A Night at the M(T)useum…

March 2011. METTLER TOLEDO CORPORATE COMMUNICATIONS WORKSHOPS.

So,  there we were, James and I, on our first night in Greifensee, just south of Zurich in Switzerland, in town for 3 days of ‘learning workshops’ at the invitation of the METTLER TOLEDO Corporate Communications team. The evening had begun at a local restaurant as a pleasant ‘meet and greet’, getting to know the MT Corp Comms personalities, enjoying some great food and, of course, a few small tinctures.

The Train is Leaving The Station

2011 is going to be another ambitious ‘learning year’ for Idealogy. January was Appraisal time and the process threw-up a wide range of individual training requirements, from Confidence improvements all the way through to more conventional HTML skills development. So, another full training program begins for a business that takes its Personnel development role very seriously.

But perhaps the most significant step for the business has been a LEADERSHIP AND BEHAVIOURAL residential event, coordinated by MTA Consulting, and attended by the Idealogy Management Team in mid-February, which focused on 21st Century methods for harnessing leadership, team-building, responsibility and behaviour as the energy to drive the business forward.

Another Level (not the boy-band silly… it’s Idealogy’s new space)

So a couple of months back we told you that we were about to embark on creating a new Level here at Idealogy Towers. Now it’s not to describe our office as a shanty-town house, where a new corrugated iron floor is added to accommodate an ever-expanding family – but it is to say that the top floor here that up until recently had all kinds of junk in it, is now home to our great new breakout area.

Seeing others as they see themselves

During a recent Workshop with the Kenwood NPD Team, held during February at The Langstone on Hayling Island, Idealogy set the team a simple but often controversial task.

“Draw a picture of somebody (anybody) and focus on the single most distinguishing feature of that person”. It’s a tried and trusted technique for defining group characteristics and dynamics and, as most amateur psychologists will tell you, a picture is worth a thousand words and provides as good a reflection of personality as your handwriting ever can – assuming, of course, that we actually understand handwriting!

Don’t forget your birthday cakes you TWIT

Did you celebrate? Did you remember? Did you even know?

It was the 5th birthday of Social Networking game-changer Twitter this week, and I’ll bet you didn’t even have a party, did you?

Rude.

Truth be told, neither did we, it didn’t seem important enough really.

It doesn't Costa lot!

Customer experience is a fickle thing – it’s tough to pick out the highs and the lows; sometimes you know full well that service could be better (say, at a Supermarket check out – whatever you do, never make eye contact!) and sometimes you know that it doesn’t get much better (in this instance, an online experience with one of the big ones like Amazon, who seem to know what you’re thinking and when you’re thinking it – has spending money ever been so painless?).

A quick reaction to QR Codes

Some of you may have noticed a new breed of barcode (albeit square)-type-things appearing in various places, on various products and in various scenarios in our day-to-day lives of late.

Quick Response, or QR codes are the latest 2 Dimensional way to access additional information about, well, whatever the QR code creator wants you to access really! A QR can be scanned by a smartphone to automatically receive text, imagery, video, sound and URLs - a mobile-friendly way to point people who are offline to an online resource.

The Japanese love them. Well I never! And they are becoming increasingly popular over here and in the U.S. But are they just another gimmick? - well no, not if you think about how they can be used: