The week that was 20180519

My proudest | most grateful moment

We hosted another #DialogueMatters session in Cape Town, focussing on communicating a sustainability message across different audiences. 

These are sessions put together by Reputation Matters; Lisa Wannell ~ Director and Founder of Halogen Search and Selection specialist recruitment consultancy and Kristina Malther, Managing Director at Open Communication Cape Town. We identified a need to create a space for dialogue and sharing ideas in the communication space. This was the sixth one that we've hosted. 

As Reputation Matters we focus on the importance of research as the springboard for effective decision making to drive and measure communication and business strategies; Lisa focusses on understanding and determining what the best skillset is for a specialist position within the communication field and Kristina focusses on the implementation of communication initiatives and shares great international case studies and best practices. Here's an article we wrote on the last one we hosted.

I am grateful to have met these great strategic alliances and for the opportunity to increase engagement about the importance of communication on this platform. 

The Cape Town sessions are kindly hosted at The Bureaux. The photo is the magnificent view of Cape Town and Lion's Head in the background that greeted us on Thursday morning, I just love this City so much!

My biggest lesson this week

There were a couple of lessons this week. I think the first one is that it is important to make sure that you recharge your batteries so that you can fully focus and enjoy each moment and situation that you find yourself in. You will be a lot more on top of your game (and be a lot more pleasant to be around!). 

The other lesson is also to always be in the present moment and to be aware of what is going on around you. I think this links to having charged batteries. A friend and I went for a jog on Thursday afternoon, there is a wonderful route in Hout Bay that we follow along a dirt road in Bokkemans Kloof. As we were chatting and jogging and enjoying the incredible scenery, Thérèse stopped in her tracks and in a panic shouted for us to stop; Bella (our Weirmaraner) who had been jogging ahead of us and jumping in an out of the bushes, cocked her head and ears towards us to find out what was up with these humans... as I was making sense of what was going on, my first thought was that it might be rogue dogs chasing us from behind, I had no idea what was going on; then I heard Thérèse's voice saying..."there's a SNAKE!", and there in the middle of the road was a puff adder! I called Bella as calmly as possible and put her on a lead; THANKFULLY she was oblivious to what she had run past. Bodies maxed up with adrenalin, I don't think we've ever run home quite as fast!

What made me giggle?

Each month, to celebrate the team's hard work, we started an initiative called 'Cheers for Peers'. Instead of just one 'employee of the month', we celebrate everyone as I am incredibly grateful for my high performing team. (Generally), the first Friday afternoon of a new month we get together; we found that the end of the month gets too busy with month end reporting. So, the first Friday works well. Each month, a different team member gets to choose a fun activity, it's a secret until about 30 minutes before the time when the location is shared. 

Yesterday, Harriet introduced us all to the Cape Town Science Centre in Observatory. We had a huge amount of fun and laughed a lot, especially when the last thing you expect is your colleague's head appearing on a plate of fruit and vegetables! 

A bonus giggle for the week: I am friends with 25 letters of the alphabet...I don't now why...

My favourite quote

On the wall at the Science Centre: 

Big goal for the next week

I really need to work on my MAD dream [My AfriCAN Dream | Making a Difference]; it is something that I am incredibly excited about, I have documented most of it and it is almost ready to share. I have a slight bottleneck in terms of getting feedback from a strategic alliance who needs to answer a few questions for me in terms of getting a facilitator on board / hours needed for training etc. Let's hold thumbs I can report back on it next week. 

Something I found particularly clever

I've decided to add one more section. 

I saw this at the Science Centre in their bathroom; I absolutely love that they have used science to save water in their bathrooms! 

Here's to an amazing week!