Scary!

What scares you, what keeps you up at night, what is the worst that can happen?

These are some of the questions we can ask ourselves when we forge ahead with a life choice that others think is stupid, likely to fail or against the norm. Equally, there are many people who are pioneers, how would the world look if people hadn’t decided that they wanted to be different and go somewhere else? Some may say “a lot better!”

I have met a lot of people recently who decided to go out on a limb and do something very different to what was expected of them. They gave up job titles, corporate prestige, expectations and all the the things that come with other people’s definition of success.

How real their successful lives were is down to each individual, but when I speak with them, one thing resonates; they had achieved what they set out to achieve, learned as much as they could and now see their success differently. They see their success in others’ success. They want to pass skills and experience on. Sure, they worry about their next pay packet and how they pay the bills, but equally they know that money and ‘power’ isn’t everything.

Often, with people whose motivation is to give and help, they have a stunning support network around them that will keep them up when they stumble. I am not sure it would extend to mortgage payments, but who can tell how far generosity goes when you have a friend in need?

However, what they know is going to happen is that they are helping build a future for more than just their friends and family, and that knowledge shouldn’t be kept within a small group, but shared to make everyone’s lives a success.

We are planning at Tech Talkfest to pay it forward in interesting and unusual ways, so watch this space….

Networking is the best way to recruit the best people

We think that Evan Harris has. His experience in the corporate world has given him the skills, and, with the spark of a great idea, he created the Expert network. As you know we have a passion for helping our network, so you can see why we think Evan is terrific!

Evan came up with the idea for The Expert Network after using his personal network to recruit the I.T. team for a large programme. This approach created a higher performing team than usual and saved the client external recruitment fees.

Around the same time an I.T. recruiter called him about a contract job. He wasn’t interested. But in response to the inevitable “do you know anyone else?” he suggested a former colleague. The great news is his former colleague got the job, the recruiter pocketed £40,000 in fees.

He thought that it was time for experienced professionals to collaborate more effectively in the recruitment process and beyond. Peer-to-peer models had already revolutionised so many other industries, why not recruitment?

The best people to help you build a team are those that have worked directly with and have relationships with the best people they know. Why not build the team from the expertise of those people? He launched The Expert Network connecting the individual networks of top I.T. professionals into an invite-only super network You can bring the benefit of your network to benefit everyone within and beyond your network.

You can see why we love him at Tech Talkfest!

It seems they are building a trend, according to their blog

If you want to get involved, you are going to need to reach out to your own network to get yourself invited to The Expert Network. Evan personally welcomes everyone who is invited, so it would be your opportunity to find out more about him or follow them on Twitter @TheExpertNetwork

Evan understands how much building relationships is important. Trust and privacy are what people value with the advent of social media. We all know that it is not what you know, but who you know or, more importantly, who knows you!

What are you missing?

Spending so much time in London, I am surrounded by people, but mostly, I don’t get to know any of them unless I have arranged to specifically meet them. Is this a missed opportunity? James Eder of the beans group has answered this question by setting up @FriendlyFriday.

In London it is hard to start a conversation with a random stranger. It tends to mark you out as a tourist or a bit strange. Sometimes though, a well-placed question because of a mis-heard announcement or a flippant comment can open up a relationship that may surprise you.

I have had another great week, meeting amazing people. These were not random, I was recommended to meet them by amazing people, the luxury of Tech Talkfest! Listen to those around you, are you missing out on meeting great people?

I met Tom Butterworth, who is helping great start-ups with funding at Silicon Valley Bank (SVB). He focusses on giving great service to all his customers, the main value of SVB, big or small, they treat you well. He was explaining to me how the traditional banking sector doesn’t understand this amazing technical explosion we are seeing so doesn’t lend money to these businesses. He has a passion for helping out those that can’t get funding through the traditional SME business channels.

Simon Wax at Buzzacotts is working hard to help those in the technical world understand what has been made available by the government to make the UK a country of Innovation. He really enjoys working with creative people and helping them grow their business with all his expertise. Some people just don’t like numbers, Simon helps them by taking away that pain, providing them with the tools to maximise their finances and strengthen their business.

The Gherkin

I had the pleasure and fortune to meet Oliver Werneyer, from Swiss Re, at the top of the Gherkin, what a view!! He is not someone who I would have bumped into in my normal activities. But because of the great connections of our members and partners, I got to meet him at one of the best places in London. We marvelled at the view and how higgledy piggled London is. It made my week!

