flow. Lack of these makes flow difficult to achieve.
Some people are inclined to flow. They set goals even when apparently doing nothing, and are able to focus their attention easily. These sorts of people can experience flow even in difficult situations–prison camps and harsh jobs being two examples Csikszentmihalyi studied.
Flow tends to result in personal growth. By engaging in flow, your skills develop, requiring greater challenges to maintain the balance needed for flow.

Biography – Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (pronounced “ME-high CHICK-sent-me-high-ee”) is a professor in the Department of Psychology ( University of Chicago).

He has devoted his life’s work to the study of what makes people truly happy, satisfied and fulfilled. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a member of the National Academy of Education and National Academy of Leisure Sciences. He has been a Senior Fulbright Fellow and currently sits on several boards, including the Board of Advisor’s for the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Mihaly’s work is sort and respected both inside and outside academia, demonstrated by significant and popular articles in Psychology Today, the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, the Washington Post, and Newsweek, and his appearances on foreign television networks such as the BBC and RAI (Italian television), and in several hour long segments of “Nova.”

His current interests include the study of creativity, especially in art; socialization; the evolution of social and cultural systems; and the study of intrinsically rewarding behaviour in work and play settings, all being connected by a conceptual approach based on systems theory.

Watch Mihaly talk about the topic:

Books by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, include:
Flow: The Classic Work on How to Achieve Happiness
Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience
Good Business: Leadership, Flow, and the Making of Meaning
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Tuesday, 15 September 2009

Learning Styles Questionnaire - Honey & Mumford style LSQ - TRAP

A ‘lite’ version of a learning styles questionnaire:

This Learning Styles Questionnaire is loosely based on the model developed by Peter Honey and Alan Mumford this ‘lite’ version can help you identify typical strengths in your learning habits.

Instructions:

Look at the following statements – if they are usually true for you tick the appropriate white box

Question	A	P	T	R
I find it easy to meet new people and make new friends
I am cautious and thoughtful
I get bored easily
I am a practical, “hands on” kind of person
I like to try things out for myself
My friends consider me to be a good listener
I have clear ideas about the best way to do things
I enjoy being the centre of attention
I am a bit of a daydreamer
I keep a list of things to do
I like to experiment to find the best way to do things
I prefer to think things out logically
I like to concentrate on one thing at a time
People sometimes think of me as shy and quiet
I am a bit of a perfectionist
I am enthusiastic about life
I would rather “get on with the job” than keep talking about it
I often notice things that other people miss
I act first then think about the consequences later
I like to have everything in its “proper place”
I ask lots of questions
I like to think things through before getting involved
I enjoy trying out new things
I like the challenge of having a problem to solve
	Activist style	Pragmatist Style	Theorist style	Reflector style
Total number of 'ticks'

The higher scores on the learning styles format questionnaire suggest this is an area of preference. All of us use all of the styles to a greater or lesser extent, using your profile you can better identify learning methodologies suited to your preferences. For descriptions on the four preferences see our other pages:

learning-styles-honey-mumford

http://rapidbi.com/created/learningstyles.html

http://rapidbi.com/management/2009/06/four-learning-styles/

While this simple (unscientific) instrument can be a useful discussion tool, we would highly recommend using Honey and Mumford's LSQ instrument, this questionnaire contains 80, well researched questions and effective analysis. www.peterhoney.com
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Monday, 14 September 2009

The four steps to learning

Four step learning ladder – a model for learning to learn

Personal learning four steps, conscious competence

The Learning Ladder describes the steps we go through when learning a new skill.

Four levels or steps of learning

Unconscious incompetence – We don’t know what we don’t know

Conscious incompetence – We know what we don’t know

Conscious competence – We know what we know

Unconscious competence – We don’t know what we know

It can be applied to virtually all learning scenarios but the example we will use here is learning a second language. Suppose we think about learning to speak German.

How might we understand this learning model?

I begin as a child, at a level of Unconscious Incompetence. I cannot speak the language but I am not aware of this.

I may not even know Germany or language other than my mother tongue exists. One year we go on holiday to Germany. As my awareness expands I move to a level of Conscious Incompetence - I am aware that the language “German” exists and I am aware that I cannot speak it. I now have the option to do something about it.

