Conferences and awaydays

Last week was Staff Conference week. This week, our departmental awayday.

First, our staff conference. Thankfully, unlike every other conference, delegates aren't bombed with lanyards, bags, gimmicks and other rubbish made from materials destined for landfill. No doubt we're helping the planet. Unofficially, I suspect budgets don't extend to such trinkets. Nor should they. I have a cupboard at home, full of promotional guff. I want the space back, though I'm terrified it'll choke guillemots and poison oceans.

Guillemots? Here's our honorary Doc John Hegley, of this parish, to explain:

Anyway. Here are some random nuggets from the day:

• The free lunch packs went down a storm. For some reason, I didn't get one;
• I was, however, happy recipient of two bags of Minstrels and a packet of Twiglets thanks to the excellent efforts of colleagues;
• I also enjoyed, though was slightly perplexed by the debate about "Marmite flavour" Twiglets;
• As if there is any other flavour. I know there was some tampering with a Worcester Sauce variant, but that, surely, was just a try out....

Groucho - they're messing the flavours up again

The sessions - those I attended - were fine. Special mention to John Pitts' gang culture talk, which was excellent. And for Ibraham, last week's blogger and VCO intern, who facilitated some good debate after showing a video TED talk, featuring an American chap with a headset, extolling the virtues of chaos over comfort when it comes to self deveopment.

I'm not sure about TEDs. Condensing intelligence into rhetorical models and arguments is a useful skill, but I like to take my time and see all sides. As I say, Ibraham was excellent. But nothing in the video I saw convinced me. I left with two thoughts; first, that the debate had been great. Second, I'm sure I've been here before, sitting with a comp coffee, in my workplace, being told to embrace jeopardy. I'm not sure I've got time for all that any more.

Me and Jeopardy? Sure. We go back...

Yesterday, we had our MARC awayday. Or MAR awayday. We lost the 'C'. Name change tbc and pending and all that. This awayday was hands on and operational. In some ways, it's a shame the Uni's strategists and TEDs don't get along to these events, though they'd probably get in the way, hogg the biscuits and, err, change the dynamic.

UCAS analysis was aired, though there seemed more value in reflecting, catching breath and pondering the reduction in the size of the team. There are about 30 of us in MARC, from around 60 four or five years ago. The awayday gave us 30 time to reflect, get real and talk about such stuff and not be given a kind of stock response about silos or smarter working.

Departmental awaydays seem more real and visceral somehow. And to the point. By nature, it's bottom up rather than top down. There's no talk about comfort zones or jeopardy; no blue sky thinking or horizon scanning. The flip charts have pictures rather than bullets. They're less jargony and more impactful. Even if impactful isn't really a word.

Then we had a barby, educational activity and bingo. Not exactly work stuff, but an invaluable time to reconnect with each other as humans. With Clearing just round the corner, this 'getting on' and understanding how people might work and react is important.

Anyway, these are my views. Of course, conferences and awaydays are neither the same thing, nor polar opposites. They shouldn't be compared, one versus the other. But then this is my blog. I've leave with an analogy; awaydays feel more like punk rock or free jazz; expressive, bumpy noise, with some heart and creativity, compared to many conferences I've been to, which feel more akin to orchestras  playing nursery rhymes in a great big echo chamber.

New year, same you. Just better.

Happy New Year everyone, I hope you had a great time celebrating! 

I feel there's a level of expectation about the first blog post of the year, so I hope I won't disappoint! It IS going to have a 'new year's resolution' type of message, but one I hope you won't find cliché.

I've never read a 'self-help' book in all of my life, however I asked for a book for Christmas called 'How to be a BAWSE' by Lilly Singh. What's a Bawse, I hear you ask? Well it's like a boss, but better. It's when you're not just surviving life, you're conquering it. Lilly is a YouTuber I watch (am I showing my age yet?) and her motivation and drive for business, work and life always astounds me, so I thought I'd give her book a go. 

Yada yada yada, long story short...it's amazing. It's essentially all the little arguments and discussions you have with yourself written down. With solutions. I'm a fair way through the 50 chapters, but these are two of my favourite points so far, and I hope they'll be helpful to you too.

1) Schedule time for inspiration.

I'm not entirely sure who reads this blog, but I'll go with a wide assumption that most of you are working. When you have a job - a day in, day out, 9-5, doing similar things over and over kind of job - updating and re-vamping can be the last things on your mind. Well here I am, giving you permission to schedule time for inspiration so that you can change that. 

You're a web designer? Spend 15 minutes searching for your favourite websites. What do you like about them, is there anything you could replicate within your work?  
You're an architect? Watch a TED talk on how architecture can transform urban spaces. It might give you some structural ideas you've never thought of before. Boom. Inspiration. 
Script-writer? Go on Netflix and watch a genre you're not usually interested in. The story-line or characterisation you see might help you create a play that's unique and different to anything you've ever created. And there you have it. Inspiration = motivation to do better. 

We try to do it here in the Marketing team too sometimes. Recently Pete (Digital Marketing Manager) gave a presentation on some of the best digital marketing campaigns out at the minute, and we picked our favourites and thought about how we could use some of the methods in our own marketing. I'm not sure about the others, but I left the room feeling like we could make some legitimate changes to better our work. Don't treat inspiration as an after-thought, schedule time for it. Otherwise creativity dies. 

2) Don't keep doing the same things, and expecting a different outcome.

I have to learn this lesson the hard way pretty regularly, both at work and in my personal life. Most recently, I have been working on a series of emails promoting our February course starts. We (my manager David and I) sent out a first wave in mid November and they performed pretty well. We then needed to send a reminder email out in December. We tweaked the design a little and cut down the text, but the messaging was the same. And guess what? They tanked. I looked at the reports and just thought, why am I surprised? I did the same thing but expected a different outcome. I'm aware there were also external factors at work, like timing and the fact that it was a second email, but even so. I should have known better. 

So please, write it on a post-it note and put it somewhere you can see it. Because you're not going to get fitter if you always take the escalator and not the stairs. And you're definitely not going to learn anything or find a new hobby if you don't audition for a choir, join a gym, or watch a YouTube tutorial on how to learn HTML code. (Okay that one's specific to me, but you get what I mean). 

I'm hoping that was more of a motivational speech than a boring lecture, and that it also brought you up to speed with some of the things we've been doing in the marketing team as well. 

So remember...new year, same you. Just better. 

Until next time. Over and out.