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  • Confident Networking

    The natural networker is at an advantage in the modern world where relationships and connectivity are so vital. The rest of us can reflect on the behaviours and habits of life’s “schmoozers” and apply these to improve our own personal impact.

    This posting is based on a short workshop I’ve given at Dundee University for the last few years as part of their OPD researcher developer programme. The slides from the workshop are available on-line through my slideshare account and below.

    Confident networking 2

    The slides are hopefully self-explanatory, but there are a few messages I want to emphasise.

    The concept of networking and the word itself have pretty heavy connotations of strategic conversations, spotting “useful” people and getting what you want from people. All this is a bit of a turn-off even to those of us who are converts to its value. Far better to stop thinking about networking as a thing that has to happen at a certain time or place – just become familiar with what you want to say and why it is interesting to others and then let the conversations flow more naturally.

    Imposter syndrome is a big barrier for many people – there’s a great blog post from Professor Dame Athene Donald : Getting Away with It, which I hope will reassure you if you suffer from this.

    There are also additional cultural barriers in academia – we are likely to either be networking in a “foreign” culture or to be networking with people who don’t share our cultural background. Although models of national cultural behaviour are, by definition, sweeping generalisations, they are also useful starting points. We mention two:

    Geert Hofstede

    Nanette Ripmeester

    (Interesting that they are both Dutch. Is that a national stereotype?)

    The fantastic jobs.ac.uk site also carries country profiles which may be useful background when talking to people.

    There’s far more “give” than “take” in networking – it is much easier to think about the value you can give to other people than worrying about how you will ask them to give you something. Focus instead on what you can offer – these ideas are expanded in the slides.

    Use social media to develop and sustain relationships before and after face-to-face meetings. Contribute your ideas and opinions if you have something to add to another researcher’s postings and be generous in sharing information. Hopefully the karma fairy will pay you back when you need it.

    I’ve found this excellent blog post from Rosie Redfield on Conference Social Skills. Her very wise words are consistent with my own messages in this workshop. I found this great blog post via another – Athene Donald’s post on Conferences and Courage. Both are strongly recommended.

    We talked about the importance of first impressions – here are some of the ideas we shared:

    when you describe your research think about the key facts and memorable highlights that you want to leave in people’s minds. How do you want them to describe you in a few words if they talk about you later to someone else? Are you giving them these phrases in the way you introduce yourself?

    aim to make the interaction an exchange of information; ask questions and encourage the other person by smiling and nodding as they talk; try to put them at their ease. Leave gaps in the conversation so they can come in and talk about their work. If the person you are talking to seems nervous, focus on the things they are competent on in order to build their confidence.

    look for common ground in terms of interests, background, shared motivations.

    convey your enthusiasm through your body language, the tone of your voice, smiling, being relaxed as you talk about why your work is important and interesting.

    if you think there is an issue because of age, gender, your topic etc look for ways to convey your credibility – explain where you are from and who you work for (if this helps)

    make it clear where to go next – ask the person for a card or if they mind connecting with you through social media, suggest a time to catch up later in the day, or simply thank them for their time and say you enjoyed talking with them.

    The links on the session handout are:

    www.academiccareer.manchester.ac.uk/

    setting up a researcher blog

    http://www.hhmi.org/educational-materials/lab-management/for-early-career-scientists 

    http://www.cio.com/article/164300/How_to_Network_12_Tips_for_Shy_People

    www.slideshare.net/sachac/the-shy-connector

    http://www.rin.ac.uk/our-work/communicating-and-disseminating-research/social-media-guide-researchers

     

     

     

     

  • Social Media: Need convincing?

    Today I’m working with a group of researchers the value of social media to their careers and doctoral training. A short workshop can only scratch the surface, but hopefully in this post I can point to a range of sites and share my thoughts on why it should be part of your life as a research student.

    Twitter – not just about celebrity minutiae, this micro-blogging site is a constant source of information, comment and opinion. By selecting the organisations and individuals who are most relevant to your interests, you can personalise the flow of knowledge. I follow funding bodies, individual academics, researcher networks and selected journals. As well as information, twitter connects me with a wide community. Unlike other networking sites, I can follow anyone who posts public information. I don’t need to know them or get their permission (although some people prefer to post privately to approved followers). If you fancy following me, please do. You’ll find my twitter feed reflects my interests and my personality, which I think is a good way of helping people connect with my work.

