The Invisible Mentor

Posts Tagged ‘Toronto’

When it comes to taking control of your professional development,  how do you rate yourself?

I spent this weekend at Podcamp Toronto, the first time I have ever attended. I am not going to focus on the the sessions I attended, but on what the organizers said during orientation, which resonated with what I have  consistently said on this blog.

Podcamp, the unconference, is different from other conferences because it’s organized by participants for participants. Connie Crosby, one of the key organizers emphasized that participants are responsible for their own learning, that is, take control of their own professional development. With that in mind, participants were encouraged to leave sessions if they felt that they weren’t getting what they needed (A concept called The Rule of Two Feet), and attend others to see if there was a better fit for them.

Other key aspects of Podcamp unconferences are the sharing, paying it forward and flexibility. Presenters who are also participants share their knowledge, wisdom and experiences so that others may learn from them. Many who have attended previous unconferences subsequently present at later unconferences, honoring the idea of paying it forward. And when you attend these unconferences, there are slots left free for sessions that participants can fill if they want to expand and continue a conversation, or start a conversation they see missing. Traditional conferences can learn from the flexibility of unconferences, as well as practice the Rule of Two Feet to increase attendee satisfaction.

A model such as this, fills some very basic needs, and people learn from their peers or those who have traveled further down the path they are on. When the economy slows down, training budgets are the first ones that are  slashed. How do you respond when this occurs? Do you place your professional development on hold, waiting for the economy to pick up? Or are you proactive  and take your professional development into your own hands? I hope it’s the latter and that you are taking care of your continuous learning.

How might you apply the idea of the unconference to your life? What are ways in which you can take care of your professional development? One way is to get a group of friends together, where each friend would present to the others on a topic that they are very knowledgeable and/or passionate about. This could be organized as a potluck dinner because food makes everything better. Each person in the group would benefit, and may even learn about a model or concept that could be applied in their field or industry.

Another way to apply the concept is to teach others what you know, so that they may learn, and in the process you will deepen your knowledge in the subject.

Let’s keep the conversation going, please comment.

Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the left side) by email or RSS Feed. I created a Mini Learning Toolkit and you can grab a copy by clicking here.

For your research and writing needs, consider my firm Ambeck Enterprise for white papers, articles, fact sheets, anniversary booklets, you name it. Since I am the best kept secret you may not know this, but I have over 15 years research and writing experience. I KNOW content. And if you cannot figure out which books to read for professional development, I am your WOMAN, I can assist you with that too.

On February 22, 2010, from noon to 1 pm EST, I will be the guest speaker on a teleseminar on women re-inventing themselves. If you can attend, the call in details are Conference Dial-In:  1-712-432-3100, Conference Code:  932589.

Photo Credit: Creative Commons via Apture

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Spending the time to do quality work and build a good reputation matters. Over a year ago, I interviewed Bob Fugere who was hired as an Interim Executive Director for a Non-governmental Organization. The interview drives home the point that a good reputation matters, what do you think?

Interview With Dr. Robert Fugere, Consultant

Challenge: I had been managing and advising Canadian and international NGOs for more than twenty five years until I retired, but my most challenging assignment came when I offered to be the six-month interim Executive Director for a local environmental group.

This group had a seventeen year history of excellent secondary research, good neighbourhood projects, and most of all, effective lobbying of city councillors. A bookkeeper and canvass manager (with five contract street fund-raisers) were the support staff; most of the content work over the past seven years had been carried out by four campaigners.

I knew when I started that two of these campaigners had just moved on to better positions elsewhere and the third one -whom I was replacing- was going off on maternity leave. My assignment from the Board was to “hold the fort and prepare for a strategic planning process”.

Within six weeks, I discovered that our $500,000 budget seemed to be overspent by $100,000. After two months the remaining senior campaigner informed me that he was leaving to run in the municipal election.

That left me with one part-time replacement campaigner, two challenging reports to prepare for our major donors, and a lot of sleepless nights, trying to figure out what to do to keep this noble but battered ship afloat. There were only three options to put to the Board:

1. Borrow some staff from other NGOs;
2. Set up an emergency fund-raising campaign;
3. Or quietly close the shop.

Resolution: I leaned toward the last option. That Board meeting was crucial. Two canvassers pledged to increase their door-knocking for the next three months. One Board member from the labour unions declared that this NGO’s work was so crucial for its worker/members that they would put up a line-of-credit loan to see us through the next six months.