I embark on a German course and become a proficient speaker. However, I am not yet fluent, I have to concentrate hard to get it right and am aware of my limitations. I am at a level of Conscious Competence.

Finally, after many years of learning and practise I become fluent in German, start to think in German and even dream in German. Speaking a foreign language becomes second nature to me and I no longer have to concentrate hard on the formation of the language. I have reached the level of Unconscious Competence.

Think of some other learning scenarios and see how these steps apply. Consider how you can use this information to help people learn more effectively.

“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life, and you will call it fate.” – Carl Jung

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Four levels of learning - Conscious competence

The personal competence model

Unconscious Incompetence – We don’t know what we don’t know
Conscious Incompetence – We know what we don’t know
Conscious Competence – We know what we know
Unconscious Competence – We don’t know what we know

How to use the Personal competence awareness model:

To communicate with and influence learners it is a prerequisite to prepare them for your ideas and for them to accept the ideas of others (in the group).

Preparing them requires you to understand how and why they react.

An ideal way of understanding an audience is to remember what it was like for you when you first started learning a subject which you subsequently found to be quite difficult.

You may have gone through the four levels of competence or learning chanels.

1 To explain these levels you need only think your own experience when you

first started learning to drive to drive. Before your first lesson, you may have been full of confidence thinking it would be easy. This first stage is described as the level of unconscious incompetence – you don’t know how bad you are yeti You are unaware of your own incompetence.

2 When you started to drive you would have then found out how difficult it

was and you would have been aware of your own inability or incompetence. This stage is the level of conscious incompetence when you know how little you know. It is at this stage that people feel most uncomfortable.

3 After driving for some time you will have gained more confidence and you

then became aware of how well you were doing – this is the level of conscious competence, when you are aware of your own competence.

4 Finally, you passed the test and started driving without even having to think

of the sequence of steps needed to drive a car, you simply did it. This final stage is the level of unconscious competence where being good at something no longer requires a conscious thought process. You are now unconsciously competent. The second stage of the cycle is the one that causes us the most anguish. Human beings as a rule don’t like to know, they don’t know and this is where preparation is of vital importance.

How you prepare an audience will have a great bearing on how much you will communicate with them and how much they will allow you to influence them.

We start by acknowledging possible discomfort. We explain that what may be said may be new but that with sufficient time and explanation things will become clearer and easier. We recognise that there may be certain apprehensions, perhaps even misgivings about the subject. We point out that others, who may have felt the same thing before, benefited and are now using what we are talking about. The preparation is simply to put people at ease about themselves.
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Developing entrepreneurial skills into business people

HAVE-DO-BE or DO-BE-HAVE?

In business we often hear terms like 'business person' or 'entrepreneur' but what do they mean and can we train these skills.Let's look at what these terms mean before we explore a route to development:Business person "a person engaged in commercial or industrial business (especially an owner or executive)"Entrepreneur "An individual who, rather than working as an employee, runs a small business and assumes all the risk and reward of a given business venture, idea, or good or service offered for sale. The entrepreneur is commonly seen as a business leader and innovator of new ideas and business processes".
Definitions taken from www.answers.com

"First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do." – — Epictetus

If this is true, the key difference in 'common understanding' of the terms ‘business person’ and ‘entrepreneur’ include:

Running or owning the business… and
Assumes all the risk and reward… and
A leader… and
An innovator of ideas, products or processes

This could mean that with having achieved the right experiences and doing the job they become a business person.

Where as an entrepreneur becomes the innovator, does something to get the idea or product to market and as a result has (have) achieved the acquisition of skills and knowledge.

In the book The reality game: a guide to humanistic counselling and psychotherapy by John Rowan published in 1983, the authors say:

"Most of us think that if we have enough worldly goods, then we can do what we want to do, and then we can be happy. The sequence "HAVE-DO-BE". But what we say in humanist psychology is exactly the other way around. If we can be who we really are we will find ourselves doing things which genuinely satisfy us and give us enjoyment, and then we shall have all we really want. The sequence for us is "BE-DO-HAVE""

So how does this translate to business and entrepreneurship?