    Each time I scroll through the timeline on Twitter I find something useful. Either a blog posting from a professional in my field, news from a researcher about a conference, a news story which relates to research – I’m hardly ever disappointed.

    With time, I’ve also found that I can use twitter as a consulting pool – I posted a question recently about software for research project management and received many suggestions (these will be collated in a future post!). I can also comment on discussions or even take part in brief Tweet-meetings where you happen to coincide on-line with a group commenting on the same topic or idea.

    A recent tweet from Professor Dorothy Bishop pointed me to a great blog post aimed at nervous academics – this gentle introduction might convince you if I can’t.

    And on the subject of blogging …

    Advice on setting up a researcher blog and a list of examples of blogs written by researchers from Tristram Hooley are available on the Vitae website. Rather than try to come up with something as good as this, I shall simply point you towards these and an article from Science Careers on the same topic. 

    Networking is one of the most important skills in modern career management and social media is a brilliant tool for keeping your network active and interested in you. I have a number of profiles on different sites – I tend you use Facebook as a personal space and tend to connect with people as friends, although I have set up a company page for Shinton Consulting Ltd. My professional network lives on LinkedIn and although I am regularly tempted by specific sites like academic.edu, they aren’t really set up for my kind of work. I think they are great for academics though and give you a showcase for work, papers, interests and collaborations.

    Content sharing

    A range of sites of available to help you disseminate your research to a wider audience. I am pointing you towards large general interest sites rather than research specific ones. Please add any suggestions for more niche sites to the comments below.

    Slideshare is for presentations – I post my slides here and find the visual impact and style of some of the materials on this site really inspiring – great for ideas to develop dazzling presentations.

    Flickr is for photographs and images. I’ve heard of students putting images of their conference posters on here. I use it for holiday snaps. Which I won’t bore you with…

    Delicious is a social bookmarking site which I use to capture great sites as I find them. I can also theme them for specific audiences or interests. A great way to use the cloud as it means I can point people to my bookmarks wherever and whenever they have internet access.

    Research specific sites are proliferating. Rather than duplicate the excellent guide that has been written for the Research Information Network I shall simply point you to it : Social Media- A Guide for Researchers is a must read.

    In the discussions I’ve had with researchers new to social media, there are also a number of concerns expressed about sharing information in open. I have to say that I remain convinced that the risks are outweighed by the benefits, but my golden rule for any post is ” am I happy for my clients, family and friends to read this?”. I think if you keep the potential employer of the future in your mind as you engage with social media, you shouldn’t do too much harm.

  • In the loop – what I learnt at the RSE Parliament Day

    A previous post sets out my motivations for attending the RSE Parliament Day. Here I’ll try to explain what I learnt. These views are clearly my own reflections and thoughts on the event. I also tweeted during the day using  as a hashtag.

    The presenters on the day came from three worlds – there were politicians (Dr Elaine Murray MSP Labour, Alex Johnstone MSP Conservative and Paul Wheelhouse MSP SNP – sadly Willie Rennie MSP Liberal Democrats couldn’t join us Spread a bit thin these days, the Scottish Lib Dems), learned societies and organisations (Bristow Muldoon, RSE and RSC, Stephen Benn RSC, Mark Downs Society of Biology, Imran Khan Campaign for Science and Engineering) and the civil service (Professor Anne Glover, the Chief Scientific Adviser for Scotland).

    The variety of speakers meant we got a really good overview of what scientists and their representatives do to engage and influence politicians; what the politicians think about science and the role of scientific experts inside government. I”ll try to summarise the day into key messages from each represented group.

    The overarching messages from the day:

     – politicians can’t be experts in all the areas they have to engage with, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t see the value of science. If they relate this science to the things they are concerned about, this value becomes self-evident so scientists need to understand wider issues and explain to policy makers how science contributes to a better solution or should be part of the decision making process. A quote from Stephen Benn ” We all know what we think is important. We need to relate this to what THEY (parliament) thinks is important and makes our issues relevant.”

