Having just returned from the Training and Performance Improvement Conference in Minneapolis, USA, I was so impressed with one of the presentations, that I thought I should provide a highlights package in this month’s Ezine. I attended a workshop by Becky Pike Pluth on “Teaching from Tinsletown” and it reminded me how powerful cinema can be in portraying a message or engaging a response. As trainers we can take short clips to reinforce a point, evoke an emotion or to quickly build understanding of the topic in a non-threatening way.

I was asked to say a few words at a closing ceremony of a training course recently and in my speech I provided some tips for giving successful presentations. I talked about the “Butterfly Effect”, (not to be confused with that film with Ashton Kutcher), where people get nervous in front of the group. In delivering the speech, I was reminded about a quote I once heard about not letting the butterflies in your stomach worry you. Rather, you just have to “get them flying in formation”!