Make Your Information Come Alive

When it comes to learning new information or skills, one of the things that any learner benefits from is knowing that people like them have already been there and done that.

Your learners need to connect with your expertise during any learning event. One of the easiest ways of doing this is to use names and personalities to create mini stories that help illustrate how other people (like your learners) have used your expertise in your own life.

In order to protect the innocent, I would recommend having a composite character who you name and talk about.

If your audience tends to be mainly female, then use a girl or woman's name, such as Agnes, or Amelia or Annie.
If your audience tends to be mainly male, then use a boy or man's name, such as Arthur, or Adam or
Alex.

After you have decided on a suitable name, then flesh that character out - with an age, a business, a lifestyle that relates to your ideal learners.

If you tend to talk to retired people about financial planning, then use a 65-75 year old character called Agnes or Ethel who is worried about how she will manage if her arthritis gets any worse.

If you talk to young people about career choices, then use a hip-hop boy called Dizzle who would like to emulate his hero (say 50 cent) and go into the music bizness.

Then use this character throughout your seminar or workshop. You can use them to introduce each new section - at the start the character has a similar problem to the group you are teaching. As you tackle and resolve each issue, then your character moves on and is curious about what comes next. At the end, you can finish the story with what happens next. To make that ending really powerful, if you can then show a photograph of the real Dizzle or real Ethel and give a little more information on how successful their lives have been, that would be fantastic.


There are two main reasons to use a named character:
1) It is far more personable - your learners will feel like they can relate to someone with a name, a background, with the same problems or issues as their own. By showing how that character has benefited, they can see how your topic will transform their own lives.

2) A character can be used to introduce subtle humour into your event. For instance, if your event is around business finances and you wish to illustrate a calculation of your hourly rate, you may introduce a character named Ms P Hilton, who wants to earn one million pounds/ dollars a year, but only wants to work 20 hours a month, 10 months of the year. How much does she need to charge to do so?

So think about your area of expertise.
What sort of character will be most similiar to your ideal learners, those who attend your training events?
What name would they have? How old would they be? Where would they live? What problems might they be facing? What story might they follow from where they are now to where they want to be?

If you have some real case studies, then feel free to borrow from these, whilst protecting the personal information of your clients or customers.

So bring your topic or expertise come to life using real characters, real people, real stories to really connect with the people listening to your information. Capture the journey in a simple story and you have a powerful tool to help people remember and help inspire them to use your information to transform their own lives.

Let's Start at the Very Beginning...

If we are on a mission to design and deliver fantastic and awesome training, then we need to design every step to inspire and engage our learners.

So think about it - what is their very first experience with your learning event, be it a workshop, presentation or seminar?

In many instances, you first chance to inspire your learners is with the invitation you send, or any advertising you do.

So you could just send out a blanket email, giving the time and place of your event.
But is that really creative? Does that really say to them: "This event is going to be different"?

Here are some ideas of ways in which you could make that first impression really stand out:
1) Send out personalised invitations, with handwritten names, by snail mail, that look like an invitation to a wedding or a party. Give your event a sense of occasion or fun.
2) If you have an event for people who work together, why not put up some posters that hint at what is to come, before anyone is even invited. For example for a session on Work/ Life Balance, you could print out posters of different aspects of Work and Life and ask people to choose which are most important to them.
3) Send out a small item that is related to your event - a photograph, a map, or a quotation perhaps. Before an event on creativity, you could send out a large brightly coloured paperclip, with the words "can you think of a thousands uses for this?" on a piece of paper. That will get people thinking and curious about it.
4) Use a quotation or cartoon to associate your event with fun or laughter - why not use Dilbert cartoon strips to get people talking about great leadership or bureaucracy for example?
5) Use a powerful, emotive poster. The "Your Country Needs You" poster would work well in a number of different circumstances. If you are running an event on Health and Safety, you could use a photograph of a spanner falling over the head of someone and point to the person below with the words "She/He needs you".


Think about your next event or workshop.
How could you do something different in the way you both advertise and invite people to your event?
What prop or item could you send them by post that is related to your topic?
What could you ask them to bring to the event, which would get them thinking or curious about what will happen?