     – policy decisions aren’t made on purely scientific evidence as demonstrated by two examples which came up several times during the day – nuclear power and genetically modified foods. Even if there is scientific evidence of the benefits of these technologies, politicians have to make decisions based on public attitudes, economic factors and the opposing views of other sectors. So, we can’t just complain that science evidence is being ignored, we need to think about how to influence these other elements. I don’t have an easy solution to this, but it was interesting to hear politicians explain that just because science says something is a good thing, it doesn’t mean it will just happen.

    – the link between constituent and elected representative is very powerful, particularly in the Scottish Parliament given its size and ethos.  Paul Wheelhouse made this point, strongly supported by the other MSPs present. The implication seemed to be that it is easier to connect with an MSP than it might be to connect with an MP, which hasn’t been my personal experience. However, I think we are spoilt in the Borders by having Michael Moore as our MP. Certainly after seeing Paul talk I won’t hesitate to contact him if I think he needs to know something (yes, I’m one of his constituents). I have heard a different story from other researchers though, expressing frustration that their views aren’t listened to when they try to connect with government. I’d see the approach here as being the same I suggest when trying to get funding – understand what the person you are trying to engage (tap for money) wants to achieve, then present your message (proposal) in these terms.

    – politicians like certainty and want to see evidence, facts and figures in the information presented to them. The messages need to be clear and unambiguous. Interesting meeting of worlds here given that science is about uncertainty, debate and defending a position. Stephen Benn describe watching two parties use information from a report he produced used on opposing sides of an argument. Politicians need a different communication style to the one used to address academic peers.

    The main message from RSE, RSC and SB was that scientists have more influence if they can speak with a single voice. Perhaps unsurprising that the professional bodies would say that, given that they are an obvious channel for single messages…but they made the case well. They can devote time, resources and energy into developing links with parliaments, understanding the agendas, pulling together tens of thousands of voices from their memberships and delivering the messages in the most effective way. The individual scientist needs to engage with the society to contribute to the messages being produced. As Mark Downs (SB) said “make your learned society deliver what you want”. 

    Two mechanisms that you can use: the RSC Parliamentary Links Scheme and the Society of Biology science policy newsletter 

    All those engaged with politics stressed the importance of building relationships over time, supporting those in government (and the media) to help them achieve what they want to achieve. In order to be helpful, you need to understand what, when and how they need our information and insights. No doubt to some this will seem machiavellian and sinister, but that wasn’t the spirit in which it was presented. Everything in life is about people, building relationships with them is key.

    Imran Khan from CASE talked about his campaigning for science using traditional and social media. His strongest message was to talk to journalists and he gave several examples of how CASE have used the media to “encourage” activity from parliament and government. He gave the same message about the media as we had heard about politicians – get the know them, understand what they want and deliver your messages on these terms. Accept that important ≠ newsworthy and present your messages as things that help journalists and editors achieve what they want – more sales, more readers, more viewers, more influence.

    He also talked about using influence to achieve your ends – illustrated by the CASE approach of distinguished signatories for their letters and reports. Nothing like a Nobel Prize Winner to add a bit of oomph and credibility to a message. ANother strategy is to “arm” politicians with the facts and information they need to make certain arguments, describing the success of CASE on two key issues – protecting the science budget and changing immigration policy – about being partly down to media engagement and partly down to providing case studies, stories and figures which showed the inconsistency of these policies with wider government objectives. Very canny man…

    The day closed with a great presentation from Anne Glover. Her role as Chief Scientific Adviser for Scotland is to further enhance Scotland’s reputation as a science nation and she presented us with her insights into how policy is formed. This is kindly described as “evolutionary” (messy and complicated if you prefer)`echoing the comments heard earlier from MSPs about the competing and opposing opinions that they try to take into account. She gave us some, by now familiar, perspectives on what are the main challenges – the different time scale that elected representatives operate in, the need for fact and clear messages, the need for mutual trust and respect and the differences in language used by scientists and politicians. 

