So here’s a thing, apparently when you brainstorm most of all the good ideas come out in the first 10 minutes – so DON’T drag it out. If it’s getting boring and everyone is chattering aimlessly forget it – reconvene and do another 10 minutes another day.
I learnt a lot yesterday on my afternoon off at #CASSINNOVATE. It was an innovation and entrepreneurship conference hosted by CASS Business School – now that’s a cool place, in the hottest part of London, just by the Silicon Roundabout in Old Street. I love the vibe there as it’s where all these “youths” call themselves “founders” of “incredible start-ups”. In the coffee break it was quite sweet really – lots of earnest, keen, bearded soles all keen to shake hands and “network”.
Actually, that was the best bit of my afternoon – the session on “leveraging the power of reciprocity” – what the hell does that mean we giggled to ourselves – as my oldest daughter Jazzy and I wondered nervously into the session. Infact, she was the real reason I was there, one of the head lecturers David Gauntlett, who is Professor of Creativity & Design at her University – Westminster University, and sadly who she’s never actually had a lecture from, invited her to hear him speak at another University – weird that!
Anyway, we gingerly entered this weird sounding lecture on reciprocity and got handed tons of yellow post-it notes – now I am a bit partial to a post-it note so I was really excited as to what was about to happen. Well the gentle and very animated Dr Santi Furnari asked us all to start writing requests such as “anyone know of a creative graduate that has exceptional writing skills” or “I’m looking for an app designer” and “can anyone give a talk on exporting”. These were put on the white board and then the room was asked to offer their help. Incredibly 3- 4 people could help per request. Dr Santi said that this is what happens normally, for every request you put out there amongst your network you’ll find that 3- 4 people will be able to help you.
Now that’s pretty AMAZING. It was incredible to watch total strangers offer tangible and real offers of help. So I think we should all try it – LinkedIn is the perfect networking platform to give it a go. He said it doesn’t fail, it’s scientifically proved.
It’s all part of the Reciprocity ring and there are Reciprocity events – I’ll have to google them now because I love that idea of my network helping me and me helping my network more when someone needs something. So let’s try his theory – does anyone know a good hotel in Greece this summer?
And more importantly I’m now ready for next afternoon off!