Archive for the ‘Personal development’ Category

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Game Changing Interviews

February 3, 2013

job vacanciesJust before the New Year we decided to publicise a vacancy for a Senior PR post in our Dublin office.

We deliberately wanted to leave the job description open so that it would invite interest from  a wide range of people leaving us with the opportunity of shaping the role around the successful “right” candidate instead of letting everything be dictated by a very specific role ..it has been an interesting journey with some really good learnings!

  1. The job vacancy posted on our website and the use of social media alone was enough to generate a huge number of responses and enough quality candidates
  2. From the minute we tweeted and posted the link for the vacancy we could see huge traffic hitting our website
  3. People are really happy to retweet and share news about job vacancies
  4. So many people apply for jobs without reading what the job is about!! – I would say about 40% of the enquiries were totally irrelevant
  5. The role attracted a lot of attention because of the way we described it – avoid cliches (dynamic person…)!
  6. People in really good roles are now prepared to move to new jobs – is that recession fear easing off?
  7. Some people are caught in “fur lined” mouse traps – they are getting no satisfaction from their jobs but are stuck because their packages are too good to leave. We met a few of these!
  8. Many people have taken roles in the recession because they needed the money – most are really unfulfilled now, which is bad for them and their employers.
  9. There are a lot of really talented, hard working people out there – the quality of the people we met was amazing
  10. Employment agencies – I can’t see us ever having to use one..

After just one week of searching we found more than one ideal candidate for the role but we also met a number of quite diverse people all with something unique to offer who we know we will stay in touch with and work together in some way on various projects..

The game of recruiting is changing, the game of looking for a job is changing and hopefully this simple interview process could turn out to be a valuable “game changer” for us.

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

Fuzion are a Marketing & PR firm with offices in Dublin and Cork

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Posted in Irish Economy, LinkedIn, Marketing, Online Advertising, Personal development, Recruitment, Social Media, Web Marketing | 3 Comments »

Social Media – Teach or Preach?

January 28, 2013

Cyberbullying

Like most people I am very concerned about the whole topic of Cyberbullying and the effect it has been having on some of our young people.

After the tragic suicides recently we decided to do our part and we produced a simple info graphic called “safebook” , which is an easy guide for young people. Our objective was to encourage the safe and responsible use of social media and at the same time provide clear advice to people who may be faced with a bullying situation.

Safebook Poster - CyberbullyingOur poster struck a chord with people all over the world – it’s been downloaded in over 100 countries, which I put down to its simplicity and I believe it is helping parents and teachers to have sensible conversations about the responsible use of social media with their children.

Our activity in this area has brought us into contact with many teachers, schools and organisations and I can see the considerable efforts that are being made to control and deal with the issue. I am watching the training programmes, I can see the liaison with the authorities and government agencies and I can see how schools are making attempts to block the use of these platforms and do their best to cope with the situation.

I have also heard presentations from Facebook who are attempting to deal with this huge issue, introduce controls and mechanisms to help people report incidents and inappropriate behaviour.

On one side I’m watching all of the downside – the social media concern, the “control” activity but what about the huge upside?

Social media is now a really valuable life skill that we all should learn – most of our clients would grab job applicants who are social media savvy. Is there a dilemma?

Teaching Social MediaTeach not Preach!

From my considerable exposure to this huge Cyberbullying issue my conclusion is that we need to embrace the social media tools from a sensible, early age and we should encourage the positive use of these platforms in schools (probably the best place to ensure this happens).

How about:
– students publishing their essays on their own personal blogs
– classes that show the children how to set up their social media accounts including their privacy settings
– setting up Facebook groups for use by each of the classes
– setting up Twitter accounts for the Economics, History, Science and Geography classes and following and interacting with other relevant accounts to facilitate learning and staying up to date with current issues

At the same time I do feel that the social media providers must self regulate, put in the controls and aids, be proactive around privacy settings and act sensibly – however, the main solution is in the users hands.

While I know it won’t be easy, while I know it will require a lot of training, I know social media is a valuable skill, which will be critical to every young person in the future.

Why not concentrate on teaching and forget the preaching?

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion.

Fuzion provide social media consultancy and training services from the offices in Dublin and Cork.

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Posted in Bullying, Parenting, Personal development, Self Help, Staff training | 6 Comments »

Life is good!

January 22, 2013

Dee and Greg at OcktoberfestLife is good …

In general I really love life, I have a great time, I love what I do and I am quite happy. I guess I have a positive outlook and I approach most things with a “lets do it” attitude and a smile on my face.