    She encouraged the scientists in the room to look at the problems facing the government and think of solutions. She also encouraged direct contact with her, citing the post-doctoral researcher who emailed her during the first Eyjafjallajökull eruption offering advice  – she contacted him during the recent ash cloud disruptions and used his knowledge directly.

     

    Some final messages from the day –

     

    improve communication, using current political concerns as “hooks” to introduce the validity of your work

    combine messages with other scientists to put forward a consistent opinion

    get to know people before you need to know them – politicians, societies and journalists

    understand the issues that government is thinking about

     

    So, definitely worth a day of my time and I’ve met some really interesting people and feel much more comfortable and confident about the reception I will get if and when I need to engage the political world. Thanks to the RSE, in particular Dr Caroline Wallace for getting people together.

    My motivation for attending was as part of my learning about impact. The pathway to impact isn’t easy or straightforward, as described by Richard Jones in his blog, but worth walking.

     

  • Parliament Day at the RSE – why I went

    A day with politicians and those who try to lobby and influence them might not sound like your idea of fun, but yesterday I spent an illuminating day at the Royal Society of Edinburgh trying to improve my understanding of the most effective ways to engage with policy makers and learning from a couple of experts who done it with great success.

    My motivations for attending the event are based on a number of different things – hearing about the successes of the ESRC/Scottish Government collaborations over the last 5 years; becoming personally more interested in the political processes (which my husband sees as some kind of weird mid-life crisis) and the number of times I seem to say the word “impact” in my day-to-day work. 

    The impact agenda in higher education research is all about broadening the significance of UK research and increasing the reach and influence of researchers. There are two key drivers pushing the agenda – the need to include a “pathways to impact” statement in research proposals to the UK Research Councils and the inclusion of impact as a measure in the future REF assessment. 

    This week I’ve run a couple of workshops on the impact agenda and also had lots of conversations about its implications for researchers. Before I continue, I need to make clear that I’m no longer a researcher, but I am passionate about the importance of research and the value of researchers. I see the impact agenda as an opportunity to put research and its outputs at the heart of our society, but only if it is embraced by those at the front line. There’s a danger that if we (apologies, because I’m going to say “we” throughout despite my non-researcher status) see this as something external to the research process and view it simply as the latest box to the ticked that the agenda will be determined by people who aren’t active researchers – a model for impact will be imposed on us.

    I’ve already seen some worrying signs that the potential value of the impact agenda isn’t been seen. After the recent LSE conference on impact in the social sciences I read a blog from from Jack Stilgoe which expressed disappointment that the discussions at the event were still focused around high impact papers. I’ve had conversations with people who see the scientific model for impact as being about commercialisation, which immediately alienates many researchers whose work doesn’t have potential for direct economic return. The actual impact model from RCUK is far richer than these two examples, and the areas which I find most interesting are those which use research to influence and inform policy decisions and the drive to engage the public. Having recently organised a successful science festival, I feel I’m making process on the latter, so my current objective is to learn more about the dark art of politics. 

    A quote from Jack Stilgoe’s blog resonates with me this morning, 

    “Anyone who has been involved in policies that pretend to be ‘evidence-based’ know that it’s about being in the right place at the right time, talking to someone who’s prepared to listen.”

    There are lots of questions thrown up by this quote – where are the right places? when is the right time? and what do you need to do to get people to be prepared to listen? Some of these questions were answered yesterday at the RSE.

     

    But that’s another blog post…

     

  • Something special in researcher training

    In about an hour I’ll be kicking off the 2011 Edinburgh GRADschool. For those of you not familiar with the term, this is an intensive, residential course aimed at 2nd and 3rd year PhD students at UK universities. During the next 4 days, students will work in multi-disciplinary teams on a variety of tasks with the aim of developing their communication skills, understanding of team-working and personal effectiveness.

    I attended a GRADschool as a PhD student back in 1994 just as I was preparing to write my thesis and plan my next steps. At this time there were no researcher training programmes, so the course had a huge impact on me and my attitude to my future career. I can still remember the moment when I realised that my PhD was part of what I could offer the world of work and that it was up to me to work out what the whole picture of my career would include beyond my research expertise.

    The research experience is very different now – students can expect to access extensive training programme and by the time they reach their final year they could have had weeks of generic skills training. So why should they commit to an intensive four day residential course?