Do Something That Scares You

This week I had the serene pleasure of spending some time in Wales in a cottage with some friends. There were no modern conveniences: no mobile signal, no phone, no tv, no WiFi, no laptop. Just a stream, a swing, a lovely lush garden, stunning scenery, a few sheep and the luxury of complete peace and quiet.

On our last day, I had been paddling in the stream, toying with the idea of having a swim. This was my last chance, yet I was reluctant. I kept telling myself that paddling was fine, was enough.

I went inside to dry off and something inside me snapped back. I couldn't shake off a feeling of disappointment in my gut. I knew that if I didn't do it now, I would miss my chance. Suddenly all my lovely logical reasons for not swimming were just not enough. The scales tipped in favour of going in.

So I dashed up to my room, put on my swimming cossie and dashed out again (before I changed my mind).

My friends were just coming in, having paddled like me, perhaps wanting to swim but not having the courage or needing some encouragement.

As I launched myself down the grassy bank, I shouted "turn around, we are going in"....

I kept up my momentum, throwing down my towel and wading in as fast as the current and pebbles would let me until I just sank down, drenching myself from head to frozen toes.

As I lept into the water, I gave the reason for my madness - a phrase I knew: "they say you should do one thing every day that scares you. This is mine....(yeee hah)!!!"

We let the water flow over our bodies, as our goose bumps rose in miniature peaks over our skin. We splashed and played like children. We all laughed and screamed at the cold. It shook us to our bones. And it was utterly magical - a sensation I can still feel on my skin as I smile in remembrance.

What things are there in your life that you are putting off?
What are you waiting until the right time to do?
What are you going to do when you are (fit, slim, old, rich) enough?

Why are you really not doing it already?

Go on - live a little.
In fact - live a lot.

You can live a life full of reasons and excuses (like nearly everyone else), or you can have a life full of life and stories and magical experiences.

Which would you like?

Know and Use Your Strengths

I have been putting alot of time and effort into swimming of late, as I am due to swim in Lake Windermere as part of the Great North Swim in a few weekends, so have been pretty motivated to make sure I do not have to be rescued.....

My problem is that I tend to forget how many lengths I have swum - I count them all up and then miss count or get unsure about half way through. So usually I just swim a few more for good measure at the end.

I am trying to remember the numbers by just saying them to myself in my head.
Then I had an ah-ha moment as I swum effortlessly along. I know that I learn most through visual means and kinaesthetic means rather than listening. My ears are not my strongest learning mechanism - my eyes and movement are.

I have known this for years, which is why I take notes in meetings, whereas those with a strong auditory sense can just listen and learn without any notes at all.

So instead of just saying the number of lengths in my head and listening, I start creating a huge bubble number in my mind at the same time. And remembering what length I am on starts to feel much easier - so I can spend more time concentrating on my technique and less on whether I am on 33 or 35 lengths.

Do you know your preferred learning or communication sense? If not, then search on-line under VAK or VARK (standing for visual- auditory - read/write and kinaesthetic) and find out. You may be amazed at what you learn.

So I guess I have learnt something too - that if I am strong visually, I need to make sure that I use visual methods wherever possible to help me learn and remember information.

What do you have problems remembering?
How can you use your strongest sense to help you remember?

Natural Success

This weekend I had the pleasure of going to Duncombe Park, near Helmsley in North Yorkshire, to relax and catch up with friends at the National 2CV rally. I watched some fantastic B movies, howled appropriately at the No Talent Contest, drank beer, cooked on my camping stove, and sat in the sunshine until my nose went red. And once again promised to have a 2CV by next year's rally.

It was all very jolly. I was very relaxed and chilled. At one point a new friend called Jonathan asked me what I do. After a brief pause as I considered my options for summarising what Light the Spark is all about, I said:

"I save people from Death by PowerPoint".

Instead of launching into my mission statement or about transformational learning experiences, I deliberately used a phrase that people know and dread. Sure I backed that up a little by saying that I help people design and deliver interactive sessions (or words to that effect). But it was the first sentence that got the reaction. Two people went "Oo" (in a genuinely interested fashion).

Chris was especially interested, as he has recently pulled the short straw of running his work's induction process. He knows its pants (but getting better apparently). But he doesn't know what to do about it. I said that I could help as I passed him a business card*.

