Sounds a bit like companies appointing Equality and Diversity managers and showing how (superficially) forward thinking they are...

Also kind of reflects parts of my present status in some ways.  

No I don't mean it like that.

I mean I'm not superficial (you at the back keep quiet).

Forward thinking?  Yes, I am but I do prioritise Now.

Plan ahead but work as hard as you can in the present.

There is one saying I express to people that I made up during a telephone conversation years ago.  It goes, "The one thing you can always be sure about the future is that you can never be sure about the future."

You can make sketches about the future but... there will be unexpected things cropping up.  This is a similar perspective expressed by the American businessman Peter Guber.  On LinkedIn and Awaken.com he recently published an article entitled 'There's No Such Thing As Career Planning':

http://www.awaken.com/2013/03/theres-no-such-thing-as-career-planning/

He gave three pieces of useful advice under the headings 'Opportunity is always lurking; 'You don’t always need experience, but experiences'; and 'You never know who knows who'.

For several years I've followed those views.  OK, for the last few years I've been distracted by writing my PhD... but having said that my varied experiences during my now completed doctorate do come under the second advice Guber gave.

But do these three pieces of advice get applied on a bigger scale to businesses? 

Well, sometimes/kind of/perhaps/no/yes.

For many of them major changes are happening.  Some changes can make their businesses more competitive.  Several businesses try to ignore changes or only superficially address a few of them:

"This is the way things are done."  
"Change can cost too much."
"Yeah, we're on board with changes.  We have a website." 
"We don't want those kind of people working here."
"I'm sure everyone in this company is looked after."
"Yeah, bullying can happen but that's life."
"We''ve got an E&D Manager so we're OK."
"Well, it's obvious.  Women working is just a hobby for them."
"E&D?  Don't have the time.  We're too busy."

I'm sure you can think of other remarks...

The Change Management concept has been around for a few years but it's rarely understood or embraced.  Superficially it can be clearly comprehended:

1 - Recognise business changes. 
2 - Identifying and developing the needed changes within the company.
3 - Effective employee training. 
4 - Gaining employee support for the changes.

Easy to write these steps but to identify them and then to actually action them...

Think about the book Enhancing the Effectiveness of Organizational Change Management by Julien R. Phillips.  It was written ... 30 years ago.  It was 10 years before his thoughts were recognised within many Human Resource bodies but how often has it been applied...

On 22nd Mar. 2013 I gave a talk at a university education department.  I used PowerPoint (of course) and talked about sexism; racism; UK legal matters  ethics; therapy; and interviews/surveys.  I interested and entertained audience present.  UK universities are having to embrace greater ethical awareness and connections with non-academic communities.  It could be argued that universities are companies and that the changes that they are being compelled to undertake involve the 4 steps within Change Management.

Will the 2010 book Beyond Change Management: How to Achieve Breakthrough Results Through Conscious Change Leadership by Dean Anderson and Linda Ackerma be effective for various organisations in less than the years it's taken for the book by Justin Phillips?

The one thing you can always be sure about the future is that you can never be sure about the future.

Life gives up and downs.  Often it gives unexpected experiences.  Sometimes those experiences can be...

Unexpected.

Here's one.  Now still in 2011.  Still in Vancouver.  Still at the University of British Columbia.

Yes, I love the place but bare with me.

I had befriended several people also doing presentations during the conference I was involved with.  Two of them told me they were going to the beach by the university.

They told me that they were informed that on the beach it was "clothing optional".

Deep breath... and No, I didn't go streaking.

OK?

However, the two other people had gone down earlier.  I decided to try and find them after I'd made some important phone calls.

I found the steps down onto beach.  All two hundred of them (or something like that).  They were twisty, steep and made from logs.

Eventually I got down to the beach and ... it was narrow with hardly anyone there.

I thought, "I must be lost.  Maybe the big beach is further along the coast."

But which way? 

Only one guy was on this part of the beach sunbathing.

Did I mention that on this beach clothing was optional?

Trying to casually ask directions on a deserted beach from a naked guy lying on a platform which was at eye level... Well, that was a new ... experience.

Anyhoo!

So the directions he told me involved me climbing over boulders and fallen trees and logs and rocks while the sea was gushing over them.

Are you moaning in sympathy for me?

