Focus On You

"When written in Chinese, the word 'crisis' is composed of two characters - one represents danger and the other represents opportunity". JFK.

Just 24 hours after I wrote about crises I received an email from a friend at Waikato University about a workshop for people in just that situation. (At only $50 to attend they are giving it away.)

Interestingly enough the workshop is advertising that it will deal with crises both -

• internal (people who are not happy with where they are at) and


• external (people who have been made redundant).
  

I would attend myself, except that I will be attending adult teaching classes on Thursdays and one of the days I will be in Rarotonga. Lame excuses I know.

Why teaching classes? A change of direction for my career. New horizons and challenges.

Why Rarotonga? After ten years of being married (to the same person) it is time to head away, for some quality time - just for us.

Career Crisis?

A crisis can be caused by factors that are either internal (such as personal) or external (redundancy or environmental changes).

In order to respond to crises you need to determine what the major causes are and where they originate from.

Internal crisis may need you to - speak to a life coach, take annual leave, reflect and review where you are at - then decide on your next course of action.

External crisis - generally you do not have any control over external factors. However you do have control over your actions and reactions to different situations.

Crises are not always negatives and can force us into having to confront ideas, behaviors and patterns that we did not know existed before the crisis. It is how we act and react that will determine the outcomes from a crisis.

In this presentation from TED, Alain De Botton asks us to restructure our view of events that are happening to us - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtSE4rglxbY

Time - Keeping Track Of It

What do you do with your time? Do you keep track of what you do and when?

"Track The Time" is a blog dedicated to helping people to place more value on and understand where their time goes. I have linked to them on the sidebar on my homepage if you are interested in looking them up for some ideas.

The NY Times has posted a graphic after surveying a wide number of persons in the US. This is a great graphic and reveals some interesting bits and pieces about human behavior.

For example - 8.50pm is the time when most people are watching TV; People are feeling most religious about 11am; 33% of people are working at 10.50am.

By knowing what we do and when we do it - we can alter our patterns and plan to achieve more with the time that we have available to us.

Free Money for Entrepreneurs

Here is a one line story published by the NZ Herald -

"An opportunity for companies seeking funding for growth or expansion to get a loan of up to $1 million on 'favorable terms"

Click out the University of Auckland Entrepreneurs Challenge website for more details.

Conflict Management

It is easy to become bogged down in the non-essentials of life and business. Mission statements are designed to keep us on track and focused on what we are trying to achieve.

It is easy to become distracted from what we are meant to be doing. My point in case is the feud occurring between two of today's best musical people around (depending on taste) - in this case it is Eminem and Mariah Carey.

There are a couple of ways to look at this situation.

1. Who cares? Not I.
2. What can we learn from this? Quite a bit.

Don't sweat the small stuff. Do any of their arguments matter or make any difference?

Got a gripe? Sort out your issues in private before they become public. Keep it between you and the other party involved. Discuss the issue in a closed forum before leaking your laundry to your friends, your workmates and ultimately to the world.

Focus on what you are good at. Anytime spent worrying about what another thinks of you or what they are up to is time you are not spending constructively.

Governance Restructures - NZ ITP's

The Minister of Education, Hon Anne Tolley, wants to reduce the number of members of Councils for Polytechnics and Universitys in New Zealand.

See - http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/education/2674805/Polytechs-top-brass-to-be-axed-leaked-memo

What are the possible effects of such action? It depends upon which side the arguement you wish to take. Under the previous government Councils were allowed to grow to numbers up to a maximum of 20. This includes all sorts of representatives from different stakeholder divisions.

In order to work out how these changes may affect the ITP sector, one must first have a clear understanding of what Governance's role is. By determining the role then we can decide what the best way of achieving those desired outcomes are.

A very simplistic way of defining governance's role is - Steer, Strategy, Stability. Management also provide these factors but at an operations level c.f. the strategy and governence level.

Governance can be effective with a few or many members. Likewise governance body's can be ineffective with a few or many members.

It is the quality of the members not the number of the members that counts.

Mentors

It pays to have a mentor. Mentoring is defined as - "a developmental relationship in which a more experienced or more knowledgeable person helps a less experienced or less knowledgeable person " (see Wikipedia)

Here are some tips about mentors -

• They find you. Someone will will see your performance and will offer to help you.


• Stay in touch. You may only speak 3 or 4 times a year - but that is enough. Sometimes you may meet more often, it depends on the needs of the relationship.


• Plan - what you want to talk about. You don't have long sop make sure you know what you want to talk about before you get there. There aren't many seers in the business world with the time to sit and talk.


• Ideas - take your ideas and allow your mentor to re-direct or reshape what you already have. Never go in cold - unless they ask to see you (even then ask what they want to discuss)


• Keep an open mind. Always be open to possibilities and a different point of view.

I have a couple of mentors whom I meet with irregularly, and it's great!

Social Media for Customer Engagement

Shut up and listen.

Customers ultimately determine the success or failure of your business.

If the customers aren't buying - maybe you're wrong.

The link posted below goes to a study done on companies engaging with their customers through the social media medium. What it attempts to do is find a link between revenues and customer involvement.

Are the two linked? Yes. Strongly? Not so much.

http://www.engagementdb.com/Report

One social media forum I have been musing on is the success of the website - http://www.throng.co.nz/. This is a social community/tribe (see Seth Godin) based on something that most people do - watch TV.

Throng.co.nz fills a gap in the market - people want to discuss, learn about and give feedback to the TV channels in a forum that is not commercially linked (?) to the TV stations.

Does it work? Yes.
Why? People can engage and speak their minds.
Do the TV people listen? I sincerely hope so.

The company or organisation that listens will ultimately succeed!

Why we have HR departments...

Presentations that Work

The ability to present ideas is a skill that can be learnt. There isn't a lot of difference between a good presentation and a killer presentation.

Just observe a few simple rules and you too can improve -

1. Know your content!
2. Get early wins with your audience.
3. Have a laugh! Don't be so serious or nervous
4. Stay on track.
5. Practice.
   

Powerpoint is an excellent tool for producing eye catching graphics and creating slides that people enjoy. This website is a library of excellent powerpoint slide shows - http://www.slideshare.net/.

Some can be downloaded, but the main point is to draw inspiration from other people's work to enable you to be creative also.