Over the past 10+ years I have been fortunate enough to work with 1000s of business owners and entrepreneurs. The difference is often striking.

The business person wants evidence, facts, resources. They often wait for you to go to them to initiate the relationship in some form. (Have information, do… be)

The entrepreneur wants ideas, thoughts. The entrepreneur will often seek out like minded people; they do not wait to be approached. (Be inquisitive, do … have)

Is this the missing link? All to often we are asked to develop entrepreneurial thinking, to encourage innovation and to generate empowerment. We often look at skills and culture, but do we really look at the psychology of the individual(s) and explore their current thinking preferences?

Developing the skills

The HAVE-DO-BE approach (which is where most employees are) is there, and this seems to be culturally driven. The shift to an entrepreneurial approach of DO-BE-HAVE seems to be one of attitude, and so can be developed.

A development programme would then take the existing journey HAVE-DO-BE for many things and develop the confidence to DO-BE-HAVE. Reflection on each step as well as coaching and mentoring can support the development process.

One approach may well be to coach individuals to take some risks, to challenge current thinking and to adopt a DO-BE-HAVE approach. We need at the same time to put in mechanisms to support the risk-taking and the increased likelihood of errors and mistakes – i.e. the output from learning taking place!
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Wednesday, 26 August 2009

The rising cost of learning… The E-Book - con or hero?

The rising cost of learning…

First there was decimalisation, then the Euro, the litre and now the e-book. Isn't it interesting that to many of us the actual increasing costs of things are not so obvious when there has been a change of culture or context?
With the introduction of decimalisation in the early 70s and latterly the Euro across central Europe many products were rounded up in price. Even more recently the move from selling petrol from gallons to litres allowed the price to jump without many people causing a fuss. I recall when I first passed my test often driving to another garage for ½p price difference on a gallon – but now the price varies by often up to 10p per litre in the same area. People have just accepted it.
What prompted this thought and is it relevant to learning and Development?
Today I was told that I was 'lucky' and had won a prize in a competition. Great I thought, I was provided with a web link and £75 worth of vouchers to spend on downloads of training activities, exercises or icebreakers… hey £75 worth of resources free – not to be sneezed at. Until I realise what they cost – 2*£5 credits per item – itself not outrageous until you look at the printed pack this one activity is derived – 100 items for £249 – or £2.49 each – printed and an electronic copy on disc… now what is the better value… 20 separate purchases or 100 activities? All for the same price. Now I know that we are in a world where we all want it today…now – but is it really that sensible? In the social period that is the credit crunch will people be changing their on-line and resource purchasing habits?
Having looked at this one example I looked at a couple of competitor sites – basically they all do the same thing , but, reading between the lines and looking at the statistics that some of these site show the number of downloads of a single item is not that great. Often in single or low double figures. If you only want one item then £10 is good value – but if you think over time you will need more is it worth paying the price of instant gratification?
The wonderful e-book
This leads neatly on to a conversation I had with a fellow trainer this morning, we were talking about website and selling product and the discussion got round to e-books. Now a good book, with nice pages and well bound costs £6-29 – most around the 'tenner' mark. So why o why do people pay £29, £39 or £49+ for an e-book? Often these publications have poor layout, spelling mistakes and generally not very good in terms of content. What is more we pay to print them on our own printer. Our discussion concluded that people buy e-books because they have learnt to trust the author; after all the web site was written by the author and this builds trust. The language on the ’sales’ page is strong to suggest what you are hetting is great value.
Personally I wonder if it is more simple that that; we believe an e-book is more like software than a book and we know how much software costs (indeed many used to come with huge free books – manuals!).
Books (publications) like the One Minute Manager cost £6.99 or £3.49 on Amazon…. These books have 107 pages of content – few e-books have this many and often cost almost 10 times more.
Is this us as purchasers really buying a quality product – or have we been conned into the currency of the 'download' on the web?
Now I am not saying that people should give all their work away for free – far from it – but as purchasers we need to understand that when comparing one technology with another it is OK to do that and to help the market find the 'right' price for the product on… http://rapidbi.com/management/2009/08/the-rising-cost-of-learning%e2%80%a6-the-e-book-con-or-hero/

Sunday, 23 August 2009

Welcome to the CIPD Annual Conference & Exhibition 2009 from Manchester

Welcome to my event blog.

