The100: Questions, presentations and shampoo bottles

Most of the world doesn’t think like you

Chaz Wigley, Chairman of BBH Asia, has listed 100 lessons learnt over his career.

I love this. So many gems. Here are just a few:

• Don’t ever look down on your target audience. It doesn’t help you in your job and they have their reasons for their world view just as much as you do for yours.
• Be a radiator not a drain at work. Yes it’s jargon, but it’s also true
• There is a difference between what people say they do and what they actually do. Observe them to find out the truth.

Look no further than The New York Times for an example of point 3. Who is doing the homeschooling? Nearly half of men say they do the majority, and 3% of women agree. I love partner research…

What are you feeling?

What’s been on your mind lately?  That’s what we should be asking instead of ‘how are you?’

This is according to The Atlantic, who say we need to ask better questions. I tend to agree. After all, empathy starts with curiosity:

“… before demonstrating my understanding, I have to develop it. I need to ask questions and be open and listen and learn.”

You know what to do next.

Pixel beings

Marcus John Henry Brown has shared his tips for giving better virtual presentations. I particularly liked these points:

• You’re writing something for very distracted people. Talks must be tight, well paced and start as close to the end as possible.
• You’re no longer in a room with an audience who can’t escape you. Use moving pictures, not stills, to better illustrate the story.
• Amplify and exaggerate yourself by 20% to help keep the audience engaged.

If you’re writing instead of speaking, the Hemmingway app helps to make those words more succinct. I’m prone to a bit of a waffle and this is encouraging me to remove wasted characters. I’ll stop now 😉

The times they are a-changin’

Rory Sutherland had me chuckling into my cuppa with his take on the sports we could get back up and running:

“Here’s how I rank sports. At the top are sports where players make decisions at their own pace in their own good time. These are generally games of pure ability, untainted by the need for physical fitness: snooker, darts, chess, Train Simulator 2020, Scrabble, golf, poker, croquet and, of course, bowls. These are also sports where you can drink while playing.”

I wonder if this article still/will still stand? It looks at how millennials became a generation of homebodies and starts with ‘Nobody wants to leave their apartment anymore’. Are they basking in the joy of lockdown or are they now desperate to get out? Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

68 69 pieces of advice

One of the rituals for Watch Me Think new starters is to watch the Princess Bride (just a thing). Anyone out there that can spot the piece of advice lifted from that film in Kevin Kelly’s 68 bits of solicited advice wins a small gift*.

Accountant come fisherman, Peter Warner, found 6 boys who had been shipwrecked for 15 months. Real Lord of the Flies stuff. And this was his advice:

“Life has taught me a great deal, including the lesson that you should always look for what is good and positive in people.”

Life’s big questions

Ever wondered why it’s so easy to knock over an empty shampoo bottle? (I have by the way). Well wonder no more, because professor Jerome Lecini of Lehigh University explains all in this 5m video.

It’s stuff like this that keeps me going.

*no gifts, sorry, just the knowledge that you’re better than everyone else 🙂

P.S. Paula Zuccotti, who spoke at our event on innovation, is running a photo project where anyone can submit a photo with 15 things that are essential to them. She’s already got over 200 submissions. Not only is the project really interesting, but it’s a good task for anyone bored out there.