I have a great partner, two great kids, a great family and while I am not breaking any records I am able to do most of the things that I really want to.

I work with a great bunch of people and really enjoy what I do and while it does come with a lot of long hours and a considerable amount of stress and pressure I wouldn’t swap it for anything else.

Ellen & Greg - GuitarI’ve been quite lucky in my life and I haven’t been dealt with any huge blows and I thank my lucky stars for this – I know my time will come when I will have to deal with some big issues.

I hope when that happens I am robust enough to cope and that my sunny outlook carries me through. Who knows?

While I am in a good place, I know this isn’t the case with many people who are struggling with life’s pressures – in some extreme cases the struggle is just too much to cope with and a tragic decision to end their lives is made. These stories seem to be getting closer and closer to everyone’s door.

At Fuzion we decided to play our part and are privileged to be able to work with the very driven Jim Breen (PulseLearning) and the great team behind the new initiative Cycle Against Suicide.

By raising awareness we will hopefully help people in their darkest moments to know there is a much better option – and, help is a phone call away.

Shoulder to shoulder, working together we can break the cycle

Greg Canty is a partner in Fuzion

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Posted in Personal development | 8 Comments »

Lance, Flawed hero and the Power of “Sorry”

January 20, 2013

Lance Armstrong“I’m sorry for what I have done” said Lance as he glanced across at Oprah with those steely eyes.

It was the most fascinating interview and you may not have have liked what was he was saying but he did come across as being honest..even to the point of admitting that he was and probably still is a “jerk“.

It’s hard to know how to feel about the whole episode – I had a big discussion with my son Brendan, about the whole thing.

He totally disagrees with me!

I’ve got a simple view of Lance Armstrong ..

The Sportsman

I reckon anyone who is at the very top of their game must be extremely driven and obsessive about what they do ..it could be soccer (Roy Keane, a typical example), ballet, politics, writing, anything. If you are not obsessive you just won’t be at the very top.

Lance Armstrong who admitted he operated a  “Win at all Costs” mentality rose to the pinnacle of a sport that has been riddled with drugs and illegal practices for as long as I can remember.

Did the authorities that run professional cycling allow an environment and culture that made these illegal practices possible?

My simple question here is – did Lance practice harder and do drugs better and more effectively than all of the other cyclists? 

The Cancer Survivor

Lance Armstrong - Cancer SurvivorHe beat the odds against cancer and once again he became a winner.

He even managed to commercialise his story and the cancer journey by capturing it in books that inspired people all over the world with his “don’t give up, win” mentality.

More than once I have heard people quote his book as helping them through tough and very dark times (just last week, Chris Donoghue, Newstalk presenter)

The Charity

Livestrong FoundationUsing the power of his iconic status he formed the Livestrong Foundation charity raising money for cancer research and once again inspiring sick people the world over with his drive and inspiration.

The Cheat, the Liar and the Betrayal

We all know at this stage how much he cheated (it’s not right, but were they all at it?) and we know what a great and convincing liar (over and over he did this) he is.

The very worst of all was how he betrayed close friends, colleagues and team mates and in many cases tried to destroy them professionally and personally to protect the huge Lance Armstrong brand that he had built. He even went as far as suing people who were telling the truth just to protect himself.

This part is truly unforgivable and despicable – I really don’t know how anyone could do this.

Maybe the brand was so big and invincible that no one could handle it? Could he handle it?

Lance Armstrong is an incredibly driven individual who scaled huge heights, achieved incredible feats and managed to do a lot of good but he is incredibly flawed and is guilty of doing some terrible things.

The Power of Sorry

Lance Armstrong & Oprah

I’m Sorry …

The great thing about having a public profile (the Sean Quinn interview with Vincent Browne comes to mind) is that you will always have an audience for “sorry” – in Lance’s case he was able to have the largest possible audience with Oprah.

He said “sorry” and it gave him an opportunity to connect with a huge audience. I watched it and I did empathise with him.

Not everyone will forgive him but many will …some other viewers might just soften their attitude towards him a little.

There is huge power in the word “sorry” – always use it..

Lance Armstrong, the flawed hero – have we seen the last of him? I doubt it!

Sorry!

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

Fuzion with offer Crisis PR services for clients from our offices in Dublin and Cork.

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Posted in Charities, Crisis PR, Motivation, Personal development, PR | 4 Comments »

Exceptional Choices

January 13, 2013

Bridge in BallincolligAs usual we headed off for our early Sunday morning walk with the four legged one.