    The “something special” that the GRADschool offered then and still offers today is the chance to work with a group of people under pressure, but in an environment where you get feedback on your performance and the opportunity to develop, review, develop through the course.  I hope that the students who leave on Friday will have much better insights into the way they tend to behave in a team, interact with others and with some clearer thoughts about where they can take their skills and values as they identify future careers.

    The GRADschool I went on in 1994 changed my life – I came back fired up with enthusiasm for post-PhD life and my motivation was much greater during the dark months of thesis writing. It planted a seed that grew into my current career (even though at the time I never imagined that I’d be tutoring on courses within 4 years and directing a GRADschool 7 years after attending as a student). I know what a difference good training and development can make and I feel a responsibility to the students I’ll meet over the next week to give them the best possible opportunity. 

    Even in today’s academic environment with access to a whole calendar of training, the GRADschool is something special and I urge those of you who are presented with the opportunity to take it.

     

  • Social Media – slides and notes

    The first two “showings” of my new Social Media and your Career workshop happened yesterday in Utrecht. Many thanks to all who attended and made them such a success.

    By sticking to the core principle of a workshop about careers and introducing social media as a “shiny new wrapper” to boost your profile and impact, there was something for even the most expert Social Media (SM) users who found themselves in the workshop. Particular thanks to them for their engagement despite their concerns I was about to teach them to suck eggs (I’m not sure this translates into Dutch but they all smiled at the image – here’s a note on this curious phrase for my perplexed Dutch readers!).

    So, here I’m going to continue the workshop by posting the annotated slides and some additional links; by reminding those who were there (and informing those who weren’t) of the sites we visited during the session and by inviting comments and further suggestions from the audience (this includes you!).

     

    First the handout:

    social_media_and_your_career

    The format is A3, folded into an A5 booklet (thanks to Janet Wilkinson for this excellent idea).

     

    The slides we used during the workshop are now on SlideShare including notes from the two discussions we had on the potential value of SM and the steps that individuals can take to bolster their SM presence. (To view the notes for each slide, from the SlideShare site click the notes tab behind the comments box.)

     

    We looked at a range of sites during the workshop to illustrate the value of Social Media.

     

    Twitter – the off-putting thing about Twitter is the home page that you see when visiting for the first time. All the trivia and nonsense in the world appears before your eyes, with (if you are lucky) the occasional vaguely interesting post. Like all SM the beauty of Twitter is only revealed as you begin to identify interesting and informative feeds to follow. I’ve created a starters’ list after the workshop to give a flavour of the posts I follow and my fabulous Dutch speaking research careers expert Tennie has done the same.

     

    LinkedIn – the groups feature of LinkedIn was the facet discussed in most depth during the workshop. This enables users to engage with other like-minded individuals without having to link to them directly. It also allows for discussion threads and posting of material. The PostDoc Forum group has just started a discussion about being a researcher in another country which invites members to share personal insights and advice. We also talked about the power of the recommendation facility on LinkedIn and I suggested that the best way to benefit from this is to start by writing recommendations for others.

     

    Facebook – although largely social, the value of Facebook for researchers was illustrated by two examples from the group of Facebook community pages created by researchers for researchers. (I’ll post details of these in the comments once I’ve heard from the researchers who run them.) Again, this is a way to broaden your reach on Facebook without having to “befriend” people. GIven the fact that most users view Facebook as a networking tool for personal friends, rather than professional contacts, this allows researchers to tap into the huge audience using Facebook without having to compromise on a more relaxed style of postings. The ShintonConsulting Facebook page welcomes all!

     

    Blogging sites – once your SM confidence grows, blogging is a great tool for sharing your thoughts and ideas in more depth. Most sites also allow for posting of material such as slides, video, documents and audio files so you can create a multi-media experience for your readers! I also find blogging is a great reflective tool – one of the core career management skills – allowing you to review experiences and develop your thinking. Blogging also usually allows for a dialogue with your readers (although some bloggers prefer all comments to be fed through their Twitter feed).

