Black Belt Dojo

Time to abuse your generosity...

I think people know that I like cycling.  I've tried to persuade Sue to join me but without luck as there are too few chocolate opportunities when you're riding.

Well, finally I've qualified for a long ride in France and I'm trying to drum up sponsorship.

Paris-Brest-Paris happens once every four years and involves riding 1,200 kilometres in less than 90 hours (including sleeping and eating).  I'm reliably informed that completing the ride is not a question of fitness - you just have to have a tough backside and an ability to sleep in bus shelters.

However, I have my doubts as I know how easy it is to give up on these sorts of things and climb into the back of the broom wagon that follows the riders around.  So I thought, why not get some sponsors - then I'll feel under some sort of moral obligation to carry on.

And what better thing to do than pick charity I CAN?  These guys work with children who have communications difficulties - I thought it rather appropriate given what we do for a living...

So, if you're interested, I'd welcome your support.  Follow this link to find out more and cheer me on....

Liam

Where angels fear to tread

Rushing warily into my second post - someone emailed me the other day 'Paul, there's too many emails flying around -I'm deluged daily with dross. My mailbox is so full I'm sinking under the volume - I don't know where to start. We need a policy that is going to cut out all the unecessary ones. Can you write one and implement it.' Wow, I thought, he wants me to single handedly stem the tide. No pressure then! I replied to him 'whose emails do you want to stop?'

The point is, you cannot regulate something like email with central dictats. My belief is that the best way to manage it is not to! Like water, let it find its own level. This is one of those situations where the pressure for change will well up from the ground. People will modify their behaviours because they have to: finding they're not getting a response to their email they'll pick up the phone instead or find some other means to communicate. Standards will begin to emerge from the natural consensus that is building. It's not as if email is the only channel in town so communication is not going to cease. Far from it, like a river, effective communication follows the least line of resistance so as soon as email ceases to become an effective channel we will find something else until a balance is restored.

Paul

Look who's talking!

So, it's not true then. Apparently scientists have found we females don't chatter away madly and men are not strong silent types after all. We all talk as much as each other. (Strange, the things scientists spend their time on.)

According to Relate, the marriage guidance people (who now appear to be called 'relationship specialists'), what's more important is whether people are introverts or extroverts. Introverts get much of their energy from their internal world, so they're happy to think things through to themselves. Extroverts get their energy from other people, so they talk more.

Classic quote from Relate's Paula Hall in this BBC article, who says the problem isn't how much people talk, it's how much people listen:

"If women listened more we might find men talked more than we thought, and if men listened more they might find that women actually don't talk rubbish all the time. Some of what we say is actually valuable."

How about a study on which of the sexes listen more then? Now THAT would be interesting!!

Is that it then????

I got a call late last night from a friend who has just landed a new job so can't come out for a beer tonight - great news for him (he's benefitted from the reshuffle of the UK Cabinet to land a big job) but bad news for me!

Although I was looking forward to seeing him I was also quite excited to go to my local pub which is normally out of bounds for me because it is SO smokey.  Yep, if you live outside England you might have missed the fuss about the ban on smoking in public places that came in at the weekend.

We finally caught up with Scotland, Ireland and Wales on Sunday when it became illegal to smoke tobacco (and I presume anything else) outside your own home except in unenclosed spaces like parks.  And with the weather we've been having that must be a bit of a bummer if you're a slave to the demon weed! (I've been going mad trying to get in some time on the bike!)

It would be interesting to see if anyone has collated their experiences of telling employees that they can no longer visit the smoking room, puff away in the company trucks or light-up anywhere really?  As an ex-smoker I do remember the militancy that smokers can espouse (although I sense it turned into resignation in more recent years).

Are there lessons to be learnt about banning workers from participationg in an activity that is perfectly legal outside working hours?  I remember my days introducing alcohol bans in the rail industry and how tricky it got telling office staff that if we were preventing train drivers from drinking it was only fair that they should be included.  My lesson was that it's wise to keep the message as simple as possible otherwise you get bogged down in silly quibbles.

But overall, if you belived the press in the UK, it was going to represent the end of civilisation as we knew it...I've not noticed much of a fuss...

Liam

Overhyped, oversold, over here ...

The first post from our new guest blogger: Paul Massie, Chair of CIPRInside (the internal communications group of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations.)

Overhyped, oversold, over here ... that's my view of the current social media fad. Welcome to my first blog, and given my views on the social media craze it will probably be my last - I don't suppose Sue or Liam will invite me back again!

Come on, be honest, with people complaining about email overload can you seriously tell me that people have time to read blogs, let alone write them? And as for podcasts - have you heard the rubbish that's out there? It's like wading through treacle trying to find something half decent - is it really worth the effort? The reality is that social media is just another way for the chattering classes to get broader exposure to their views - but who cares? It's not as if their views are representative.

The overwhelming majority of people either do not have a computer or do not know how to use it, a pre-requisite for this type of communication. Social media, far from being socially inclusive, is socially devisive, emphasising the difference between the computer literate and the computer illiterate, the haves and have-nots, the time rich and the time-poor - not to mention those who have something to say and those who don't but want to say it anyway!

Take some traditional channels, sprinkle a bit of technology dust on them, give it a sexy name and hey presto, you've got a marketers dream. I've lost count of the number of so-called gurus, conferences and articles all encouraging us to jump on the bandwagon, and if we don't we're out of touch. Tosh. That's not to say that social media doesn't have its place amongst other channels - but that is all, so let's not hype it all up.

Go on, tell me I'm wrong! If just one person out of you millions of web users out there thinks I'm mistaken, let's hear from you (Sue/Liam, this doesn't include you!). Silence will just prove my point - you either agree with me or you haven't read it, in which case, what's the point?