Just around the corner from our house we passed a hard working volunteer from the Ballincollig Tidy Town Committee who was busy, head down engrossed in the job of picking up bits of rubbish from the side of the road.

This always amazes me …this man and all the other dedicated volunteers get up on a Sunday morning and they pick up rubbish that other people have left behind.

“Well done” I say to him, just to acknowledge that I think what he is doing is great.

I can’t get my head around the exceptionally great and selfless choice that these people make every Sunday.

CouchWe continue our walk and take a route that runs alongside the river.

Just as we are walking over a gorgeous old bridge I notice an old couch that someone has just thrown over the wall. On closer inspection I notice that an old TV is on the ground next to the couch!

Can you get your head around how anyone could make such an exceptionally selfish and awful choice to just dump something in such a gorgeous spot, how someone could dump their stuff anywhere. How could they?

Why is it that the exceptional choices by great people are needed just to deal with the exceptionally bad choices of others.

Imagine how special our world would be if all exceptional choices were great ones..

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

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Posted in Motivation, Personal development, Tourism | 2 Comments »

Bill and the New Year’s Resolution

December 31, 2012

sunriseBill is married to my cousin Theresa and they live in New Jersey with their three children.

In truth I don’t really know them that well as they live in the United States, but my cousin is a really good and kind person – she has always been that way, ever since we were young, when we did actually see more of each other. At most I’ve met Bill about three or four times.

I’ve spent a lot of time over the last few weeks thinking about my plans for the new year and some of the targets or goals that I will set for myself. I believe it’s really important to have a clear focus.

I use a little visualisation trick, which helps me along the process and crystallises some of my ideas that in some ways become my New Year’s Resolutions.

My visualisation trick is to write a diary post for the end of the next year “I had a Great year because …..” .

I simply list out all of the things that will make the next year a great one and during the year I will keep checking back on my list to see how I am progressing.

I don’t have this task completed yet but as I mentioned already, I’ve been thinking about it for a few weeks – as usual its going to be a list full of ambitious work “stuff”, which seems to be my total preoccupation these days.

Let’s face it –  you dare not take your eye off your work priorities for one single minute.

Bill passed away this morning after a long battle with cancer. Theresa and their three children were by his side.

I need to rethink some of the things on my list ….

Bill – Rest in Peace

Greg 

Posted in Family, Motivation, Personal development, Positivity | 15 Comments »

I had a Great 2013 because ….

December 18, 2012
Diary entry

I has a Great 2013 because ….

Well – how did you do?

Did you achieve what you set out to achieve in 2012?

Did you make ambitious plans and fall short of them or did you make any plans at all? – If you did, well done!

I don’t know about you but making plans and actually achieving them is always challenging and at the start of the year I find myself at the start of that loop all over again making promises than often will never materialise!

A few years ago I wanted it to be a little bit different and I had my own creative and quite practical idea, which was inspired by a book I read called “The Art of Possibility” by Benjamin and Rosamund Zander (a really interesting motivational book by the conductor of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra and his wife who is an executive coach).

This idea is rooted in the power of visualisation – the principle behind this is that if you visualise what you want to achieve then there is a much better chance of it actually happening (unbelievers ….stop reading now !!)

Here goes ..

Take a pen and paper and simply write your diary entry in advance for your last working day of the year to come..

Imagine just before you switch off the lights in the office, before you head out the door to do some last minute shopping and enjoy a well-earned rest, you quietly write your diary entry.

It might go like this..

23rd December, 2013

Wow, that was some exciting and really fulfilling year!

It was a great year because I really achieved what I set out to both personally and professionally and even more besides because of those opportunities that cropped up that I wasn’t even expecting. At least I had my eyes open and when they occurred I spotted them and grabbed them.

I started the year with a few really clear goals including (go for it, be specific – list at least 5!)

I thought these goals were going to be really challenging, but I achieved these as I made a few important changes in my life that were necessary such as (be honest – what needs to happen for you to achieve those goals – your conditions for success).

It wasn’t all plain sailing and I had a few setbacks but I kept a clear focus on my goals, I kept a positive outlook and by digging deep and having a clear belief in myself and my abilities I managed to achieve them all in the end.

I’m glad I kept a positive outlook and kept my eyes open for those genuinely unique opportunities, which I know will only present themselves in this challenging economic climate – it made a huge difference to my business this year, which I wasn’t expecting.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year,  2013 – Bring it On!

Your signature (make sure you do this)

Put this in an envelope, place it in your top drawer and have a peep at it on the first day of every month (set a reminder in your computer to do this) and see what happens.

