anecdotes, stories and insights on what ireckon!
Well this month I had to come back from my holiday camping at the beach for the Qld Leaders monthly meeting. Always a shame to interrupt a good holiday but unfortunately there wasn’t a day without an interruption, so was a break if not a holiday.
Being committed to the 12 month process, there was no option of not going.
So I will set the scene first. Tonight I attended a special presentation of Picasso and his collection, at GOMA, in Brisbane. This presentation was for people associated with Queensland Leaders and was presented to us by the GOMA Director, Tony Ellwood.
Apart from the fact this unique exhibition of Picasso’s work and his own personal collection (well some of it), was a great exhibition Tony gave us an insight into the history of Picasso (view: BBC History) and some of the influences on Picasso and his artwork.
Picasso is different to many artists, in several ways;
While I am no Picasso expert, what impressed me most about this exhibition was the way he approached his art with an open mind and a desire to continually evolve.
So what sort of web designer would he be?
So last week was my second hit of Queensland Leaders. As discussed by previous participants, you definitely get more each time from it.
This week we had presentations from a whole raft of people, but including ABN Amro Morgans (Philip Lee), McMahon Clarke Legal (Langton Clarke) and BBS (Amanda Newbery). Sometimes it is hard in short sessions to gather all your thoughts together, but these 3 were all very relevant to me / ireckon at this time and it had my mind spinning a little.
Particularly useful was a checklist provided by Langton Clarke which covered about 100 questions, to check how investment ready you are. As ireckon has grown so quickly over the last few years, I often look back at the trail left behind by the growth whirlwind wondering if all is in order.
Ireckon has been a proud supporter of the Beacon Foundation, a national not-for-profit aimed at helping young people create their own future. They work with schools to provide positive influence and leadership to help young people avoid unemployment and to think forward.
Today I got to experience first hand the work they do, and how well it works.
Ireckon was asked to provide some financial support to Forest Lake High School, and we were invited to hand over the cheque to the Student Leaders involved in this year’s program. The presentation was held at their assembly for Years 10,11,12 and not only did we get to have our small minute of involvement but watched and listened to the senior staff and school leaders conduct their assembly.
I have been through an interesting experience this week which caught me a little by surprise. During a meeting with a prospective client to assess each others suitability to work together I had the misfortune to have to sit across the table from a successful business person who was offensive, sexist, rude and basically boorish.
No, I am not suggesting this person was unique, I have experienced a few in my time, but in this example I was caught back by his overt sexist comments in front of one of my female staff. This caught her and I off guard and we should have taken immediate action but took some time to react.
Obviously we have complained about it and advised we wish to have nothing to do with this business, and I have discussed with all of my team how we should react and handle such situations in future. Firstly remove the offended parties from the room without hesitation and immediately - then deal with the person offending.
This post is not about the actual best way to handle such a scenario as a professional business we have processes in place to deal and respond to such issues. This post is about the ignorant / arrogant behaviour that still exists, in this era, by people who have some power (real or not) to exert over others.