In 2008 I ran the blog http://cipd2008.blogspot.com a blog dedicated to the CIPD annual conference that tool place in Harrogate.

This year the venue is different - the CIPD has moved this event to November and to Manchester.

I will be there as usual blogging about any of the sessions I attend and twittering about my experiences.
If you are going it would be great to meet up - there is a discussion on the CIPDmembers group on LinkedIn.

Friday, 3 April 2009

#HRD09 are you going

HRD 2009 is nearing, while this year I will not be able to attend the whole conference I will be attending the exhibition.

What are you going for? what are you hoping to achieve?

Monday, 19 January 2009

Learning Technologies 2009

Are you going to this learning based conference and exhibition?

Mike will be blogging from here at http://rapidbi.wordpress.com/ see you there.

Wednesday, 19 November 2008

World of Learning conference and exhibition

If you enjoyed the reviews on the CIPD annual conference then read Mike's blog from the World of learning conference and exhibition 2008 at the NEC.

Friday, 17 October 2008

HR v Personnel - reality or branding?

On one of the forums I 'frequent' there is a lot of discussion on the difference between HR and personnel. There are people that position one as proactive and strategic and the other as more maintenance and welfare. Sure the sentiments behind the drive and focus may well be true - however if there was any real difference other than a 'brand name' then wouldn't larger organisations have both HR & Personnel functions - or in the least use both job titles?

Certainly this is one of the many assignments people undertake as part of their CPP or other HR based qualification, or is it just that some authors are trying to sell books on the back of attempting to get students to differentiate between two sides of the same coin?

Monday, 29 September 2008

Crime Scene Investigators - a role for HR

Has the time come for HR to take on the role of CSI.

The role of Crime Scene investigation has been popularised by US TV, but can HR professionals learn from their methods?

Is there a place for looking at the dead in organisations?

Read more about CSI in HR

Sunday, 28 September 2008

Employee Engagement

Employee Engagement was very much a common theme throughout many of the sessions at this years conference. many of these sessions have prompted me to do follow up research and I found the following presentation to be particularly thought provoking

Employee Engagement A To Z Slides

I have started to compile a roundup of the various approaches to Employee Engagement models so check back for updates...

Wednesday, 24 September 2008

CPD for CIPD members and conference delegates

My main reason for attending the conference was my own CPD and this blog is forming a part of my PDP and record.

What did you learn at the conference? or what have you learnt from this blog or from articles about sessions from the conference.

Key learning

Key learning for me was that many of the speakers were highlighting the importance of engagement of employees (both current and future) to the culture of the organisation, rather than the traditional corporate approach of competence recruitment. This is particularly interesting as the six years I spent working with SME's I noticed that many entrepreneurial owner managers recruit to 'fit', in the company rather than skills as the priority. They would prefer to recruit to culture and attitude and then to train in-house. Although many did not recognise this as training. This has interesting implications for governmental initiatives like train to gain, as these are skill, qualification or competence based programmes

Press reports on the CIPD annual conference

It has been a few days now and time to reflect. One of the interesting things is the diversity and level of coverage the annual conference gets.

A round up
I thought that we were setting a new pace in blogging but Personnel Today did something unexpected - they transcribed the keynote sessions for example Jackie Orme keynote and Surviving and thriving through turbulence . These are useful transcriptions for the keynote sessions.

People Managements site offers us Keep cool and talk during tough times

John Philpot on the CIPD site blog - a scant entry as part of his overall offer.

On TrainingZone Annie Hayes provided an overview of the event.

It will be interesting to see the articles that arise in the coming weeks from the conference content.

Earlier press coverage
Earlier in the year the announcement of the CIPD's decision to move from Harrogate to Manchester caused upset as can be read about in the Yorkshire Post - but can the CIPD be blamed? Customers have increasing demands on suppliers and it appears that while the venue has adapted - the infrastructure around the conference centre has sat back and relaxed. The CIPD annual conference is the second largest conference held annually in Harrogate.

Experience the annual conference and exhibition

Throughout the event the CIPD had its roving camera crew. This caught up with a large number of people and this clearly shows that it was a stimulating event for them.

