Be The Pigeon

UPDATED: September 2020 with added tips from experience I routinely lead customer workshops as part of my profession. 100% remote work is changing things in a major way!  Workshops are not designed as remote experiences; yet here we are.  I led my first remote customer workshop this week!  As expected, it was definitely a different experience but it worked pretty well.  I learned some significant lessons  along the way and thought they'd be a valuable share (beyond this forced-quarantine time).  Delivering workshops remotely certainly isn’t the preferred method.  But there's surely things we can do to make them as effective as possible. Tips: Energy.   Start with uptempo. music, jokes, and a high-level overview of what you're going to accomplish and how.  Have handouts that give people a strong mental model of where they are in the process.  They'll tune out and get bored otherwise. PRO TIP: I love to use a concept called ELMO ...

In the midst of the worldwide pandemic we're each now navigating, we are obviously in uncharted waters in all aspects of our lives. Professionally, nearly every one of us is now working from home (WFH) full time. Though many folks have long WFH'd one day per week or on occasion, it’s a very different thing to become a full-time remote worker. Some of you are adapting to very new ways of working that might at times feel awkward. Here's some tips from those who have been doing the WFH thing for years. Routine. As much as you can, try to maintain a normal routine. That means starting the day on time, getting ready for work as you normally would. You might not be dressing up like you would for the office, but there’s mental value to the whole “getting ready” routine. If you wake up and immediately hit the laptop to start into emails, you don’t get that important ramp-up/ramp-down time in your day. Take breaks as you normally would. It’s not uncommon to find yourself si...