Today was the BIG DAY of the CRN Awards presentation. Preparing for the presentation was quite a challenge due to the extreme diary congestion of the two presenters. Basically, we made the CRN shortlist because of our great sales figures and status as a growing company with 100% channel model, but the side-effect of all this success is that the team is operating right at the edge of its resources. Getting Charlotte and Nigel in the same room for more than ten minutes proved tricky.
In order to make things as simple as possible given the limited time we had, I decided to draft a script for the presentation, covering the key areas. This gels very much with my preferred presenting approach. I like to know exactly what I'm going to say right down to the word, and then I tend to embellish and ad lib on the actual day, which I'm comfortable doing as I'm so familiar with the content. This is not the right approach for everyone.
Nigel, our director of channel marketing and product management, is an experienced and accomplished presenter, but he HATES to rehearse. Most of his presentations are drafted immediately before they are delivered, and are all the better for it. In this situation, however, he was doing a "double-act" with Charlotte, so rehearsal was necessary.
The first run-thorugh did not go smoothly. Charlotte had done quite a lot of preparation over the weekend and adapted the content into her own style. However, it was clear that Nigel was derailed by attempting to adapt my phraseology into his own presenting style. I was kicking myself, as it was clear that Nigel needed to do it his own way.
We decided to tear up the script, and Nigel came back an hour later with his notes in order, and suddenly the whole show began to come together. By the final run through, both Nigel and Charlotte were comfortably working their content and ready to perform.
It was a useful lesson for me. I'd have been better simply giving Nigel and Charlotte headlines that they needed to cover, and letting them get on with it. I'd thought it was helpful to have a scripted basis for the presentation, but it didn't work for them.
The actual presentation at the Mad Stad went well. The judges were sitting in a hospitality box that conveniently overlooked our stadium branding, and they commented on it before the presentation, so at least we know they noticed! The other shortlised companies' representatives were almost uniformly male, reflecting the bias of the industry, so at least we had sexual equality on our side! No one was giving anything away in the "green room" where I sat and guarded Charlotte's handbag while she and Nigel did their stuff behind closed doors.
All we can do now is wait until the awards ceremony on the 18th November to see whether we've managed to rise above some extremely stiff competition.
Monday 27 September 2010
Monday 13 September 2010
Work/life balance
Today has been one of those days where the only food you get is that which you can scavenge from your colleagues (one-and-a-half cheese scones, a clementine and some chocolates brought back from Switzerland -result!) and you've got so many major projects to get on with that you're paralysed by indecision over which to start first.
This week I'm grappling with "big" things, that can't be dashed off on a wing and a prayer:
Writing presentations
Changing our media database (potentially)
Embarking on a "proper" social media strategy
Drafting a bylined article
Plus the usual gamut of internal and external meetings - "the practical alternative to work".
That covers the day job, which incidentally I do four days per week. The other three days are taken up by my role as wife and mother, and it works pretty well most of the time. On those occasions, such as today, when appointments relating to my daughters occur during work time, I'm always very grateful for Kyocera's flexible approach to working parents, which enabled me to get to my daughter's year group meeting on time.
This week I'm grappling with "big" things, that can't be dashed off on a wing and a prayer:
Writing presentations
Changing our media database (potentially)
Embarking on a "proper" social media strategy
Drafting a bylined article
Plus the usual gamut of internal and external meetings - "the practical alternative to work".
That covers the day job, which incidentally I do four days per week. The other three days are taken up by my role as wife and mother, and it works pretty well most of the time. On those occasions, such as today, when appointments relating to my daughters occur during work time, I'm always very grateful for Kyocera's flexible approach to working parents, which enabled me to get to my daughter's year group meeting on time.
Wednesday 8 September 2010
Shortlisted #2!
We've been shortlisted for the CRN awards Vendor of the Year category! To say we're pleased is a bit of an understatement! Up against Oracle, IBM, Citrix and Netapps, so it's a pretty tough shortlist. Now to focus on creating a killer presentation for the live judging phase at the Mad Stad in a couple of weeks.
The shortlist in full
The shortlist in full
Tuesday 7 September 2010
Shortlisted!
Awards are great to win, and the whole company gets a buzz out of it, but drafting and submitting awards entries is a time-consuming process, so it's always really gratifying when you get to the shortlist stage. I've just heard that we've been shortlisted in the "Environment" category of the BOSS federation awards, which is great news.
Here's the shortlist
Of course another plus of being shortlisted is the opportunity to attend the glitzy awards ceremony and hopefully celebrate a win on the night.
I'm waiting to hear about the CRN awards shortlist today, and keeping everything crossed!
Here's the shortlist
Of course another plus of being shortlisted is the opportunity to attend the glitzy awards ceremony and hopefully celebrate a win on the night.
I'm waiting to hear about the CRN awards shortlist today, and keeping everything crossed!
Monday 6 September 2010
Monday morning amusement
Monday mornings can be a challenge at the best of times. But first-day-back-at-school-after-eight-and-a-half-weeks-off Monday monings...yuck! So how refreshing to find a couple of comic gems floating around my inbox.
