Bring on the holidays !

Washing the dog, Wentworth Falls

January has been a great month, and now I'm deep in preparation for my next art exhibition.

If you're Sydney (Australia) based, come along and say hi, see some art and have a drink (we've got sponsorship from the Wine Society!). Saturday 16th February 2008, 1:30 for a "chat with the artists" (there are 3 of us), and then the gallery remains open 3 till 6 at Ewart Gallery, Workshop Arts Centre, 33 Laurel Street, Willoughby (cnr Hollywood Avenue) (please note, I previously said it was 9 Feb, and that's the official opening, but I won't be there. I will be there on 16th Feb 08!). For more info and some images, - check out our blog.

February is already mostly booked out for me, which is always a good place to be in. This year I'm also planning a trip to New York to just hang out and be cultured for a few weeks!

Cindy

In this month's ezine we have:

• Improving your consultancy: Convert people to your way of thinking; Put a lense on Squidoo
• Managing better: best business books for 07, facebook for good (and not evil)?
• Fascinating: all you need to know about automata, and seminars from interesting minds on ted.com
• Fun: buy hand made things, get a rice baby, a clever online promotion and impro

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Bird Katoomba

Silhouette of the mountains - Medlow Bath

Converts convert better

influence at work summarises psych research showing that people who used to not believe and believe now are more convincing (my life of alcoholism convinces me alcohol is now bad). This is important for those of us who are introducing change: we need stories of how we didn't used to get the importance of strategy until... didn't believe that new software could convince people until... didn't believe things could improve when you changed the way you did it until... and make use of any "converts" within the organisation to tell their stories of conversion.

Put a lense on Squidoo

I am yet to complete my "lense" on Squidoo, but if you have something to promote, an axe to grind or an idea you want others to listen to, apparently squidoo is the way to do it. If you have 10 minutes, maybe you can put your business on there? (i registered, then got interested in something else, but you are no doubt even more focused than I am, right?)

Managing better

A different kind of networking breakfast, Katoomba

Chairs, Hunter Valley

Catch up on the best of business 07

800CEOread has awarded its votes on the best business books of 2007. Their absolute best they say is Made to Stick Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die.

Then their others include these gems:

• Demon of our own design - markets, hedge funds and the perils of Financial Innovation
• One Foot out the Door - how to combat the Psychological recession that's alienating employees and hurting American Business
• Group Genius - the creative power of collaboration
• The Secret Language of Leadership (story telling) by Stephen Denning
• Responsibility at Work by Howard Gardiner
• The New Rules of Marketing and PR How to Use News Releases, Blogs, Podcasting, Viral Marketing, and Online Media to Reach Buyers Directly
• The Point of the Deal How to Negotiate When "Yes" Is Not Enough
• Selling Sucks How to Stop Selling and Start Getting Prospects to Buy!

Surely one of these inspires you to rush out to a bookstore (or order online?)

Using facebook for organisational good?

Can organisations use Facebook to assist their internal culture and networking (especially if they are huge and international?). Sun Microsystems think so - check out this pdf of a powerpoint presentation.

Fascinating

Pond lilies, Frensham, Mittagong

Shoes

Automata - all you need to know!

How about this for specialties - the London Cabaret Mechanical Theatre have a book on making automata. Levers, shafts, cranks, cams, springs, linkages, ratchets, drives, gearing, coin-op control. what more could you want to know?

Go check out Ted - ideas worth spreading

Ted.com is subtitled "ideas worth spreading". They are recorded presentations from an annual conference which apparently costs thousands to go to. It's an experience in itself to go to the home page and choose a "theme" on the left hand side menu (everything changes when you do). Choosing business, I found an interview with Richard Branson, and monologues/lectures by Jeff Skoll (ebay originally, now making films to prompt people to social action - Syriana, Goodnight and Good Luck), Jeff Bezos (Amazon), Malcolm Gladwell (Blink), Seth Godin (Purple Cow, All Marketers are Liars), Nicholas Negroponte (one laptop per child), Jimmy Wales (Wikipedia).

The nice thing for those of us (read me) who can't always be patient enough to listen to a 20 minute talk (Gladwell is playing as I write this), the topics are written across the bottom of the talk, so that you can fast forward to the end of each section to get the point, or tell your friend to go to a particular part (e.g. with Gladwell, the best bit so far has been the spaghetti story... but you can go to 80% through and you'll get the gist of it!).

And Fun, fun, fun

The annual Scared Scriptless player awards are statuettes of the garden gnome variety - this is them in waiting in Dec 07)

Customs House Sydney Diorama from Cafe Sydney

Belgravia wing and trees reflected, Medlow Bath

Something hand made

You can visit etsy.com and buy handmade things buttons, cards, pincushions... And for the fun of it, you can click on the left hand menu and shop by COLOUR!! So if you want something blue, you can choose blue - do it, and have fun literally throwing things around the screen with your mouse!!

A baby of rice

If you know someone who's having or just had a baby, you can buy "rice babies" a sack of rice with baby's face onto it, measured to match their birth weight. Here's the Japanese site, or read about it in English at Springwise.

And just for fun - clever promo

HEMA  is a Dutch department store. Take a look at their product page. You can't order anything and it's in Dutch,but just wait a couple of seconds, and the animation and sound starts (put your headphones on if you are in an open plan office!). All of the products interact - it's fun!

And impro, of course

Scared Scriptless Theatresports® is back at the Clarence Hotel, Petersham (in Sydney, Australia). Every Friday night from now till Christmas.

Doors open 7:30, show starts at 8. Drinks at pub prices, food available. There's a second show (The Late Show) at 10:30, so catch them both for an unheard of $5 whenever you're near Petersham in Sydney.

Let me know what you like about this ezine - or anything you'd like to see more of!

C

Cindy Tonkin The Consultants’ Consultant
Certified Management Consultant

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This month's images are original works ©2007 Cindy Tonkin. See more here.

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