Being relaxed and just talking about stuff is a brilliant way to network. I felt no pressure to impress or to be anything I am not. I just talked to them about what I do and then left it at that.

Yet often at formal networking I feel stifled or as if I am playing a role (as in the successful corporate businesswoman or something). Yet there is no real point in my pretending to be someone or something I am not, as my clients will then be disappointed by my products and services. I am me. I am proud to be me. I can do certain things well (and others not at all).

I believe the name for what happened is "Natural Networking".

So I can take what I learnt this weekend and choose events and places to meet new people that are most likely to replicate that experience. I can have fun and talk to people and just be my natural self: extrovert, playful and passionate about what I do.

*It might seem weird to carry business cards on a camping weekend, but in my experience you cannot predict where or when I might meet someone who wants to Light the Spark in others.

The Power of Experience

Last night I watched "The Secret Millionaire". In this series, so far, the millionaires typically come from girl-made-good or boy-made-good environments, and as a result of their own experiences, tend to have firm beliefs at the outset that since they managed to work hard and make it good that anyone can.

We get a glimpse into their beliefs from the things that they say, the thoughts they speak aloud. Sometimes they will come out with things such as "this is a business decision" or "I am not giving my money to people who don't deserve it", or "I have to know that the money will not go to waste". It is also clear that many simply have no idea how young people in deprived areas live, survive, or what they have to deal with. Some are shocked by the money they survive on, the bars on their doors, the graffiti. These are obviously streets they never even drive down.

I am sure that they have heard about inner cities, about crime, about poverty, about poor housing. Perhaps they have listened to both sides of the story, but their views that if they can anyone can, seem initially entrenched.

As the programme progresses, these millionaires have direct and first hand experiences that change their beliefs and thoughts. They soften. They become emotionally involved with the people, the poverty, crime, pregnancy, destitution, even hopelessness. They start to glimpse the situations that create powerlessness in these people, that trap them into a certain environment (perhaps elements that they have never considered or experienced for themselves).

At first they might feel it is hopeless. That there is too much to do, that nothing could make a difference in this place. Then they happen across the angels of the community: people who are giving their time, their homes, their money, their resources to make a real difference.

It is this journey, this experience that is the most powerful for them.
The experience of connecting with other humans, who are making a difference. Of looking into the eyes and hearts of people on both sides - those trapped and those handing them a lifeline.

I believe that there is little prior to their ten days immersed in this environment that could have changed their minds - because in the end this is not a logical nor a rational experience. Information on the poor is simply that: data. But humans are not statistics, not bare figures to use for headlines.

This experience, is human. It speaks not to our minds, but to our hearts.
That knowledge in our hearts will stay with us forever.
It can change us overnight.
It is more powerful than any amount of words, of stories, of photos, of videos, of second hand knowledge.

Sinking In Time

Today I start my holiday camping with my bestest friend Mags. Watch out Oxford.

So will I be learning whilst I am holiday - apart from reading books that is?
Sure, by the magic that is Sinking In Time.

Some of the greatest thinkers of our world knew and lived by the importance of Sinking In Time. Those Eureka moments that were had in the bath (Archimedes), under an Apple Tree (Newton), dozing and daydreaming (Kekule) and perhaps most famous of all in this respect the brilliant Edison. It is said that he spent each afternoon sailing. A brilliant way to help the mind consider, analyse, process and eventually come up with an unexpected breakthrough or so. It is well known that the creative part of our brain cannot function under stress, so that it is no surprise really that new ideas and thoughts come when we are truly relaxed (and it is at its most powerful).

If the best scientists and thinkers on this planet had never turned off, daydreamed, sat in the bath or under apple trees, then we would be a poorer world for it.

So I am devoting this holiday to the creative process of Sinking In Time. Letting my brain consider all the information I have been feeding it of late, and letting it come to some conclusions, or come up with some brilliant new ideas.

The question I have for you is this - when is your Sinking In Time?
If you design workshops or learning experiences, do you deliberately give your learners or audience some Sinking In Time?

Today you have my permission to do nothing for as long or short as you can manage. Sit in a chair, in peace and quiet and let your mind daydream. Don't judge the thoughts it has, or try and direct it. Simply watch as it daydreams and know in your heart that this is just as important as any work you do in your day, if not more so.