The real genius of comedy is often apparent when it reflects the on the nature of reality, so Tim Phillips' tongue-in-cheek look at Conference Call Etiquette was bang on the money.
Less of a chortle but more of a wry recognition was engendered by Schwartz Communications Press Release Buzzword Bingo - must admit I'm guilty of a few of these. As mentioned in my previous post, it can be hard to think of new ways to say things, but it's true that PR is over-fond of the "corporate superlative".
Both of these gems came to me courtesy of the PR Daily Europe news feed, which has recently started landing in my in-box. So far I'm a fan.
We're waiting on two awards shortlist announcements this week - the BOSS federation awards and the industry Oscars - the CRN awards. Fingers crossed!
The real genius of comedy is often apparent when it reflects the on the nature of reality, so Tim Phillips' tongue-in-cheek look at Conference Call Etiquette was bang on the money.
Less of a chortle but more of a wry recognition was engendered by Schwartz Communications Press Release Buzzword Bingo - must admit I'm guilty of a few of these. As mentioned in my previous post, it can be hard to think of new ways to say things, but it's true that PR is over-fond of the "corporate superlative".
Both of these gems came to me courtesy of the PR Daily Europe news feed, which has recently started landing in my in-box. So far I'm a fan.
We're waiting on two awards shortlist announcements this week - the BOSS federation awards and the industry Oscars - the CRN awards. Fingers crossed!
Thursday 2 September 2010
The language of environmentalism
I've just been reading a BBC article about Dame Ellen Macarthur's new education foundation focusing on sustainability. The thought process which has driven her to this venture is a compelling one, based on her experiences living with finite resources on her round-the-world record-breaking challenges. What struck me though, is her lack of enthusiasm for the "terminology of green", as it is something with which I can sympathise.
I generate a LOT of words on the "green" topic, and some of the words I can type the fastest are: sustainable; sustainbility; green; environmental; simply due to the frequency with with I have to use them. Yet I get the feeling that these words are an immediate turn-off for quite a lot of people. Sick of feeling bullied by the green lobbying group, you can almost see the eye-roll when consumers are confronted by green evangelism from corporations.
Indeed, the backlash against the profusion of environmental claims in marketing and advertising leads to accusations of greenwashing - which are in many cases well-founded - and the attendant cynicism does nothing to advance the environmental cause going forward.
Dame Ellen has hit upon something quite key, and demonstrated an innate understanding of the human condition, when she says:
"What does 'green' mean? It's not about 'green' or 'the environment'. you could argue its how we maintain a good quality of life. It's about how we're going to prosper in the future when we're so dependant on something that won't be around forever."
Like it or not, humans are selfish beings - it's probably been the key to our survival for much of our evolution - so appealing to this self-interest should be more fruitful than haranguing attempts to drive action through some sort of sense of mass guilt. Dame Ellen's "enlightened self-interest" approach seems to me to be more likely to succeed.
So perhaps we need to shift our focus? Start creating a positive dialogue built around the benefits for our own lives of managing our resources more effectively. It can work in business, where companies are focusing on reducing costs and saving jobs by cutting energy use and making their businesses leaner and more resource efficient. The 'green' benefits are a welcome side-effect...
Coming up with a whole new lexicon for this approach, however, is not something I'll get to this morning, so I'll be tagging this post "green", "environment", "sustainability".
I generate a LOT of words on the "green" topic, and some of the words I can type the fastest are: sustainable; sustainbility; green; environmental; simply due to the frequency with with I have to use them. Yet I get the feeling that these words are an immediate turn-off for quite a lot of people. Sick of feeling bullied by the green lobbying group, you can almost see the eye-roll when consumers are confronted by green evangelism from corporations.
Indeed, the backlash against the profusion of environmental claims in marketing and advertising leads to accusations of greenwashing - which are in many cases well-founded - and the attendant cynicism does nothing to advance the environmental cause going forward.
Dame Ellen has hit upon something quite key, and demonstrated an innate understanding of the human condition, when she says:
"What does 'green' mean? It's not about 'green' or 'the environment'. you could argue its how we maintain a good quality of life. It's about how we're going to prosper in the future when we're so dependant on something that won't be around forever."
Like it or not, humans are selfish beings - it's probably been the key to our survival for much of our evolution - so appealing to this self-interest should be more fruitful than haranguing attempts to drive action through some sort of sense of mass guilt. Dame Ellen's "enlightened self-interest" approach seems to me to be more likely to succeed.
So perhaps we need to shift our focus? Start creating a positive dialogue built around the benefits for our own lives of managing our resources more effectively. It can work in business, where companies are focusing on reducing costs and saving jobs by cutting energy use and making their businesses leaner and more resource efficient. The 'green' benefits are a welcome side-effect...
Coming up with a whole new lexicon for this approach, however, is not something I'll get to this morning, so I'll be tagging this post "green", "environment", "sustainability".
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