The Walk the Walk London Moonwalk 2011 - one night, one very good cause and a great sense of achievement

After a pasta picnic for 14,000, some very funny warm ups and a minutes silence all hand in hand, we set off on our 26.2 mile walk through London. Here we were again having first completed it back in 2008, it couldn’t be that tough… could it?

We left the Moonwalk tent at 23.40 and set our pace. There was a real party atmosphere, lots of chatter and nervous laughter and the first few miles went by in a flash. In no time we had passed Buckingham Palace, gone on up through Hyde Park Corner and St James Park and were heading for the Victoria Embankment.

I HATE acronyms!

Ok! It’s a fact.

I have a deep, deep, dark hatred for acronyms that is only superseded by my deep, dark hatred of prunes! Irrational maybe, but it’s a hatred based on two simple and very clear factors. The first is that, in whatever industry, and mine is no exception, acronyms are linguistic laziness. They obviate the need to write a definition in full, and, quite often, render a written piece incomprehensible, sacrificed on the altar of efficiency! CRAP (which stands for Content Reduction After Pontificating) I say!

The second is the delusional, and some would argue, perverse view that it makes the writer smarter or better informed than the audience. But what’s the point of that? Why wouldn’t you want someone to understand, first time, what you’re saying? In my experience, acronyms in articles, blogs, journals or technical communications are invariably accompanied by the expression meaning in full. So why not write the meaning in full in the first place? FUBAR….

The Royal Wedding - what did you do???

So, how did you all enjoy the Royal Wedding last Friday?
Check out the pics below for a little taste of what Idealogy got up to on the day.

Steve Barnes: Stag do in Amsterdam

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Simon Johnson: The Bulldog Johnsons on the day

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!