MY FIRST APP!

So excited to launch my very first App – Business Vocal Coaching App (BVCA) on iOS for iPhones and all Apple devices. The Android version is currently being produced and will be available by May.

This great little App designed to help those who are new to speaking in public or who just want to create the kind of business voice that not only gets heard, but listened to as well.

I hope that you enjoy listening to the 5 minute audio and then capturing three key phrases or words that will support you next time you need to speak out.

This will be shortly followed by my UListen2 Audio Learning Programme series for those who want to go that bit deeper and understand how to use their voice to its fullest potential in a range of business situations.

Here is the link to the iTunes store where you can download the App for FREE!

http://ow.ly/a19ZK

PREPARING ECU HERE IN KUWAIT

Just made a short film trying to capture the behind the scenes stuff from here in Kuwait as we prepare to run our second ECU Forum this year.  The first for 2012 was in Zurich – see a short film we made from that event https://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=10150669258702053

Going to capture lots of footage to put together another film to really express the energy and innovation that happens at ECU Forums.

For now watch and enjoy….

 

Jozefa
http://JozefaFawcett.com

 

 

JOZEFA MEETS JOSEFA IN VIENNA

Just spent two days working with the European Patent Office in Vienna and who did I meet there?  A lovely lady called Josefa.

In all of my working life, I have never actually met another Jozefa and so I am delighted to introduce one to you from the EPO Vienna.

This was a great experience, not just for meeting her, but also the opportunity to run a training workshop with a superb group of experienced trainers.

I was covering how to design training that will prompt people into action and change their behaviour – focusing on Instructional Design approaches that really work!

If we are going to design training, then we have to be more than just “enter-trainers” – it must have substance, be based upon sound pedagogical constructs, but responsive to adult learners.

I thoroughly enjoyed myself helping the group to work through a detailed case study and the resulting examples were fantastic!  I am back in Vienna at the end of April so will see my fellow Josefa again

Józefa (Fawcett) in UK – LearningVoice

THE LONG-TERM VALUE OF A MENTOR

I am off into London today to meet up with one of my very first mentors, Steve Collins which has sparked an opportunity for me to reflect upon our relationship which has spanned some 22 years!

I first met Steve when I went to work for him in the NHS in 1990.  I had come from a private-sector retail training background and he was from an academic background – surely we were from completely different worlds and would never get on?

Yes, that is me 22 years ago!

 

Quite the opposite in fact.  Steve was looking for someone who didn’t have a healthcare background so that he could inject some new thinking into the NHS at that time.

Little did I know that when he retired some years later, that I would take on his position as Training Manager and he would shift to a new role, that of my mentor.

I think people underestimate the long-term benefits of a really good mentor, and I have never forgotten what Steve did, and still does, for me.

 

 

After all these years we have both moved into the final phase of our relationship, that of friendship.

Many of the work principles that I use these days were influenced by Steve.

Did he impose these on me?  No

Did he teach me to do the things that I do now?  No

Did he practice these principles himself?  Yes

This is where I think his greatest success lay.  He practiced what he said.  He operated as a professional practitioner and admitted his mistakes and not try to cover them up, but he learned from them too – and changed his behaviour and practice.

I owe a great deal to my former mentor and am now looking forward to enjoying a lovely lunch with someone who now, I am proud to call my friend.

Cheers Dr Steve Collins – see you later!

 

Józefa Fawcett still on a learning journey…

http://JozefaFawcett.com

ECU Zurich

WHAT IS A WEEKEND?

And the learning journey continues…

It seems that UK weekends are becoming ever more eroded by business conversations, and the line between home and work is blurring faster than perhaps we care to admit.

Of course, technology has played its part in this shift, but so has the way that people are choosing to work these days.  As an independent practitioner, I now work around the world and am starting to experience different cultures and business practices.

This of course means time zone changes.  From the UK, I might be having a business meeting with someone who is at least 4 – 6 hours ahead of me – early morning meetings around 5am GMT are now becoming a regular thing.

The other change that I’m finding is that many countries in the Middle East operate on a different working week to the UK.  In Kuwait and Dubai, Sunday is their Monday morning.  In Saudi Arabia, I discovered yesterday from a new work contact, that Saturday is their Monday and their weekend is Thursday and Friday.

Working across time zones and cultures, that is one thing, however, I have also noticed a shift in UK working practices too.  Maybe heavily influenced by an American marketing approach, newsletters from people here in the UK that I have subscribed to are being sent to my inbox on Friday night or early Saturday morning.  The last two that I read claimed that they did this because:

1.  They were too busy during the week and good intentions to get it done on a Friday night were thwarted because they were enjoying themselves in a social setting with friends

2.  They were trying out a new format and instead of a mid-week newsletter, they were sending it on a Saturday to be more assured of it being read in an inbox

Hey, wait a minute…..is this in MY best interest, or theirs?

Do I really want to be bombarded with business newsletters at the weekend? Is this trend going to catch on?  Will it start a backlash and will more and more people (like me) cancel subscriptions because the trend isn’t welcome?

Here in the UK working weekends were instigated by the UK Sunday Trading Act 1994 and I remember at that time being wary of it.  So much so, that my husband and I made a conscious decision for him to get out of retail where businesses were already insisting managers did their fair share of Sunday working.