Unfortunately they appear to have missed:

The community regulars...
The community moderator...
CIPD staff...
The Apprentices
Yours truly

... maybe that was not a bad thing....

But I am sure YOU are there - have a look.... watch the vox pops video
What do you think of the video - does it inspire you to attend Manchester 2009?

For those that want to know more about vox pops at wikipedia, vox pops can be powerful tools for employee engagement, measuring staff satisfaction etc as well as for event promotion.

Tuesday, 23 September 2008

Presentations from the CIPD annual conference

The MyEvent secure social networking facility that the CIPD have been trialing throughout the conference now has some of the presentations used in the seminars. The ability to access and discuss handouts and presentations is a wonderful value added facility.

It appears that some presenters have not given permission... a shame as people have seen them and versions of the presentations were given out in a handout form (small & black and white). If the presenters did not want people copying them they could have been made available as a secure PDF. This is particularly true for some of the presenters who had far too much data on a slide to be visible in the conference session itself. A/V skills (the use of visual aids) of presenters is another topic for another day....

Towards the future
I would urge the CIPD in the furure not to engage with speakers for events that are not willing to share resources (be it PPT or PDF format). We are now firmly in the knowledge age and we should only be engaging with people that are prepared to share. The conference circuit is a wonderful sales opportunity for many of these individuals (they get paid to speak and they get the opportunity to 'sell' their services to many other potential purchasers) and the cost of sharing knowledge should be one they are prepared to pay...

Monday, 22 September 2008

MyEvent - is it or isn't it...?

Having returned from the conference I was keen to look at the presentation promised in the comprehensive session handouts. On Friday one representative from the CIPD sales team returned my call and left a message. When I spoke to the member of the team he told me that due to circumstances beyond their control the presentations from Harrogate would not be up until mid week at the earliest... not what was suggested in the notes from the conference session suggest that they were available immediately... but that is one the joys of being an early adopter.

It is a shame as the promised networking from this facility appears to be a bit of a pipe dream... at least at this stage. This may well be down to too few early adopters registering on the system and more down to the users than the system itself.

Some of the facilities are 'restricted by administrator'...maybe someone has forgotten to throw the 'switch' and I am sure it will all work wonderfully when this is corrected....

Update -
Having spoken to the Conference Producer, it appears that some of the functionality is available only to users with certain profiles - this was a challenge the CIPD community had last year - so looks like it is just teething problems.

The expectation of the presentations being available 'instantly' was an expectations management difficulty - the wording on the handouts saying one thing but realistically the conference organisers needing time to confirm changes with speakers - so with the reassurance that content will be available in a couple of days all is well in MyEvent land.

User Error
With any new system there are two types of error - errors in software.. and user errors.

When I experienced errors when searching I was searching from the wrong page - so the results I obtained were not what I expected - at the right page it was working fine... DOH!

The future
It looks like the CIPD are continuing to invest in this platform and it will provide members and event attendees with some very useful facilities in the future... Next test HRD 2009

When the teething difficulties have been sorted (common with all new IT systems) and users educated (it is very different from traditional forums) and integrated with the existing CIPD community forums, this will be a tremendous facility for all members - taking membership facilities to a new level.

MyEvent... is it or isn't it....
Well that is not a CIPD decision, this is down to users to make use of the excellent facility made available to event delegates. I would encourage CIPD branches to consider educating members in the use of this technology so that when members attend events they can make the most out of it.

Sunday, 21 September 2008

Reflections on the CIPD annual conference and exhibition

What were your reflections on the CIPD annual conference and exhibition? Were you attending as:

Delegate
visitor
Exhibitor
CIPD Staff
or the Press

Will you attend Manchester next year? Why?

Thursday, 18 September 2008

Final round in the exhibition halls

The sessions had finished for the conference and the final keynote delivered.. what else was an HR professional to do but take one last walk around the exhibition stands. Many had started packing up early, but as homage to those that 'went the distance' and smiled as us weary 'punters' paced the halls, here are a few that caught my eye...

Management Pocket Books

Dove Nest Group (DNG)

Training Foundation & TAP

DPG and MAP (Goldilocks with the three bears?)