     

    Content sharing sites – a huge variety are available so I’m going to focus on the academically oriented. Vidiowiki can be described as YouTube for researchers who post 3 minute presentations describing their work to a broad audience.

    Another researcher video worth viewing is Dominic Walliman’s prize winning description of his research into Quantum Computing (and while you are in the YouTube universe why not check out the RUG Wetenschapsdag, Spinoza Prizewinner Marten Scheffer, the SENSE Research School channel, Leiden University Faculty of Science.) Had enough research? Time for a little light relief…

     

    I’ve also just heard from Keith, the other half of Shinton Consulting, that many researchers are uploading their conference posters to Flickr. Another great use of SM for research.

     

    To illustrate the way that SM can deliver information you would never have found otherwise, here are two final sites we looked at:

    EmployKyle – don’t know what you want to do with your life but think you have something special to offer the right employer? Don’t let it put you off – embrace the uncertainty, like Kyle

    Unconvinced SM is anything other that a flood of trivia? Researchers are finding it a rich source of information and scholarly activity.

     

    So, a final thanks to all involved and if I’ve missed anything, let me know via comments. And don’t forget…

    1. Social Media is a wonderful rich source of information, but without a clear objective it will be a HUGE time-eater (to be honest, even WITH a clear objective it can take over your life) so enter the universe with a question that needs an answer.

    2. Remember that SM is like a shiny new wrapper – what counts is the quality of the thinking and the personal integrity underneath. Only post comments or material that you would be happy for a colleague or potential employer to see.

     

    I hope those who couldn’t attend the workshop find enough material here to help them benefit from the ideas we discussed – if you’d like to come along in the future, just let NWO know!

     

    If this experiment with social media is of value, I’ll post future workshops here as well.

  • Practicing what I’m about to preach

    The last few weeks have been a huge learning curve for me on social media. Even though I’ve been a user of various sites for many years, I’ve learnt how to use these in a pretty haphazard way – observing the clever tricks of others and trying to copy them.

    What has struck me is the amazing quality of advice that is out in the ether. There is a brilliant culture of sharing expertise and new ideas.

    I hope I can add to this – we’ve always put our slides on our home site, but the tools and apps that are now out there will allow us to do this in a more professional and accessible way.

    First up is the workshop I’m delivering in Utrecht next week on….

    View more presentations from sarashinton.

    These slides may not make such sense now but I needed to master the technique of posting! I’ll be annotated them during the workshop and posting a version with more text following the discussions the session has been designed around.

    3 things I’ve learnt just today
    1. you can edit your LinkedIn profile address so it looks like this http://uk.linkedin.com/in/sarashinton rather than containing lots of random letters and numbers
    2. There are more excellent free graphics websites out there than I’d imagined and I’m slowly weaning myself off Google images. Best of the day was PSD Graphics – you’ll recognise many of these in the presentation above.
    3. After much dithering I now get the point of delicious and have started a collection of links for the NWO workshop group. 

    Tomorrow I’ll be finishing the workshop handout and getting that on-line as well!

  • Social Media and your Career tamed

    After a lot of research (most of which was a classic display of displacement activity) I’ve finished the first draft of a short workshop on “Social Media and your Career”. It’s taken a lot more preparation than many of my workshops because I felt I needed to build up my credibility by developing a higher profile on various sites.

    I think I also needed to engage in a lot of information absorption, divergent thinking, playing with possibilities and ideas, then some lying down and making the web induced headache go away. (There you have it – the Shinton creative process* in a nutshell.)

    Even with all this taken into account, I was struggling to come up with a framework for the session. My problem is that I’m not, by any stretch of the imagination, an expert on social media. I spoke to people who were and was given all kinds of interesting leads to follow, but the cloud of information just grew. At about 3am last night I realised that the reason I’ll be in that room is that I am an expert on careers issues for research students and staff (or at least can pass for one in a dim light). Social Media brings career management into a new light, but the fundamentals which I’ve been working with for the last 15 years are still there. SM gives us a completely brilliant set of tools, but if you forget the fundamentals you can’t use those tools with clarity. Social Media quickly overwhelms and distracts. I’m aware that this post might be an exercise in “stating the bleedin’ obvious” but was an important moment for me as I had been rather dazzled by all the shiny toys and forgotten why I’d gone into the toy shop in the first place.