So what are we missing? Sometimes we need to take a look at the bigger picture. Take a view from high up and look down. Are we doing the things that engage us, grow us, challenge us? Who do we not meet because we are looking down and keeping busy?

I am not suggesting that you start randomly talking to strangers on the tube, the looks of disapproval may put you off. But how about you chat with someone in the queue for coffee or lunch? Alternatively, ask someone at work to introduce you to someone interesting, once you have chatted with them, ask them the same question. You never know where it may lead……..

Have a great weekend!

 

Inside the world of innovation

I’m not sure any of us could think of a better place to spend our working play days than inside the world of innovation and all the wonders it yields. Innovation; it conjures up the ideas of; simple, smart, effective. It’s the sense of pride of having created something better for them, for you, for me.

Well we met the SVP of Nielsen Innovation Practice at Nielsen and she is most definitely someone worth knowing.  Ladies and gentlemen, meet the lovely Ramona Liberoff. We can’t say it better than Felix Velarde, CEO of Underwired: “Ramona is superbly bright, witty company, and brimming with infectious enthusiasm. Her understanding of digital and clarity of thought and vision are exceptional. Seek Ramona out.”

Ramona doesn’t like being labelled, but if she had to, she would say she is a corporate agitator. You can hear her views about innovation and how you need to get to know people. It is definitely worth taking the 5 minutes.

Ramona Liberoff from de facto films on Vimeo.

Ramona is not one to sit still, someone who does triathlons for fun probably can’t. She is a very busy lady but she does make time to help those that need her special expertise and I know how much that has impacted those that have come into contact with her, if you watched the video, you will see her passion for uncovering potential in others to make them the best they can be.

Here at Tech Talkfest we do love meeting interesting people, so if you do want to catch Ramona, you will find her on a panel at Developing Front-Line and Senior Leaders to be Change Agents – Challenges and Solutions on 15th October.

We love Ramona’s enthusiasm and people innovation, helping one person at a time. It is powerful stuff and what an impact it makes!

Hoping you have had and continue to have a productive day!

Who do you serve?

Some people serve their god, some people serve their family, some serve shareholders, there are many people you can serve. Who are you in service to?

As the Curator of a distinguished network, Tech Talkfest, I am in service to my members. On my travels meeting so many amazing, interesting people, I take the opportunity to help them where I can too, most often, by connecting them to another amazing person who has the right knowledge. What happens when you meet someone who takes advantage of your joy to serve?

In my post about generosity, I commented about how lucky I am to be surrounded by such generous people at Tech Talkfest. In my personal life, my family and friends seem to default to generosity. I see this as people grouping together around their values. We all like to be a member of a likeminded group of people. It affirms what we think about the world when others think the same.

#joytoserve

At what point do you decide that you are being taken advantage of and move on? What happens when a group you feel part of no longer aligns with your values or beliefs, or takes advantage of your better nature? I tend to do the nuclear option and walk away, after a lot of soul searching about it being the right decision. I don’t have any profound answers, but if you have learned some great ways to serve without being exploited, then please tweet #joytoserve some of your wise words.

Zoe and I were chatting last week and we were taking stock of what we are building with Tech Talkfest. We are now at the point where it has ‘a life of its own’, if that makes sense. By bringing together these amazing, generous people, this group is now serving each other. By serving each other, they are creating benefit for those they serve, but in extension, those they serve, pass it on and so on. To be in the centre of this, looking out, I can see a long way. The chain of generosity and service cannot be broken because it has so many threads going in all directions.

This is in no small part because of the members we have, I feel delighted to know them and feel their support for what we are all shaping.

How do you integrate?

A manager of mine used to ask the interview question: when you join a new team, how do you build your credibility? I use it to this day. If the answer is, “ask questions about the person in the team and find out how you can help them”, I know I have the right person.

As Tech Talkfest grows and the ‘team’ of members gets larger, the question may well be “when you meet a group for the first time, how do you integrate yourself?” This is a question most people can answer but they are often on the lookout for better ways to do it.

Lewin Chan – Chief Architect at Adaptris

Lewin Chan, Chief Architect at Adaptris Ltd, approaches software integration in the same way. Although Lewin is what we would understand as deeply technical, because of the solutions he provides, he needs to understand the challenges of the businesses that his clients run and therefore needs to get the best from people. This begins with the question, how can I help you achieve the outcome you want?

