The Opsimath

Dancing With Matt

You may have seen the video made by Matt Harding where he dances (badly) in various parts of the world, If you haven't seen it, take a look at it below - it is guaranteed to bring a smile to your face every time you see it, I never tire of it.

Now Matt is once again travelling the globe to make a new video, and tonight he has been in Manchester, England. A good crowd (including some visiting football fans from Napoli) joined him to try out some new moves, as you can see here.

I like the fact that Matt's 'job' is to travel the world making videos of people like the ones in Manchester (including me) dancing very, very badly. The good humour and the laughs made being human very pleasant this evening; and this was just yards from the part of Manchester that only weeks ago was a centre of rioting and looting.

Keep up your great work Matt, you make us smile.

If you want to know more about Matt, take a look at his website: http://blog.wherethehellismatt.com/

 

Tourists say the funniest things

On the BBC yesterday there was an item about a tourist's written complaint about their visit to a coastal resort in Devon, UK. Their issue was that the harbour area - a working harbour in which local fisherman landed their catch each day - "smelled of fish".

It reminded me some interesting questions that tourists have asked such as:

"In what month is the May Day demonstration?"

"Are there any lakes in the Lake District?"

"Why on earth did they build Windsor Castle on the flight path of Heathrow?"

"Is Wales closed during the winter?"

"Why did they build so many ruined castles and abbeys in England?"

"Which bus do I get from the Orkney Islands to the Shetland Islands?"

"Can I wear high heels in Australia?"

"Which direction is North in Australia?"

"Do you know of any undiscovered ruins?"

Customer's Quality Expectations and the tale of the omelette

Last week I was running a PRINCE2 Overview for a client in London and came upon a small but telling example of quality expectations.

PRINCE2 defines customer's quality expectations as "...a statement about the quality expected from a project's product...". Using PRINCE2 we are encouraged to discover these expectations as early as possible in order to clarify just what it is that the customer is anticipating. Without this early dialogue it is all too easy to miss these expectations, and deliver the 'wrong things' resulting in disappointment.

So it was lunchtime and I was looking for something quick but more than a sandwich. A local cafe seemed to provide the answer with their range of omelettes. Each omelette on the menu had one filling, but there was the option of adding further fillings - ideal. A cheese and mushroom omelette was duly ordered, and arrived relatively quickly - all going to plan, in fact ahead of schedule.

However, although mushrooms were clearly in evidence, there were no visual clues that there was any cheese present. Unfortunately the first taste confirmed this. Perhaps a merest hint of cheese, but essentially none - not acceptable for a cheese-lover like me.

A discussion with the staff was in order, several actually. Then came the answer, "Chef did put some cheese in but only a very small amount because some people do not like a lot."

And what a telling answer. assumptions by the supplier had been made - because 'some' people preferred the slightest hint of cheese, everyone would receive the same level of quality. Taking such a broad, lowest common denominator approach to quality guarantees disappointment in so many cases. The delivery process lacked any step to ascertain whether a little or a lot of cheese was preferred/expected, and that's a pity because it would have taken just a moment.

PRINCE2 on the other hand, does include that step. So, there's no excuse not to talk to customers about their quality expectations even before we formally initiate the project.

By the way, no I didn't invite the cafe manager back to the afternoon session of the PRINCE2 Overview!

Using cartoons to bring about change

Interesting thoughts from Liza Donnelly in this short talk. She talks about how humour in cartoons can empower women to change the rules.

New Yorker cartoonist Liza Donnelly is someone who tackles global issues with humour, intelligence and sarcasm. Her latest project supports the United Nations initiative Cartooning For Peace

 

More on the crime of Comic Sans

In a recent post, which you can read here, I mentioned the campaign to ban the typeface Comic Sans. I've now been introduced to a great little website called comicsanscriminal.com and another called bancomicsans.com.

Both worth a little diversion...

Ban Comic Sans

There's been a recent, and amusing, campaign to ban the typeface 'comic sans'. Take a look at it here.

Thank you Matt

This is just so positive, so life-affirming...

The Power of the Pause - and the Impact of Good Timing

In a previous post called "Reading Speeches - why not to do it" I looked at the dangers of simply reading out a speech, and the damage it does to the emotional impact of the talk.

Like all 'rules', it is great when it is broken, and broken well.

This lady breaks the rule. She reads her speech (which takes place after the prayer), but does it with great style. Her delivery is beautifully dry, and her humour deadpan. But it is the timing and the use of pauses which win the day.

Great speech!

Shirt of Hurt

As part of the "Shirt of Hurt" campaign for Sport Relief, Match of the Day 2 pundits Lee Dixon and Martin Keown, together with presenter Adrian Chiles donned the football shirts of their arch rivals. So here's a classic, never to be repeated photograph...

Speech Marks out of control

I've just come back from our local supermarket where you need to have a car-parking ticket, even for the first half-hour, for which there is no charge. In large capital letters the ticket said "FREE"- that is to say, including the speech marks.

What do they mean?

Is it free, and the speech marks are being used incorrectly?

Or is it not free, and "FREE" is being used ironically? Will they eventually track me down and demand a fee? Are all the prices in the store loaded to take account of the "FREE" parking? We need to know the truth.

We also received Christmas cards with hand-written messages saying "Merry Christmas". What sinister message was meant there?

The truth is that speech marks are generally out of control - and something should be done. There is a website that takes up this fight: http://www.unnecessaryquotes.com/

Here's an example from that site that makes you hungry for those "Delicious" subs and wraps...