    I took a deep breath and came up with a set of  core career questions, which the workshop is now based around:

    Who am I? 

    What choices are out there? 

    What do I want to do? 

    What do employers want? 

    How do I find a job? 

    How do I market myself? 

    What am I worth? 

    I’m sure questions will occur to me as the session is finalised but these have brought my focus back. 

    The annoying thing is that up till this point, it is exactly how I had been using Twitter, posterous, LinkedIn etc – as resources for other ideas and to add value to the sessions I’ve been running for the last 6 months. The temporary loss of my focus is an insight I’ll be sharing in the workshop which is for researchers who are hardly known for having a lot of free time on their hands. It may be that it is a “growing pain” which all SM users have to experience, but if I hadn’t had the commitment of a “gig” to push me through, I might have run away and hidden in a library or book shop.

    I’ll be posting information on the workshop in October.  For now I’m just feeling a lot more comfortable about the event and now looking forward to spending the next few weeks looking for sites and apps that will breath new life into all my work.

     

     

    * there may also have been some knitting, BBC7 and coffee consumption.

    (and if this post goes directly to my twitter and facebook page, then I have the excellent Tristram Hooley to thank, as he explained how!)

     

  • Deadly 50

    Another follow up from the amazing and inspiring Girl Geeks’ creativity weekend.

     

    I always start my workshops by getting people to introduce themselves (assuming there are less than 40 people in the room, although that would be a very easy way to make a living….). During these introductions I’m often struck by the amount of preamble this generates and often how little really interesting information comes across. The people we work with are brilliant – they are bright and capable and have usually achieved amazing things, but we don’t tend to keep our headlines at our fingertips.

     

    I’m as guilty of this as anyone, so from now I’m changing my introduction to a deadly 50. In 50 words I’m going to convey who I am, what I do and why I’m in the room. I’m also going to make it a goal to use these words consistently in my marketing, tweets and workshops.

     

    Here’s an updated version of the one I came up with on the weekend:

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    I’m Sara, company director of SHINTONCONSULTING.COM  which offers Training and Development to intelligent people. We build better careers by helping people

    develop relevant skills;

    become politically aware;

    have confidence;

    think strategically;

    develop brilliant networks;

    communicate effectively;

    manage their time and energy

    and make the right choices. 

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    I’m going to keep fine tuning, but I’m pretty happy with this, especially the “intelligent people” bit. 

     

    Even better it’s actually a Deadly 40.

     

    So what can I do with my new Deadly 50/40 whatever? 

     

    I’ve edited my Twitter biog and will do the same with other company descriptors. I’ll start to use the words consistently in slides, articles and other disseminated material. I’ll pass them on to my wonderful web guy so he can add them as tags and key words in my website. I’ll start thinking about associated images to use in presentations and my postcards and handouts. Hopefully this will bring some coherence to our brand and help people to find us and understand what we do. 

     

    Now I just have to improve the 140 character version….

     

    And if you were wondering, Deadly 50 came to me after watching Deadly 60 repeatedly with my kids. Not that I’m complaining 

  • Girl Geeks wear entrepreneurial knickers

    After a fabulous weekend with the Girl Geeks I’m now posting the outcomes of our very funny, but very serious discussion on the behaviours women need to be successful entrepreneurs. 

    The origins of the knickers lie in de Bono’s thinking hats. They started life as entrepreneurial hats after extensive research* into entrepreneurial behaviours.  Once I’d come up with a list that I felt reflected the many facets of being a woman in business, I started to think about how these related to colours. 

    Then something great happened. Developing a creativity weekend has exposed me to so many ideas and techniques for being creative that I was infected. One morning I woke up and thought ***knickers!***

     

    So, the entrepreneurial knickers were born. They may be a creation of the moment and go no further.

     

    They may mutate into a giant monster with a life of its own. Who knows?

     

    Let’s just enjoy them for now.

    entrepreneurial_knickers.pdf

     

     

    and remember Girl Geeks – don’t take off those superstar knickers!

     

    S x

     

     

    *For “extensive research” read Google