He manages these outcomes, often under time pressures. In the words of Bill Pugsley: “Lewin made a significant contribution to the re-engineering of the core product suite that our business offered to our clients. Working closely with our Technical Director he met the onerous timescales that I unreasonably demanded!

He posts regularly in his blog: Specialising Generalist, Integration isn’t always easy but it’s never hard, discussing integration in ways that people can understand. If you want a simple explanation of software integration, you can start here – What is integration? 😉 His blog posts on other topics are just as informative.

On a very basic level, integration is getting 2 different systems to talk to each other. How is this not like 2 people meeting for the first time, but speaking different languages. What do you do, as perhaps a native French speaker meeting a native Japanese speaker? How do you integrate yourself? You try and find common ground, on the simplest level you start with a smile. As Sri Sri Ravi Shankar quotes: “All the people in the world smile in the same language.”

Many people do struggle with walking into a room full of people already talking, of being a stranger in a new place. How do you integrate yourself?

I deal with it by turning up early, if you are one of the 1st people there, you get to meet 1 or 2 people in the same situation, always easier!

Lewin is one of Tech Talkfest’s founding members, if generosity and helping people are some of your values, you can get in early and help build our network and get to meet Lewin at one of our events. He knows how to integrate, what you see is what you get!

When Culture Clash is good

How do you turn cultural differences to advantages in networking?

On my first birthday in the UK, only two months after I had moved from Brazil to London, my work colleagues gave me a great book that would help me, a foreigner, to understand the oddities of a British lifestyle. I had fun reading it but, three years later, I still put myself in awkward situations because of culture clash.

How to be British by Martyn Ford & Peter Legon

I had an interesting episode last week. After finishing a good meeting with a work partner, I approached them with a hug.

For my total embarrassment, the person realised what I was about to do and they became as stiff as a lamppost, even bending their head back in case I was also trying to give a kiss. When I realised the situation, I backed off as soon as I could, said goodbye and left thinking if I should’ve said sorry or not.

Those three seconds raised many thoughts and discussions with my inner self. So much, that I let them go on my Facebook page, maybe trying to get some support or to discover if I was being inappropriate. After 21 comments and 50 likes on my page, today I can say my conclusion is, I was just being my “brazilianself”, something that will never change, this situation will now be a practical lesson that I need to be more aware of people’s personal space and culture, especially in a work environment.

We all have our strengths. Do you know yours? I am a people person, I love to be with, to work with and to invest in people. As John Donne said “No man is an Island”. I am not trying to start a hug movement; I’m just trying to say that you have to do what you believe in. Taking this to another level, how should we make sure we innovate sharing our values without going too far? We don’t want to be known as “The person who always tries to convince everyone you are right”, do you?

When I first heard about Tech Talkfest, I noticed something different. At the end of the day, the focus was targeted on interesting people, not only in business, statistics and numbers as usual. The more you give, the more you get. When you listen to someone, you own the right to be heard back on the same level, with the same attention you gave to them. Before you realise, your return will come in different ways, from people you spent time with. It might not just be on a financial aspect, but as respect recognition.

All of that might sound like an innocent and simplistic way to think. I believe that people realise more than ever before, when you relate to them, is because you want something back or that you are genuinely interested? That happens in different age groups, in schools between teachers and students, and in friendship groups and at work. Probably the most upsetting situation I had in a work envirovement was when I shared my ideas and plans for the company I was working with. Later,  I found the projects in cupboards and files not being used. The truth was, I wasn’t being listened to, not even to be confronted. I felt terrible not because my suggestions weren’t put in place, but because the attention and feedback I had received when sharing my ideas wasn’t genuine.

Keep your values; share your ideas with interesting people. The more you share, the easier it will be to find someone that wants to join or invest in them. Respect personal spaces and extend your values.

Have a great week!

Analice Mina Collyer

@analicemina

What does generosity mean to you?

Wikipedia states that Generosity (also called largess or largesse) is the habit of giving without expecting anything in return. It can involve offering time, assets or talents to aid someone in need.

Can you grow your business with generosity?

