WISH Yorkshire - Dare to be (a little bit) Different

Dare to be (a little bit) different

Objectives:

1. Encourage confidence – everyone gets nervous, but let’s understand why (so we don’t feel so bad about it) and learn exercises to manage it.
2. Dare to be Different (dare to be yourself) – we all get scared so we all play it safe and end up all doing the same thing.  And repetition is BORING!  How about some variety?  How about bringing your own personality (appropriately packaged to the situation)?
3. Have some fun!

A wonderful afternoon delivered by Richard Pascoe from ‘Making Presentations’ and hosted by Leeds Federated Housing Association. 26 people (including 3 men which was amazing) from across the region and a visitor from the North West all jumped in feet first to participate in ‘Dare to be (a little bit) different’.  The session was made up of two parts, the first looking at biological and anthropological reasons for nerves. I don’t think anyone thought for a minute when they arrived that they would be asked to sing in public but what a way to get everyone to really experience nerves and explore they own responses as well as what they had seen in others. The second part of the session explored communication through a very simple, practical, session asking people to introduce themselves when chosen at random from the ‘bag of joy’ but with particular constraints placed on them. The group explored their own responses, those of the audience and acknowledged the occasions that the different constraints may be appropriate. The room had a wonderful, slightly nervous, buzz as people found out what they may be doing next and a huge sense of camaraderie and support for each other as names were drawn. Everyone joined in, everyone spoke and everyone asked questions.  

Overall, a delightfully useful, scarily practical and enjoyable afternoon. People who attended fed back that they had enjoyed looking at the different ways of presenting information and looking at how to interact with their audience. The overall message was one about learning to be yourself and within this, how to be different and I’m certain that people felt more confident at the end of it.

Some recommended reading from the event:

Made to Stick: Chip and Dan Heath

The Laws of Simplicity: John Maeda