Courses

Online Delivery

When Covid-19 forced me to switch to online delivery, I adapted to Zoom like everyone else and learned to exploit complementary platforms like Padlet, Mentimeter, Miro and many others. Drawing on my background in technical theatre … Continue reading →

1 to 1 Presentation Coaching

If you’re delivering a conference speech, a CEO communicating your vision to thousands of employees, a Research Scientist pitching to secure millions in funding, a team leader of thirty, a lecturer to hundreds or someone … Continue reading →

Presentation Preparation

“In the Wings” If the purpose of a presentation is to create change, then it must cause an audience to think, feel or behave differently as a result of experiencing it, and for this to … Continue reading →

Presentation Delivery

“Potential Energy” If you type “Presentation Skills” into a search engine, you will find links to millions of pages. Begin to explore these pages, and you will find a wealth of excellent advice that can … Continue reading →

Voice

“Specific Heat Capacity” If you were to stand in any maternity ward in the world and listen to the cacophony of infant voices filling the air, you would have no idea of their gender and … Continue reading →

Networking

“Cross Purposes” Networking is a catchy word. I believe it’s also a necessarily vague one that is used to describe an ill-defined work-centred social activity that few people admit to enjoying and even fewer can … Continue reading →

Confidence

“An Impostor Calls” If we spend enough time thinking about confidence, how we would feel and what we would do if we had more of it, we almost invariably end up describing with great accuracy … Continue reading →

Presence

“Lagom” Moderation is an ancient principle of life; nothing to excess, eliminate extremes and embrace a happy medium. This is as close as the English language comes to translating the Swedish word “Lagom”, and it … Continue reading →

Communication

“Incommunicado” Communication, typically the exchange of information between two or more parties, would appear to be a two-way process. In practise we are frequently managed at work and policed in public without any exchange of … Continue reading →

Feedback

“Equilibrio” Feedback is informative, powerful and essential to our lives. It comes in many exciting and varied forms from the music of Jimi Hendrix to an Ebay profile, and from a parent saying “Don’t touch!” … Continue reading →

Team Working

“Authentity” In 2011, Island 41 was invited to develop a residential team working course designed to enhance collaborations between students from a group of three Centres for Doctoral Training. Authentity (a wordplay meaning “be the … Continue reading →

Time Management

“Take Five” There are many methods of considering, examining and quantifying how we use our time, and they all can be extremely valid. However, there are a few fundamental questions which should be addressed before … Continue reading →

MBTI

“Preferential Treatment” MBTI, created by Katherine Cook Briggs and Isabel Briggs Myers, is based on the work of Carl Jung and affords people a distinct and powerful set of lenses through which they can objectively … Continue reading →

SDI

“Mappa Mundi” This course takes its name from the Medieval European maps that were purely schematic and only ever meant to illustrate broad differences. In much the same way, Dr Elias Porter’s Relationship Awareness Theory … Continue reading →

Belbin Team Roles

“Running High” Taking its name from the opening line of the anonymous poem “An Oilman’s Lament”, this course brings to life the research of Dr Meredith Belbin, whose pioneering work in the late 1960’s at … Continue reading →