Those votes of confidence were enough to permit the hiring part-time of two experienced campaigners who helped prepare two successful grant submissions and the raising of $20,000 from a few key friends who also valued the work we had done.

Lessons Learned

1. In my NGO management classes, I had long taught that our major asset as NGOs was the quality of the work we did, and this experience had proven that thesis
2. The excellent work this NGO had done over many years had built its reputation -and its acknowledged presence- in Toronto’s civil society, so that even with an almost complete turnover of staff, it still merited others’ support. It was this reputation, not the salary level, that attracted the new campaigners, that garnered the unions’ support
3. For me personally, I saw how important it could be to maintain an open, fully-informed and calm hand on the tiller when the seas run high. Though I couldn’t provide either the money or the technical environmental knowledge required, the staff, the Board and the donors all needed to sense that a trusted person would provide the information and maturity to bring each of their partial contributions to a common result

Formula for Success

Good quality work builds your reputation which is a major asset.

If you were in Bob’s position, what would you have done different, and why? Let’s keep the conversation going, I value your comments.

Have you ever heard the phrase you don’t know what you don’t know? How do you discover what you don’t know?

You constantly have to immerse yourself into situations where you will learn new things.

I have wanted to add videos to this blog to have more variety and perhaps even to do a video review of books, but I really didn’t know much about video recording. I thought about taking a course but wondered if I really needed to do so since I only needed to know the basics.

I heard that Toronto Net Tuesday, a Meetup Group was having an event, Online Storytelling — How to Plan & Produce a Compelling Video at the Centre for Social Innovation in Toronto. I immediately signed up for the event which cost only $5. At that price I had absolutely nothing to lose and everything to gain.

The event exceeded my expectations. There were three presenters: Jamie Woo, Brad Dworkin and Billie Mintz, who dealt with the Why, What and How respectively of using online videos. At the end of the formal presentations, the nearly 60 attendees went into three groups depending on their interests and the reason they attended the event. I was interested in the How so I went into the group with Billie Mintz.

Before attending events, I prepare myself so that I will gain as much as possible. This also decreases the chances of me being disappointed about the event. I also align my expectations with the cost of the event. At $5, my thinking was that if I got one idea from the event I would be happy. I highly recommend preparing for events, and managing expectations based on what the event costs and what is promised.

What I didn’t know that I didn’t know

Billie explained that the most important thing in selecting a device to video record is the sound. I am supposed to know that except I really didn’t. I am a visual person so I am always interested in the way things look. The picture is important yes, but Billy explained that people will forgive you if you have a crappy picture if they can hear the video clearly. Because I was prepared for the event I knew what questions to ask to get the information that I needed.

How do you prepare for events? What techniques can you recommend? Are there Meetup Groups in your backyard that you can attend?

Take time everyday to discover what you don’t know that you don’t know!

Highlights from Online Storytelling — How to Plan & Produce a Compelling Video

• You can purchase a good quality high definition video camera for under $1,000
• Become familiar with your camera and how it works
• Learn about white balance
• Get a stick microphone or a wireless lav to feed into camera
• Create your videos inside whenever possible to eliminate noises
• Always wear a headphone so that you can pick up sounds that you would usually miss such as the wind blowing
• Think about how pictures go with words for maximum impact when presenting your stories
• What is your visual story? Who is your audience? (Be as specific as possible)
• The power of videos allow you to be “relatable” because viewers can see facial expressions
• Using videos allow you to be more targeted since you customize your message and target to only the people who will listen
• If the video you want to produce is more than you can manage, you have the option to outsource your project to video producers or crowdsource it (an open call to a large number of people to bid on the project)

These are only a few snippets of what I learned at the event. In the future, I would like to attend an event that delves a bit more into creating a compelling story in three to five minutes.

In case you are wondering how to prepare before you attend an event, here are a few things to do before hand:

1. Look at the event agenda if there is one to learn about what will be presented
2. Why are you attending the event? What are you hoping to accomplish?
3. Is there a skill gap that you are trying to fill? What specific pieces of new information are you lacking? Who at the event will have the information you require to fill the gap?
4. Make a list of questions that you would like answered
5. Are there people at the event that you would like to meet? Find out from the event organizers if they can introduce you to those people
6. Manage your expectations and align your expectations with the cost of the event
7. Be open and flexible and expect the unexpected

Photo Credit: Avil Beckford

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