Fighting Fit for 2011
If you know me you'll know fighting fit doesn't refer to my personal training plan! Following the success of the popular "Keep your Business Fighting Fit" workshops, Business Link hosted a one day conference, "Fighting Fit 2011" yesterday at The Hilton, Newcastle Gateshead.
The conference was well attended and I enjoyed meeting the other speakers and attendees throughout the day. The conference was hosted by Sarah Coburn, who injected humor as well as the steely determination to move the conference along.
The conference was opened by Alastair MacColl, Chief Executive, Business & Enterprise Group (If there were an example of a North East business success story it surely has to be it's growth and movement into new sectors.) and the first speaker was Damian Hughes, Founder of the LiquidThinker Company. Stand out content for me was identifying four basic emotional needs; To belong, To be safe, To be valued and To be in control and the instinctive reaction we have when any of these needs are threatened - Flight, Freeze or Flee. He referred to this as Monkey Brain! It was interesting to see how this related to business performance and personal development.
Roger Flynn, who shared some of his collected knowledge working alongside Richard Brandson and for the likes of the Prudential and the BBC. It's refreshing to see that here was a business leader who didn't surround himself with complex business models and was prepared to change the businesses he worked in by throwing out the rule book and believing that an organisation can change itself by listening to the people who work operationally within the business.
My own small contribution to thinking strategically about using social media instead of playing at it went down well judging by the Twitter comments and those who came up to me afterwards. 3/4 of an hour is just too short a slot to cover the subject matter but I liked the fast pace of the session and the questions afterwards.
It was good also to catch up with a few pals; Shaun from Vector 76 (Hope the new office works out for you), Julie from Sharpe recruitment and Heather from Marketing Geni.
I think they are putting all the presentations on the website for download so keep an eye out and have a look, lots of good bite sized goodness for you to take in at your leisure.
I did take a few photo's throughout the day which I've put here. Sorry for the quality of some, the lighting was terrible, that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it!
