Wigi & Pigi - Pugs Extraordinaire

Wigi & Pigi now have their own blog!

Wigi & Pigi, pugs extraordinaire, now have their own blog here. By pugs, for pugs it features biting and inciteful* pugs-eye-view commentary.

Their book is now on general release and is available from their website in abridged ebook or full paperback versions.

I was lucky to get an early version of the book…

“Done by a chinaman what we sawed do it.”

… and it’s hilarious, a triumph of doggy literature.

The blog continues in a similar vein…

“Wigi and Pigi grief stricken over King of Pop’s death”

“Pigi shaken after encountering under-ripe Kiwi”

“There was wustling in the bushes. Maybe a nome. Fewy afwaid. VEWY afwaid.”

Check out the Wigi & Pigi site and the blog but most importantly get hold of the book.

(h/t JS)

*mis-spelling intended, please Mr. Sheep, don’t write-in.

Brain Rules

I’ve not long finished reading the book Brain Rules, by John Medina.

I came upon Brain Rules, not initially as it is a PMBA text but from a Slideshare ‘Brain Rules for Presenters’ by Garr Reynolds, author of Presentation Zen (also a PMBA book). Check out the Slideshare.

I found the book to be a joy to read and engaging throughout, enlivened by anecdotes and stories both personal to author and from the research on which the book is based. This technique is explained in the book but the book itself is a fantastic example of it in action.

The structure of the book as 12 ‘rules’ worked really well for me. Giving me a mental framework off which to hang the information. Each rule / chapter then containing an explanation of what is known scientifically, presented in such a way makes sense to a layman such as myself and made engaging through stories. Each section then having suggestions (or hopes, perhaps) for further research and then the real gems of what the rule means for you in your personal life, business life or education life.

The website that accompanies the book will serve to whet your appetite if you’ve not read the book or reinforce the learning if you have.

The most important sections for me, where I will be seeking to implement what I learned were the parts on how we learn and remember and the impact of stress, sleep and exercise on how I learn and work.

Read this book for fun, read it for an understanding of brain science, read it for some useful take-aways for your personal, business and educational life, or better yet read it for all these reasons.

This review has also been posted to the PMBA Forums.

Headlines

So my Toastmasters Competent Communicator Certificate found its way to me here in Prague a couple of weeks ago.

My Toastmasters journey has been an interesting one. I’ve also got a lot more out of the experience than I originally expected.

First, quickly, for the uninitiated what is Toastmasters? Wikipedia describes Toastmasters…

Toastmasters International (TI) is a nonprofit educational organization that operates clubs worldwide for the purpose of helping members improve their communication, public speaking and leadership skills. Through its thousands of member clubs, Toastmasters International offers a program of communication and leadership projects designed to help men and women learn the arts of speaking, listening, and thinking.

The Toastmasters club mission statement reads…

The mission of a Toastmasters club is to provide a mutually supportive and positive learning environment in which every individual member has the opportunity to develop oral communication and leadership skills, which in turn foster self-confidence and personal growth.

I became aware of Toastmasters gradually as I heard recommendations in various places suggesting it was a good thing to do to improve your public speaking skills. I felt that my public speaking skills needed improving, so the idea stuck. A the time there were no Toastmasters clubs in Hangzhou. A colleague at work arrived at similar conclusion and it was an email from her that started the ball rolling.

A group of us visited a Shanghai club to learn the ropes and began setting up a corporate club at work. Toastmasters supports corporate clubs within work places and the more common, community clubs.

What then, is the value of Toastmasters?

At it’s core, Toastmasters is an education programme that develops public speaking skills. The initial qualification that members work towards is uninspiringly titled Competent Communicator. To attain this qualification a member must successfully make ten speeches to the club. The competent communicator manual provides guidelines for each speech giving the member specific skills to work on for each project that gradually build confidence and effectiveness at speaking.

The skills start with basic speaking confidence and build gradually project by project through skills like, speech organisation, vocal variety, using visual aids, etc. Each speech is evaluated by another member verbally during the meeting then in a written form within the manual afterwards. This process of learning through doing and constructive evaluations is the real core value.

I have to be honest, despite my enthusiasm for the idea I was a little sceptical at first. Like any organisation Toastmasters has it’s own language and tends to feel a little bit hokey if not cultish. It was also all a little bit self-consciously ’self help’ for me. I began working through the Competent Communicator manual seeing it more as a means-to-an-ends. The value of ’stage time’ and evaluation was obvious to me but the real logic behind the manual and the process didn’t become apparent until part way through.

Toastmasters meetings are structured such that there are also opportunities for improving imprompu speaking skills which is definitely an area of further work for me. It’s worth noting also that learning to provide other members with effective evaluations of their speeches is at times harder than giving speeches itself and is certainly a great learning experience both for effective evaluation and improving your own speaking skills.

Toastmasters also has a leadership education track which promotes leadership skills through taking roles in meetings and the running the club. I learned a lot through the process of creating and running our corporate club, as I have done with organising running clubs too, but I didn’t feel that I got a great deal from the Leadership Manual and it’s projects. It is likely though that this is very different for members who are nearer the beginning of their professional careers and that Toastmasters provides the same supportive and positive learning environment for developing leadership skills as it does for speaking skills.

I expected that, like many people, I would achieve my Competent Communicator certificate and feel that Toastmasters had runs it’s course for me. To my surprise, that’s not been the case.

While my public speaking skills are vastly improved (even if I do say so myself) the standards I apply to myself (and others!) have been raised sufficiently by the process that I’ve now decided I want to pursue the Advanced Speaking qualification.

Moving to a new city, as I have recently done, joining the local Toastmasters club has given me not just an opportunity to continue developing my skills but a great way to meet new, interesting, like-minded people in my new home.