Tag: Laurie Ruettimann

Steal With Pride

Nothing is original so why not steal with pride? You get the drift. I just googled ‘Steal With Pride’ to see if I could attribute the quote to someone, and it turns out I already wrote a blog post with the same title back in July of last year. Well whaddya know – I stole it from myself, and doubtless from others too.

I read a really funny post by Laurie Ruettimann last week called ‘Unwritten Blog Posts’ in which she came up with a list of 50 titles for blog posts as yet unwritten. The list is funny and well worth a read. Laurie also said ‘If you are a blogger, you should blog on a daily basis.’ so in her comments suggestion I said ‘Love it! Man, I need to up my game, thanks. That’s not a blog title – but it should be perhaps? I’ll think of some, meantime consider some of these stolen for future use!’

I thought on for a bit, got excited by the idea and went back to say that I would try and experiment this week with a post a day, taking titles from the list. I was so enthused, I even threw in a swear for good measure, ‘Laurie – fuck it – next week I’m going to blog Monday through Friday stealing five of your 50 titles. Thanks – Doug’

I went away for the weekend, fired up the laptop this morning and went back to Laurie’s place to look at her list again. Underneath my reply Laurie had written ‘FUCK NO’. That’s pretty clear, so for the record there won’t be any blog posts appearing here with titles stolen from Laurie’s list.

This dialogue has got me thinking about the whole ‘steal with pride’ ethos. I reference other people’s stuff all the time in my blogs and elsewhere, and I never knowingly don’t credit them. I used to make a point of contacting people in advance, ‘Is it OK if I quote you on XXX/link to your blog’ etc etc and the responses were always positive. So I stopped asking.

After what’s just happened do I still feel the same way about ‘steal with pride’? I guess operating in this connected world, yes I do. And I’m also mindful that theft is a crime, so if you are gonna steal something, maybe it is best to say please first?

Photo credit

Touched

Some days the stars are aligned, and everything clicks into place. It’s great to enjoy those days and to be thankful for them. I had one of those days yesterday and I’d like to share it with you.

The Forest

I spent the day with the Institute of Internal Communication at their annual conference yesterday. I facilitated some conversations in the afternoon which were a lot of useful fun. It was such a nice day that we took some of the conversations outside, sometimes having no slides to hold you back is just the best! I’ll share more about the content of the conversations on a later date but for now I just want to acknowledge all the lovely feedback from people, it was very motivating.

The Big Apple

After the conference I was sitting at Birmingham International station waiting for my train back to London when the phone rang. A small seed of an idea that’s been slowly growing suddenly blossomed into flower. Turns out I’m heading to New York City to do some work after the Ohio gig. I have a postcard from Laurie on my desk depicting the Empire State Building and of course my Dad and I enjoyed a super trip to NYC a few short years ago. I hope to share more on this at a future date, for now my sincerest thanks go to the lovely person who called me yesterday with such great news.

The Letter

On arriving home I found a letter which turned out to be from someone Dad worked with. They’d not seen each other for over thirty years, and news of Dad’s death had recently reached this person. I’m grateful to the letter writer for being in touch, and I hope you don’t mind but I’d like to share an extract from the letter with you:

Paul was my manager in the early 1980’s. He was a good manager to us and a very kind friend to those around him. He also loved children and played delightfully with my son when he used to visit the office. I hope Paul has grandchildren as he would have been a lovely grandfather. I remember when your Mother died how much Paul grieved for her. But above all his concern was how he could love and care for you, and so all the right things. We were very fortunate that he extended his fatherly concern to his staff.

I couldn’t sleep last night with all of these things buzzing in my head, what a day! I’m very fortunate.

The weekend is nearly here and I plan to spend most of it in the garden. How about you? Whatever you are up to I hope the stars align for you too.

 

Acknowledge

Laurie Ruettimann
Laurie Ruettimann

Good ideas are all around us. We miss most of them, and a few stick. 2012 is transformational for me because I spotted an idea in 2011 and I acted on it.  The idea was a reminder, a reminder of the importance of practice. It came from Laurie Ruettimann (pictured above) in a blog post she wrote called Public Speaking Tips. You can read the whole piece here, and the part that really struck home for me was:

I practice like crazy. Other speakers advise me not to over-prepare and I tell them, “Mind your own business.” Malcolm Gladwell tells us that we need 10,000 of practice before we become rockstars. Maybe you don’t have to practice because you’re awesome. That’s great. Good for you. But we don’t let our children get behind the wheel of a car without extensive practice. Why would I stand before a group of busy, smart, talented people without extensive preparation? My audience deserves a strongly executed performance. I want to deliver. You should, too.

Laurie’s post was written on September 21st 2011 and just a couple of weeks beforehand I had accepted an invitation to speak at the CIPD Social Media in HR conference in December 2011. I musta read Laurie’s post about a hundred times, over and over and over. And then I applied that same level of interest and practice to the talk I was going to give. I built the talk, I destroyed the talk, I rebuilt it. I bashed it crashed it, mashed it, bashed it. Practice, practice, practice. Hell I even practiced leaving a couple of pieces to free flow, because you never know how your audience is going to react and if you’ve tied down the whole thing then you’ve kinda got nowhere to go.

The day came. I was nervous. I’m always nervous, and I always tell folks this. See, I did it again just there. After lunch I stood up and did my thing. I nailed it, and others felt I nailed it too. People like Neil Morrison, Alison Chisnell and Natasha Stallard. People I respect because I know they are authentic. And if they think I’m doing a good job, well that will do for me.

Wind the clock forward to today and I am humbled and excited by the speaking opportunities and possibilities that are presenting themselves since the day I nailed it. You can see some of them, including my September trip to Ohio (pinch myself) emerging here. And I’m currently doing exciting work with some great people at Careergro, helping them bring their product to market here in the UK. Last December, one of the Directors of Careergro was in the audience at the conference and heard the talk I gave. How cool is that!

So what?

First I want to thank the CIPD for inviting me and in particular I want to acknowledge Laurie’s part in my recent success. Not only did she write a fabulous, timely blog post, but she has also reached out to me a few times since and given generous support. Thank you Laurie, and if ever I can do something for you, just ask and I’ll do it (so long as it doesn’t involve looking after Scrubby. I’m not big on cats – sorry).

Second, if I can spot these things and act on them, so can you. I encourage you to think for a few minutes. An idea will have caught your eye recently. Have you grabbed it? Are you acting on it?

Third. When you act on it and achieve what you wanted, please don’t forget to acknowledge the person who gave you the idea. Always remember, what goes around, comes around.