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Personal Performance training
Some people believe that they only have one personality, and think that they have no power to change who they are. It can limit your potential if you believe that you are all you can ever be, and that you cannot change.

Do you know someone who is extremely competitive, and maybe excels at sport? Can you picture how difficult they would be to interact with if they maintained that personality in a social setting or with their family? How about a person who was shy and retiring? Does that mean that they can never stand up and challenge a wrong when they see it?

It can easily be demonstrated that you can have a different attitude depending on circumstances; you can be generous in one scenario and thrifty in another, or timid in one environment and bold when it counts. That means that that you have the ability to chose from a number of characters, and can pick the role to suit the circumstances.

Sometimes the way we act depends on the people we are with, and our state of mind. A negative state such as frustration or anger can lead to poor behavior, while a positive state of mind can be seen to promote productive action. However, it is mistake to take this as evidence that others determine our personality. We have a choice about how we react to the presence and behavior of other people, and can chose to be negative or positive, purely at will.

To take this a stage further, as all behavior is state dependant, to be the most productive we should be energetic and enthusiastic at all times, to maintain a positive state. To get the best out of our team we should keep their spirits high by giving them an example to follow. We should take the time to ensure that they are feeling positive and valued, and that they have a clear vision of what is required to achieve success. A happy crew is a productive crew, all other things being equal.

Take On a New Personality
If you want to get yourself into a productive and empowered state, there is a technique you can use to switch easily into the roll of an Alter Ego, and take on the new personality. One of the skills we teach on our Personal Performance training is to model someone who can successfully achieve the required behavior, and to take on their personality whenever it is appropriate.

We can show you how to achieve control of your own personal emotional state, and how to change the state of others. We will train you how to establish instant rapport, so that you can persuade and influence your team, your customers or your board of directors.

We will show you how to put your ideas across so that the picture you paint of your vision is crystal clear. We will teach you mastery of tone and voice so that your words resonate with your audience, and help you bring harmony to your team. We will show you how to cement the lessons in the physiology of your audience and allow them to feel the success or live the experience in order to learn it.
We achieve this through a series of explanations, guided exercises and demonstrations, interspaced with brainstorming sessions and feedback opportunities. Our methods address the four major learning styles, and all personality types.

Currently we have the following scheduled courses for Personal Performance

• Introduction to Personal Performance (Half day introduction)
• Personal Performance Basics (One day intensive)
• Personal Performance Advanced (Two day course building on the basics)

For further information about the dates for these courses, or to find out more about our Personal Performance training please click on Contact Us and send us your details.

Jacquard’s Web
James Essinger Oxford University Press ISBN 0192805770

Arguably the first programmable machine was a loom built by the son of a French silk worker in Lyons. Lyons was the capital of the silk industry in France and produced much fine fabric; amongst their products were fine tapestries showing detailed pictures of landscapes and portraits. These were very laborious to produce and hence expensive. Jacquard determined to design and manufacture a better loom that would produce as good a quality product but with much less effort. The result of his efforts was the Jacquard loom controlled by punched cards; cards that could be re-used and transferred from one loom to another – in other words, the first program.

Jacquard’s work was greatly appreciated by an English mathematician, Charles Babbage, who was working on a project of his own to automate repetitive tasks. In Babbage’s case it was the production of mathematical tables, a far cry from woven portraits but with the underlying similarity of predictable, repetitive actions. Babbage was sufficiently impressed by Jacquard that he visited Lyons and bought a woven portrait of Jacquard produced on a Jacquard loom at a cost in today’s money of £2500.

This book explores the chain of links that led from Jacquard, through Babbage, to the first programmer - Lord Byron’s daughter, Ada Lovelace. It goes on to Herman Hollerith who produced the punch card machine for data analysis. Hollerith found that the US census was taking so long to analyse that the next census was being made before the data from the previous one was available so developed the machine initially to analyse the census data. It was later further developed to extraordinary levels and was a mainstay of business until it was superseded by the next link in the chain, the digital computer. The final links in the chain are Howard Aiken who was largely responsible for the Harvard Mk 1 and subsequently Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web.

The main focus of the book is the early days with Jacquard having 70 pages out of a total of 280; Babbage gets 45 pages and Berners-Lee a short paragraph. This is probably quite reasonable as there are many books currently in print about the birth of the web but very few about Jacquard and how his loom works.

Overall the book is a fascinating run through the very early history of IT with much background detail of the individuals who had such an impact on our lives today. It is obviously well researched leading to a very readable book without too much technical detail in the main body; there is an appendix with the technical detail of how a Jacquard loom works. Highly recommended for anyone who has an interest in the origins of computing.

John Weller is a Fellow of the Institution of Analysts and Programmers, and an established IAP Council member.  You can contact John through the Institution, and purchase books at substantial discounts through the IAP Bookstore
This review first appeared in the Visual Software Journal

The Management has just returned from an exhausting fact finding and good-will trip to India over Christmas. Well off the beaten tourist trails, they visited some of the poorest areas in rural India, and witnessed extremes of unbelievable poverty, and lavish wedding celebrations the likes of which have never been seen in UK outside a Royal event.

One of the high points was Bruce winning the first international Musical Chairs event at a wild disco in the grounds of Deoraoji Itankar College of Education, on Christmas Eve. Surreal!

Spurred on by this life changing visit, Bruce Thompson Events have decided to put some weight behind the leprosy elimination campaign and are helping with sponsoring a new website which has been launched to coincide with World Leprosy Day on 25th January 2009. To see this new site, visit End Leprosy Now.

Bruce Thompson Events is an event technical production company, and part of TechCo Systems based in Bristol. We provide creative and technical solutions for a wide range of event briefs and clients in the UK. This site has been produced to provide you with inspiration and resources for your next event.

We can organise and host a wide range of events, from concerts and fund raising galas, to team building events, strategic planning sessions and sales meetings. Each event is carefully planned to reflect the needs of the client, and events can be themed if required.

If you are interested in recording your event, we have video and sound engineers, and audio production specialist available to assist in creating your own video and audio products. An Audio Consultant can show you how to capture your knowledge and presentation in the medium of podcasts for iPods and audio CD’s.

Contact Bruce Thompson Events now to see how we can assist you. If we can’t do it ourselves, we know someone who can.

We provide complete event management, including sound systems, lighting, video projection, staging, DJ Equipment and other technical production services.

We also provide world class training and coaching for individuals, teams and organisations to help them deliver the best results and achieve full potential. Our speakers and presenters are trained to the highest standard and are all certified NLP Master Practitioners. They deliver powerful leadership and business strategies to multiply your results and breakthrough to sucess. We can show you how to model the mindset and qualities of the greatest leaders of all times and replicate the success of outstanding achievers.

Contact Bruce Thompson Events now for your next step