Almost total self-indulgence, this post. The only thing I can say in my defence is that someone asked me what I did…. :)<\/p>\n
This is a bit of an odd day for us. We specialise in training people (in voice and presentations) in medium sized groups but today was a series of one-to-ones.<\/p>\n
First up was a museum manager who wanted to develop her \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcpresence\u00e2\u20ac\u2122. She\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s lovely, good at her job, but finding she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not being taken seriously by other museum managers when they meet at national conferences and so on. She\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d attended a training day we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d done on something other than presentations and liked our style, so once the beaurocracy of who was going to pay for things was sorted out, we started working together to give her more emotional weight (that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s an awful phrase in many ways but we used it as a short-hand between us and knew what we meant).<\/p>\n
Today\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s session was in the atrium of a modern office building, with an indoor fountain playing in the background – as working environments go it was pretty cool! We spent time looking at when she melted into the background (and why!) and she left with \u00e2\u20ac\u02dchomework\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 – a series of exercises to start her thinking in a different way. Next time we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll concentrate on the physical elements – voice, posture and body language.<\/p>\n
A working lunch in the bar of one of the local theatres was spent exploring how to give conference papers for an old friend of mine who works at one of the local Universities. Academics have a particular
\nchallenge when it comes to presenting because – to put it crudely – the more you know about a particular topic, the harder it is to figure out what to tell people: experts often can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 see the wood for the trees.<\/p>\n
Lunch over-ran, so I ended up running myself, getting to my next appointment only just in time… a charity worker making presentations finds that she hates being the centre of attention. Unfortunately, as her
\njob is about raising awareness of the charity and her work, that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not tenable, so we spend an hour looking at ways of making presentations where the presenter isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t the focus and agreeing a plan of action for next time,
\nwhen we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll go back to looking at how to handle being the focus after all!<\/p>\n
Coffee next – where they make the best cappuccinos in the city – before I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m joined by a performance poet who can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t perform! His work is great, but the performances aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t working for him and he wants some help. This is a first-contact meeting to see how well we could work together, so we spend a long time looking at the problem and sorting out the logistics of how to work together.<\/p>\n
By now it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s long after I should have headed home so I arrive with barely enough time to cook before my family arrive like the Biblical plague of locusts, eating bowls clean before I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve finished serving everything!<\/p>\n
I check emails, replying to the urgent ones (clients can follow-up on training days for free by email for ages afterwards) and updating my diary and so on. I check the timetable for tomorrow and remember that it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s
\ngoing to be one of our public training days in making business presentations, so it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time to hit the \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcprint\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 button on the hand-outs and pack my bag of equipment for the day… projector, laptop, candles, books,
\npenny whistle, feedback forms, folders, lego and finally the handouts.<\/p>\n
By now all I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m fit for is a shower and bed but it seems like I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been asleep for only five minutes before the alarm tells me it time to be up and moving again.<\/p>\n
I stare at it with a look to curdle milk before I remember how much fun these days can be and roll out of bed, grinning…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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