I was also intrigued to read this week about the Brazilians.  Apparently they are overworked and a new law has been introduced in a bid to push back the intrusions of the digital age on Brazilians’ personal lives.  With my HR ‘hat’ on, this is going to be interesting to watch how it unfolds and the extra costs to an organisation of such a law.

Will it’s ramifications travel over here to the UK too?

So, I am publishing this post on a Sunday, in keeping with the trend that is growing but with a certain degree of skepticism as to whether I think it is a good thing,  or not.

Józefa

Main website

 

WHO’S LISTENING?

My learning journey continues….

Listening, now that IS an interesting word.  With talking and communicating being made easy and fast these days via so many different mediums – it is a fair question to ask, who is listening?

Technically, it is a verb, the present participle of to lis-ten.  It is to give your attention to a sound: “sit and listen to the radio”.  It is to take notice of and act on what someone says; respond to advice or a request: “I told her over and over, but she wouldn’t listen”.

Listening is an important element of the audio learning programmes that I am currently producing here in Latvia.  Making the programmes interesting enough for people to want to stay with the information is just part of it.  Helping ‘listeners’ want to take action is another part.

I have had such a fabulous time again here in Riga.   This short film brings together so many aspects of what each day has been like over the last 72 hours – I hope you enjoy it

Home on Sunday and then editing and post-production of all the raw recordings.  Huge thanks again to my wonderful colleagues here at Eurofortis, signing out now from your Józia

Józia (Józefa)

THE POWER OF WORDS!

The learning journey continues…

Oh, the power of language and how fragile it is.  I am in the middle of checking back the translation of my current audio from Latvian to English.

This process is very consuming: writing, translation from English to Latvian, checking, verifying Latvian back to English, re-wording where necessary and then completing.  This is done before recording can start.

It is always a surprise to me when words I have written in English that I believed were simple to translate, pose problems and do not express the power of what was originally meant.

For example: in Latvian, the title of my current audio, ‘Transformational Training’, translates as it.  However, with my first one – ‘Powerful Presentations’ – it wasn’t the same.

‘Powerful’ when translated into Latvian still means strong but when using the translated word for ”Presentations’ it made no sense.  This was then changed to the word, ‘Successful’, which in itself is not wrong, however it doesn’t have the level of strength and impact that I wanted to convey when I wrote it in English.  ‘Powerful’ was changed when translated for the Russian audio to the word ‘Effective’ and this same change was also done for the Czech version.

This will be an ongoing and challenging issue for me as I progress with the other audio learning programmes.  I wonder what the Latvians, Czechs and Russians will make of my next one -  ‘Nurturing Nellie’ ???

Here is my video log for today in Riga.

Józia (Józefa)

BACK IN RIGA, LATVIA

I am grateful to the wonderful team at Eurofortis for welcoming me back to their office this week as we will be recording my second audio learning programme, Transformational Training

Now myself and the team are going out to lunch, we are Adela, Evija, Vanda and Juris, and each day we go to a small place just five minutes walk away called Sala (which means Island) in Latvian.  The food is fresh and beautifully cooked.

More news about our exploits, tomorrow.

P.S. Whilst here, I use the more familiar (diminutive) version of my name, with my lovely colleagues.  This means that they call me Józia and I just love it

Józia (Józefa)

My website

NEW YEAR – NEW ADVENTURES!

The learning journey continues…

As we open 2012, there is both an air of despondency alongside a glimmer of expectation in business here in the UK.  Despondency because there are so many reports of the continuing recession, lost jobs, failed businesses etc.. making it really hard to remain focused and upbeat when faced with the media onslaught day after day.

However, there is also a glimmer of expectation.

Expectation that things can only get better if we apply ourselves to the right things in the right way.  Using management speak, it is about doing things effectively as opposed to just efficiently.

LearningVoice has, this year, a wealth of expectations and intentions, particularly because this year I celebrate my tenth year of trading.  I started working independently in October 2002.  In the early days, it was me and a lap top plugged into a dial-up Internet connection, oh what fun!  That said, I achieved a great deal my lap top and me.  Whereas I am a little better organised than that now and use wireless connections with a series of computers, lap tops and recording equipment – that old ‘wired’ one STILL works (note to self to dust it off and switch it on, just for fun).

I also now have a ‘virtual’ team of talented people supporting me and my journey:

My UK creative design team Ces and Jay from CreativelyMinded

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My two new collaborative partners for my vocal coaching products, Eurofortis in Latvia and IPE in Abu Dhabi

 

 

 

 

 

My technical support, Robert Broadway, also based here in the UK

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And, working with me, a brand new project team made up of highly experienced professionals from the UK and Russia – so welcome to the LearningVoice European and Transnational Project Advisory Team (ETPAT).

 

 

Me – Project Co-ordinator, Researcher & Trainer (Eastern Europe, Eurasia, South America, Africa, Middle East)

 

 

 

Maxim Teryukhov – Project & Risk Manager

 

 

 

 

Anita Pickerden – Researcher & Trainer (UK & Central Europe)

 

 

 

Jakki Bendell – Technical Adviser, Communications & Marketing

 

 

 

 

And finally, my PR and International Bookings Agent, Sarah Mercer based in Barcelona, Spain

 

 

 

 

 

How lucky am I ?

Now to embark upon some serious activity and further my aim: to re-introduce high quality training and learning back into business for 2012!

Come with me along my journey and discover how we can turn despondency into a new and more vibrant economic climate.

 

Józefa

Main website