If it works, it’s obsolete*

I spoke at the AUT Breakfast Club yesterday morning. Remind me never to agree to early morning functions again. My topic was ‘Why the creative economy is the sustainable economy’

I’d had a technology meltdown. The hard drive on my desktop machine blew up. I lost a ton of material (including the original plans and designs for Idealog) – and my speech.

I was speechless.

So Thursday night was a late one and Friday morning an early one. I thought these kinds of gigs were behind me.

Nonetheless the session went well and I enjoyed myself. I have made a note never to present from a written speech again. It seems curiously pointless. If you know the material well enough to write it, surely you know it well enough to work from a few notes. That way it is easier to engage the audience with a more genuine sense of personality.

When I began teaching at Massey I would go for two and half hours based on 5 bullet points. It was exhausting but fun. I didn’t realise until I complained to a colleague about how tiring it was being ‘on’ for so long that I learned that I was supposed to lecture for an hour and tutor for and hour and a half. My poor students.

After the talk I enjoyed meeting some of the audience who had stayed to chat after – ranging from a bright, ambitious student to an associate professor of business.

Felt perked up after, walking to my car I realised it was still only 8.30 in the a.m.

Did I mention remind me not to agree to early morning gigs. Perhaps I should have showed up in flannel pjamas, dressing gown and slippers with bed hair. (Damn, why didn’t I think of that before?)

*Marshall McLuhan

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