Success-Stories

CMS

People Management

On your feet and ready for action... ever ready?

Being on an exhibition stand is one of the hardest roles and times.. your feet are killing you, you are attempting to engage with people that do not believe they want to talk to you, the relentless rejection - unless you have lots of freebies to give away.

I hope that all the exhibitors obtained the amount of business they deserve based upon the amount of effort each person on each stand delivered... go home.. put your feet up and soak in the bath..... World of learning, HRD and learning technologies are just around the corner.. hope to see you again in 2009 in Manchester.

The Apprentices & other celebrity's in Harrogate - Raising the bar

The Apprentice at the CIPD

Kristina Grimes and Jennifer Celerier... raising the bar Performance Excellence event Kristina Grimes and Jennifer Celerier

The Apprentice at the CIPD

Did you meet Alan Sugar's former apprentices Kristina Grimes and Jennifer Celerier?

They have been in the exhibition representing their company kgjcp, meeting people and promoting their event "Raising the bar" a performance excellence event featuring Jack Black.

What other celebrity's did you meet?

Who else was among us but did not have a stream of press following ?

CIPD celebrity's

Other celebrity's I met included many of the CIPD staff who were quietly ensuring that the event went well and delegates and visitors found their way around - I won't mention everyone by name - but you know who you are - well done and thank you.

Yes you are HR heroes too.

;)

Talking talent (in turbulent times)

Closing Keynote

The Panel

Vicky Wright - President CIPD

Liane Hornsey - Google

Satish Pradhan - Tata Sons

David Smith - ASDA

Alex Wilson - BT

This panel session was introduced by Vicky Wright , President of the CIPD. Wright in her introduction directed us to the fact that all four of these organisations had one thing in common - they have all experienced and are experiencing transition currently.

Jon Snow facilitated the session featuring;

David Smith - ASDA
Liane Hornsey - Google
Alex Wilson - BT
Satish Pradhan - Tata Sons

Snow's opening words were "in the 20 years of Channel 4 news I can only think of two major events that have impacted all of us. One was 9/11 the other is our current economic challenge "

Snow posed a number of question to the panel and this was followed by the opportunity to ask questions. Below is a summary of key messages from each of the panel:

David Smith -

"you have to have an employer brand.. and mean it"

"it (business) is not just about making money, we must make money ethically and stability"

"one of the roles of HR is to say the unpopular messages/ news to the CEO"

"HR & Business strategy are the same thing"

"we recruit to the culture more than skills - all staff including hourly paid staff have to complete a 1/2 day assessment centre as part of the recruitment process. If they are gregarious, we will hire them, if they are shy or difficult we don't want them."

"we set out to befriend our people, managers are expected to know their people at an individual level"

Alex Wilson

"The further staff are away from the front line the more we (and other organisations) need to remember that customers are important."

"This is our (HR) time, now we need to shine in the tough times"

"our first choice in tough times is always redeployment rather than redundancy" - The alumni of people that have left the organisation is bigger than that employed - we do what we can for the majority to remain advocates"

Liane Hornsey

"HR is about picking the right people for the job. Google will not compromise - we only hire people that will add value to Google". Hornsey mentioned one example of this where she has a vacant head of HR post for over 18 months as she has yest to find a suitable candidate.

In answer to a question about retention strategy for Google...

"We make the environment a place people want to be

We develop people relentlessly

We give then the work (and challenge) they enjoy"

Google also recruit to the culture not the job - often recruiting people without offering a particular role and then work with the individuals to find the right role for them.

At Google they use people and their hobbies and encourage people to run workshops and short training sessions on their hobby - this helps to create a culture of learning and people are free to attend anytime - they do not need to ask permission to attend - the business trusts that this action will encourage loyalty and a drive to work harder.

Satish Pradhan

"always use the best people to solve the biggest challenges"

"communicate what you are doing.. why you are doing it and most importantly in an authentic way. You must do what is right for that business, not just for the stakeholders."

Diversity is not a universal formula, and what is relevant for one organisation and context. Successfully businesses cannot work to a mathematical formula to diversity. What is right for one is not necessarily right for another.