Well, how about that I was wearing a new pair of trainers and they got soaked.  Does that make you feel more sympathetic?

Sigh.

OK, well, eventually I got to the main beach.  Lots of people in swimming costumes.  Very few naked.

BUT I didn't find the other two new friends.

So climbing up another set of steps.  All two hundred-ish of them.

So life has ups and downs.  Sometimes quite literally.


A nice flight back home by the way.


So...


Late in 2011 I was putting my PhD together.


Referencing the 14 past PhDs around LGB&T issues I'd read.


Reading through my transcriptions of the interviews and using some comments from them.


So around September-ish, I totalled up the first draft of my PhD writing.

141,622 words- ah...

My PhD had to be around 80,000 words.

Erm, I obviously knew a hell of a lot about my subject but I'd written       too much.

So Editing.  Editing.  Reading.  Writing.  Editing.  Reading.  Writing.  2012.  Writing.  Writing.  Arguing.  (No comment)  Editing.  Reading.  Writing.  Art break!  (Woohoo!)  Writing.  Insisting.  Sighing.  (No comment)  Editing.  Reading.  Writing.  Writing.  Done!! (late 2012)  More editing.  Bit of reading.  Little bit of editing.  Some writing.  You think what??? (No comment).  Tiny bit of reading.  Weeny bit of writing.  Printing.  Nearly 500 pages!  Handing in my completely finished PhD.  (Friday 15th Mar. 2013)


Phew.


Now what?

So in 2010 I was interviewing

and interviewing.

But that's good.  Chatting with people.  Learning about them.

Having strong ideas about what to talk about but not fixing those ideas.  Letting to person being interviewed talk about areas important to them.

After all my PhD is about what they think.  Not what I think they are.

And then in July I was creating a new art piece using CDs - 'Holly Sparkles'.

Oh I said I would prepare much of it before the 10th of July 2010 and then get it signed by visitors in Manchester while I was finishing it.

That was stressful...

Oh, I did it.  And it got auctioned off that night. But not very well auctioned.  Several people who were interested in getting it weren't informed.

Very disappointed that I put in so much effort...

Some of the main organisers asked would I do it again in 2011.

I think you can guess my reaction.

I was diplomatic.

2011 2011 2011.

In June I became Public Engagement Ambassador for my university.  Largely because that's my view.  That academics should be involved with communities and not in an ivory tower... but that's so different from a lot of academics.

Then in July I went to Canada...

You see, early in 2011 I got an email talking about an international conference based in Vancouver, Canada.  It concerned gender issues as well.  

But the deadline had just passed.  So I thought, "Well it's only just passed.  I'll apply and see if I can get them to pay for me to go over. I probably won't get accepted."

Didn't expect that they would reply saying, "YES! 


We'd love you present there!  



Only thing we can't pay you to go over."




Drat.

So I emailed one of my PhD supervisors.  Well I don't know what he said but...



The university agreed to pay for me to go.



Vancouver, I should add, is one of my favourite cities.  That's why I applied in the first place.  I have family living there as well.  Been several times.

So I liaised with people at the university and it turns out that although the conference I was to talk at was only for two days, I'd be in Vancouver for a week staying at a fab place on the University of British Columbia campus where they served bed, breakfast and evening meal.

Was I happy?

You bet.

Although the conference was largely a typical academic conference.  The presentation skills of some academics was very conventional even though they were guest lecturers.

One guest speak was this American academic and he, it would seem, was a major catch.  To be paid to do his talk.

And it looked as if he so did not want to be bothered.  

He sat at this table with his script in front of him and read from it without looking at the audience.

Andhespokesoquicklywithoutleavinganygapsandnoonecouldunderstandwhathesaidandneverlookedupitjustseemedasifhejustreaditasthoughhewantedtogetpaidandtoleave.

I didn't understand anything he said.  And I think that his attitude was rude.

My talk was completely different.

PowerPoint slides but I also stood up three times to physically act out several personal experiences.  One funny.  One dramatic.  One charming.

In other words: entertain the audience and they might learn more from you.

Still an uphill battle.  Late 2011 I was formally putting my PhD together.

That was ... interesting.  Tell you another time.

You notice?  Didn't mention politics in this edition of my blog and I...

Ah...