Many people think that in business you need to be ruthless: don’t make friends with your staff, you may have to sack them later; it’s a dog eat world out there, I don’t want to be the ‘mug’ left at the bottom

Remember your staff are your best customers, they know the product, they know how to make it better, they hear views directly from your clients, they have views, they have ideas. They are your most valuable resource.

What would happen if you treated them well, were generous, paid them fairly?

I spoke to a lovely lady last week, who runs a company where her team set their own wage. I am meeting more and more people with successful companies who understand that giving more means increasing productivity, loyalty and above all makes the place of work enjoyable. There are countless articles out there on how to make your company more productive that supports this view.

This is not a new concept, companies like Rowntree and Cadbury understood that businesses that takes care of their employees, thrive. Whilst they are held up as great philanthropists, they also understood it was good for business. Henry Ford understood that overworking employees made them less productive. He knew that by paying his staff well, he was creating loyalty and hard work.

From these examples we can see that if you give in the right way, you benefit. Here at Tech Talkfest, we recommend, very highly, the book Give and Take, by Adam Grant. Without being mercenary, it shows that by being a giver, you not only benefit the world around you, you are likely to make it better for yourself too.

Chatting to Amanda Davie, from Reform Digital, this week, we talked about how unusual it is to find generous and giving people out there. Reflecting on this some more with a very good friend who is a member of Tech Talkfest, we agreed that we were very fortunate to be surrounded by this rare group of people, to the point where we just assume that everyone is. I had a very different conversation with a young man that is working on his start up with the help of MSVentures Accelerator program. I hope he managed to take something away from our conversation and if nothing else appreciates that there are many out there that will give to him and if he passes that gift on to someone else, he makes the world a better place.

Hope you have a generous weekend! It is as simple as passing on a smile to someone else.

How do you build trusted relationships in a globalised world?

In a globally connected world, we cannot escape our reputation. With social media and globalisation our digital persona follows us.

This post makes huge generalisations and not being an historian by profession, I make no apology for it, but the sentiment, I think you will understand.

Before industrialisation, everyone lived in a village or small town. Your family were known, your reputation, by default, often came from the reputation of your parents. Gossip was the newspaper/social media of the day. Escaping from a bad reputation or someone smearing your good name, meant uprooting your life and starting anew elsewhere. You could move to a new place and create your new persona. You could build trust from a blank slate. It would take time, but for someone with integrity it would be pretty straightforward.

With industrialisation, everything happened so fast, people moved freely, trust was low on the ground in big cities. We hear of bread being adulterated with bones, pies filled with god knows what. It was hard to know who to trust. From this era we have many groups that were created to be able to generated trustworthy trades people. Family was seen as the one way to keep those you trusted around you. Family business was a big component of the era. Business was passed from parent to child.

Now in a globally connected world, we cannot escape our reputation. It is based on hearsay and LinkedIn recommendations, the only way we can control it is by being consistent with every person we meet. The many masks we once wore, now need to be combined to be as close to the true reflection of ourselves as possible.

With this new transparency, governments, corporations and business are expected to answer questions about what they say versus what we find out they do. Isn’t it just easier to do good things that cement your reputation, rather than taking about doing good things? Isn’t it better to be a person with integrity rather than pretending you are honest? How do you build trust quickly, by doing what you say you will do or by talking about all your famous achievements?

In this globalized, connected world, you don’t know who knows whom, you don’t know who knows you. Isn’t it easier to be yourself and surround yourself with people you trust and who trust you? Nowadays it is not who you know that is important, it is who knows you and how.

At Tech Talkfest, our members are those we can trust. They are people who have great reputations within their networks. If they know you and trust you, your reputation is sealed.

Word of Mouth is Business Development, is Networking

It is! You know it. We know it.

The magic that makes word of mouth business development in the form of networking is when the right place is the room you are in and it’s full of the right people at the right time wanting what you have to offer.

Consider that, the person you meet:

1. Should know at least two people you know.  Giving first is the best way to be noticed. Introduce them.
2. Could be the perfect alliance or strategic partner for you, your brand, your product, your service.
3.  May be an ideal supplier.
4. A solution to a business problem.
5.  Your next hire.
6.  Your next interview
7. Your next client.

Word of mouth is business development is networking that makes good sense provided the room is full of people who need to know you.

So who needs to know you and if they need to know you, what are you doing about it?

Join Tech Talkfest, a small intimate group of smart, collaborative, tech people.

A very happy end to your working day

Shannon Eastman
@ShannonEastman