Tata is an organisation that is run more like a federation rather than a traditional hierarchy, so they enable and empower people. Tata believe governance and culture is critical. Often staff that were employed under previous owners can do and deliver given the right context.

You cannot and must not see unions as adversaries... you must see them as advocates, if you don't take this approach you lose before you start.

The Close

Wright summarised the week and reminded us that this week is the changing face of business. Wright reminded us that Orme had earlier said in the week that the CIPD is changing to provide "relevant help to you".. just in time.

Wright had the belief that the conference had provided delegates with "relevant things you can take away... something new that you can do... HR and the role of HR is changing"

Wright reminded us that Harrogate had been the home of the annual conference for 60 years (IPM, IPD etc..) and that they needs to change. The move to Manchester in 2009 would provide:
Better exhibition space on one level
The conference would be different - more relevant and provide more opportunities
Smaller groups
Select master classes
More events within the exhibition space (this has worked well for the last two years)
A more intimate environment

Wright also reminded us that the CIPD annual conference and exhibition 2009 would take place in NOVEMBER 2009... see you there...

Comment

This was an engaging and fitting end to the conference, we have had the Academics, the CEO's and finished with the HR directors. It was a shame that the audience by this session was somewhat depleted, many traveling back home and not fully engaged with the whole event. There were so many messages that would benefit many HR team members.

Now to travel home, to reflect on the weeks events and the overall impact of the exhibition and conference.. but that I will leave for another day.

CIPD2009

Sunday, 17 January 2010

Pecha Kucha or how to get your point across in less than seven minutes?

Saturday, 16 January 2010

Amazon Kindle, trainers and a virtual library

Amazon Kindle, trainers and a virtual library

Amazon Kindle, trainers and a virtual library

Monday, 11 January 2010

Saturday, 9 January 2010

Using Twitter to market your training event

Thursday, 7 January 2010

Is Transactional Analysis (TA) relevant?

Saturday, 2 January 2010

What was Hot….?

What was not…?

Tuesday, 29 December 2009

Twitter: your CRM & marketing channel

Tuesday, 22 December 2009

Social media marketing – tips for success in 2010

"You reap what you sow…"

It's about WHERE the sower threw his seed.

Wednesday, 16 December 2009

What makes a successful social media marketing strategy?

Tuesday, 15 December 2009

A free calender for 2010?

Monday, 14 December 2009

More… more… you wanted more so here they come…

Saturday, 12 December 2009

DEEPLIST analysis – an alternative to the PESTLE analysis

Thursday, 10 December 2009

Tuesday, 8 December 2009

The Children’s Safety Education Foundation

Thursday, 19 November 2009

Wednesday, 18 November 2009

Monday, 16 November 2009

Sunday, 1 November 2009

Tuesday, 20 October 2009

SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is specialist, expensive and you need to know what you are doing.. don’t you?

Saturday, 10 October 2009

SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is specialist, expensive and you need to know what you are doing.. don’t you?

Innovation in a recession

Innovation in a recession

Friday, 9 October 2009

Tuesday, 6 October 2009

Innovation is about the first step

Monday, 5 October 2009

How to receive feedback from your manager

Friday, 2 October 2009

25 great tips on employee engagement – morale boosters

Tuesday, 29 September 2009

Saturday, 26 September 2009

Learning beyond university to informal learning using micro-blogging

Wednesday, 23 September 2009

Tuesday, 22 September 2009

Experienced L&D people are bleeding out of organisations and going freelance

Wednesday, 16 September 2009

Tuesday, 15 September 2009

A ‘lite’ version of a learning styles questionnaire:

Monday, 14 September 2009

Four step learning ladder – a model for learning to learn

The personal competence model

HAVE-DO-BE or DO-BE-HAVE?

Wednesday, 26 August 2009

The rising cost of learning…

Sunday, 23 August 2009

Friday, 3 April 2009

Monday, 19 January 2009

Wednesday, 19 November 2008

Friday, 17 October 2008

Monday, 29 September 2008

Sunday, 28 September 2008

Wednesday, 24 September 2008

Tuesday, 23 September 2008

Monday, 22 September 2008

Sunday, 21 September 2008

Thursday, 18 September 2008