This blog was originally posted to my LinkedIn profile page, which you can find here.
Now and again you realise that the world has just moved on. I was lucky enough a few weeks ago to be asked to be one of the speakers at TEDx in Glasgow. TED itself, has managed to carve out a pretty special place for those of us who are curious and intrigued and amazed by the articulation of ” Do schools kill creativity” or “Underwater astonishments” or even “10 things you didn’t know about orgasm” all famously popular TED talks. It has managed to capture the essence of the age, which is: don’t make anything too long, keep it simple and tell stories.
I realised it had moved on when in the same week I was asked to keynote at a traditional trade show in London. The trade show keynote was “full” with 80 or so people who seemed to still be yearning for the heydays of the trade show in the 1990s. TED by comparison had 500 people in a funky, vibrant theatre, stuffed to the rafters with people who wanted to think and act differently and staffed entirely by young volunteers, many of whom incidentally have been in touch with me since enthusing about their experience.
The beauty of the TEDx setup was that I was sandwiched between Judy Murraytalking about her passion to make tennis great in Scotland, particularly for young women, an inspirational police inspector who had spent the last 10 years of her life reducing violent crime in Glasgow, and an investment director from a major insurance company championing the need for shareholder activism. In the midst of that impressive company, I wander on to talk about how being an international triathlete makes me a better Chief Executive and vice versa; wow, it was daunting. And exciting. Before I knew it, the countdown timer was screaming 5 minutes to go. How was I going to squeeze it all in?
It’s a great discipline to try to get your thoughts concise enough, with minimal or no powerpoint, such that you can get your message across in 15 minutes. However, despite our obsession in business with hour long meetings and lengthy, torturous presentations it is entirely possible to do so and if you can’t? Well, what can I say.
Fortunately I found myself in story telling mode; what happened the day I met Elon Musk? What it felt like to stand at the start line of an international triathlon, representing your country? And the stories of how I take inspiration from the “early in career” groups in Cisco. The audience seemed to enjoy it. And guess what, they went away feeling better about me, feeling better about Cisco and engaged.
I loved the experience. I think we can use the format and even the brand internally and externally a lot more than we do today and probably in a much more impactful and engaging way for our customers and partners. And let’s face it, in today’s busy world it is important that you get to the point and get off.
On that note, over and out!
You can watch Phil’s session from TEDx Glasgow on the TEDx YouTube channel here:
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