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Vitae Conference and NonZeroSum
Sep 13th
In this post: last week’s Vitae conference, and my workshop on NonZeroSum
This year’s Vitae conference has been and gone! It is quite surprising to me, but mostly because of some kind of nostalgic sense (”where did the last year go? I’ve almost been married for a year!”); the conference was a good place for meeting and mingling, and seeing what is going on in the sector that I work in.
Career Story
Aug 23rd
In April of this year, Vitae and icould asked if they could interview me for some short videos that they were putting together for their respective sites. I had almost forgotten about this until the other morning when a parcel arrived with a memory stick containing the edited videos. Each of the two organisations had their own particular angle that they were working on, and although I was filmed just the once, the footage was taken and then edited to make two different sets of videos.
Vitae’s focus was on looking at what researchers do: seeing what it is that people with PhDs do for work after they have completed their doctoral studies. My video is one of many that they have on their site, from people with all kinds of research backgrounds who have gone on to have many different kinds of careers.
icould is a really interesting website, and has an archive of videos of people with all sorts of jobs, telling their stories of what it is that they do and how they ended up getting there. I think that the first two lines on their about page sums it up really well: “icould is about inspiration and encouragement. The idea is to help you make the most of your potential and talent, by showing how others have used theirs.”
The videos are online now, and so if you’re interested to hear about why I decided to do what I’m doing, and how I got here, then go here on the Vitae site and here on the icould site. Of course, come back here after that to find out more about what I can do for you!
Moving On
Apr 13th
Over the last few weeks I’ve been very busy moving house. Wedding planning for this autumn is a big project management challenge, but moving house is definitely a good warm-up exercise. There’s just so much to think about, even when you think you have everything sorted out you find something else to do…
- You’ve boxed up all of your books, say, in some kind of order; it’s only after you’re confident that it’s finished that you find another stash of novels to be packed away.
- Or you think you have all of the different people and organisations notified of your address change, only to discover a big pile of post at your old house.
The recurring situation that my fiancee and I have found ourselves in over the last few weeks has been realising that we don’t have something that we need. For example, on arrival we found that there was no light bulb in the front room. It never occured to us to buy some spares, but that’s fine, there’s a shop nearby. Only when we get back to the house do we realise that we don’t have stepladders to reach the fitting.
I was preparing dinner one evening last week and realised that for all of the kitchen utensils we did have, we didn’t have a potato peeler – minor, frustrating situations that hold us up but which in themselves aren’t serious.
Minor, frustrating situations that hold us up but which in themselves aren’t serious.
We meet similar situations every day in our working lives; what can we do to avoid them? What kinds of planning and thinking do we need in order to combat these little thieves of time and productivity?
These are questions that I’ll be thinking about as I plan training and development courses over the coming weeks. Details of these courses will be published first on the site in the Courses section, and will then be sent out to various companies, organisations and institutions – if you’d like advance information, get in touch.