We did this with our full team at the end of 2010 and 2011 and I can tell you it worked out quite well, thank you very much!

We will do it again this time round – I’ll let you know how we got on in about 12 months’ time.

By the way I’ve just spent a year driving a really nice new car – guess what was on my list at the start of 2011!

…what are you waiting for?

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

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Posted in Ireland, Motivation, Personal development, Teamwork | 2 Comments »

Are you having meetings about meetings?

November 12, 2012
Meetings about Meetings

Another meeting ….

I remember sitting in a senior managers meeting getting all stressed out worrying about sales performance – the trend, annualised was worth a fortune to the company but I seemed to be the only one at the meeting getting all worked up!

Why was no one else getting as bothered as I was? They all seemed to be focused on some other issue that just didn’t seem as important to me. Let’s arrange a meeting to discuss this before our next meeting .. Oh my God!

This was Guinness, this was big business and it was management at the very highest level where the stakes were huge – what was I missing?

I had joined from a subsidiary company of Guinness in Cork called Deasy’s – we manufactured our own (quite profitable) soft drinks and distributed beer and soft drinks from the major manufacturers including Guinness. I had moved from the role of Financial Controller to General Manager, I had a lot of autonomy and now I found myself working in St.James Gate for Guinness as part of a large team.

My practical, work hard, do the (what I thought was) right thing, straight forward, no nonsense approach just didn’t seem to be cutting it at this level – in truth, I was struggling and getting very frustrated. I was starting to learn about the concept of meetings about meetings about meetings for the first time and it was driving me bonkers!!

The other thing I started to learn about was life in a large organisation and corporate “politics” and how these high stake personal power games were played out – as I said I was struggling with my very limited tool kit. At this stage in my career I needed to learn other skills to survive and thrive.

One of my big questions was how could these huge organisations succeed with such high stakes where potentially destructive personal politics could dominate and interfere with good constructive, positive work on an ongoing basis?

After three years of working with Guinness I figured out that “Success” happens in big organisations when “agendas” align.

A Senior Manager has a list of items that if he or she achieves them they will make them look good and advance their “personal” journey in the organisation. The Business has a list of items that are a priority and if these are achieved it will be successful. When the managers list and the business list align you get magic and progress is made – often this may not happen enough!

For a long time I thought that a corporate career was for me – I discovered I was wrong! Guinness was a great place to work, I made great friends in my time there, I learnt a huge amount but ultimately meetings about meetings was not for me ..

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

Fuzion are a Marketing and PR firm with offices in Dublin and Cork

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Posted in Motivation, Personal development, Teamwork | 11 Comments »

Chasing “Your” Dreams

November 11, 2012
Chasing Dreams

Chase “your” dreams

A few months ago I found myself having a coffee in town on a Saturday morning chatting with an old school buddy who I hadn’t see in thirty years. We had connected on LinkedIn and it was as if those thirty years had disappeared in a flash.

I always thought he was “sound”, one of the good guys and in truth not a whole pile had changed – both of us had done a lot of living in between but we were essentially the same two school mates – we had a good laugh recalling stories about our teachers and football matches we had played in. I had a photo of our “winning” team in some school tournament and there we were the two of us in our red kit!

Both of us have done well in our varied careers and he was in the early stages of a new online project – by the end of the conversation he asked if I wanted to come on board with the project utilising our expertise on some type of a shareholding arrangement. In a few years the plan was to sell the business and we would all make good money. Hmmm ….sounded good.

After this me met a few times and got down to business and delved into the nitty gritty of his project and our involvement in it.

While his project was really interesting to my surprise I found myself not being as enthusiastic as he was about it. Why was this I was asking myself?

Like every great “driver” he was pushing me for our plans and input. I did this of course but I discovered his project wasn’t my No.1 priority. My clients and our own projects motivate me and this project just wasn’t having the impact that I was expecting.

It wasn’t a client and it wasn’t “my” project.

My buddy needs more than 1,000% from me and everyone else involved in the project for it to be a success. I realise this more than anyone.

Before we damaged our friendship we gracefully concluded our arrangement and that was cool with both of us. We’ll meet again for coffee soon – probably in about another 30 years!

It’s important that we spend our time chasing our own dreams.

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

Fuzion are a Marketing and PR firm with offices in Dublin and Cork

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Posted in Business Start Ups, Motivation, Personal development | 11 Comments »

Could you wish for any more for your kids?

November 7, 2012

I just spotted this post on my son’s Facebook page – could you wish for any more?

Brendan Canty - Feel Good Lost

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

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Posted in Parenting, Personal development | Leave a Comment »

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