Your time to sign up for the Varsity Speaking Academy, that is. In just over 4 weeks you can join with Dan Weedin, Shannon Evans and me to learn the presentation skills that will have a positive impact on your professional success. This one and a half day seminar will be held at the beautiful Clearwater Casino and Resort Hotel, overlooking Agate Pass on Washington's Puget Sound. Among the topics to be covered are:

• Secrets to writing powerful presentations

• 7 strategies to connect with every single audience

• How to effectively use your personal stories to carry your message

• Ways to overcome anxiety and fear

• How to use PowerPoint so you it will enhance your message, not put your audience to sleep

• How to be asked back to speak over and over and earn more money in your career

• What it takes to write to be read

• How to write to generate more clients

• How to establish a powerful presence on the internet

• Effective methods of keeping track of what your customers are saying about you

• A surprising, yet effective marketing technique

You can learn all that - and more - by attending the Varsity Speaking Academy on October 6th and 7th, 2008. You can get more information and register at the Varsity Speaking Academy web page.

Hope to see you there!

I thought you might like to know that we've begun a rather extensive redesign of dougpetch.com. Over the coming days and weeks you'll be seeing some improvements around here; improvements intended to provide a more enjoyable, user-friendly experience. Among the planned changes -

• An updated design. I like the current look of the site, but I don't love it. So we're going to refresh the overall look and feel to provide a more pleasant visual experience.
• Easier navigation. Our new menu system will make it easier to find the information you're looking for.
• Improved browser compatibility. It's no secret that making a site "look right" in every possible browser is a difficult task. It's also no secret that we've been struggling with that issue for quite some time. One of the goals of this redesign is to eliminate - or at least minimize - those issues so that the site looks the same no matter what browser you use.
• A new store. The e-commerce solution we've been using up to this point has never really worked properly. Our new store will be easier to navigate, provide easier purchasing capabilities and - most importantly - provide improved security for your personal data.

There's more, but those are the highlights of what we have in store for you. So look for these changes and more as we work to make dougpetch.com your one-stop-shop for Teambuilding, Leadership and Communication skills training and information.

I hope you'll indulge me this morning as I share an outstanding opportunity with you. First, though, I'd like you to consider for a moment who might be on your list of the 5 greatest leaders of all time. Next, consider the characteristics they all share. I'm willing to bet that "excellent communicator" is somewhere on that list. You see, while it's true that not all excellent communicators are great leaders, the greatest leaders are all excellent communicators. So it only stands to reason that if you want to excel as a leader it's important that you work on your communications skills.

I bring this up in order to introduce you to workshop designed to do just that - improve your communications skills. My friend Dan Weedin is presenting a Varsity Speaking Academy in the Seattle, Washington area on October 6th and 7th, and author Shannon Evans and I will be joining him as guest presenters. During this day and a half workshop you'll learn  strategies you can implement right away that will transform your presentation skills forever:

• Learn the secrets to writing powerful presentations
• Walk away with 7 strategies to connect with every single audience
• Learn how to deliver a presentation that will engage every audience member
• Learn how to effectively use personal stories to carry your message
• Uncover your natural humor and incorporate it in your presentations
• Develop ways to overcome anxiety and fear
• Develop easy to use practice skills that will keep you constantly sharp
• Learn how to use PowerPoint to enhance your message
• Discover how to be asked back to speak over and over

In addition to all of that great information, bonus sessions will cover:

• What it takes to write to be read
• How to write to generate more clients
• The secrets to establishing a powerful presence on the internet
• How to use the internet to stay informed, in touch and in control

This workshop is guaranteed to be both informative and transformative, but spaces are limited. So head on over to Dan's site to learn more about the Varsity Speaking Academy and to register for the event. Be among the first to register and you will qualify for a discounted investment and receive a free bonus.

Developing a high performance team is all about building and managing relationships. One of the most overlooked relationship in that context is the relationship between the team leader, the team member and the team member's family. While it is admittedly difficult to walk the fine line between taking an appropriate interest in your team members' family life and putting your nose where it doesn't really belong, your ability to effectively walk that line can go a long way towards building your high performance team.

There are a number of simple ways to demonstrate that you value the importance of your team members' families. Among them are these:

• Be aware of the basics - names of spouses and children, ages and activities of children, etc.
• Send cards on appropriate occasions (birthdays, anniversaries, etc)
• Let the spouse know when the team member is recognized for an achievement at work. Better yet, if there's going to be a presentation at work, invite the family.
• Minimize - or at least minimize the impact of - unplanned events that can wreak havoc on a team members family life
• Plan events that include family members during work hours. It doesn't have to be elaborate or expensive; you could do something as simple as inviting families to come in for pizza during lunch.

A word of caution, though; don't forget your single team members. Concentrating too much time and effort on the needs of your married team members can serve to alienate those who, by choice or circumstance, are unattached. They likely also have family relationships that should be taken into account, and a leader who truly cares about this aspect of team building will take the time to discover the important relationships in the lives of these team members.

Chris Brogan and others are giving thought to working remotely, and that got me thinking about a closely related topic - business phone services. You see, I've effectively abandoned my hard-wire phone. Not everyone has, of course, and businesses in particular are pretty much forced to maintain their traditional phone service in order to have a single phone point of entry into their operations. It doesn't matter whether it's a PBX system, VOIP/IP Telephoney, or KSU-based; the common thread is that current business phone systems are physically tied to a specific location.

But why does it have to be that way? Why isn't there a wireless phone plan that provides a central call-in number that permits customers to reach anyone with a phone associated with the plan by dialing an extension? It should work in the same way that current business phone systems work but include only three options - dial an extension if you know who you want to talk with, select the department you would like to be connected with or stay on the line for assistance from a real, live human being. Any contact beyond that point should be with a person (or their voicemail). An added bonus would be to include a fax-to-computer phone number in the plan and do away with any real reason to have a hard-wired phone.

That's the business phone system I'd like to see. It may already exist, but I've not heard of it if it does. And if it doesn't, it should.

How hard could it be?

One of the most painful customer service experiences I've had lately came my way thanks to the Dell online ordering system. But one of the most pleasant customer service experiences I've had lately came may way thanks to one of Dell's customer service representatives.

The thing is, I should have never had to talk to the representative in the first place. I did, though, because Dell's online ordering system managed to lose two orders. It didn't matter that I had Purchase ID numbers; the orders did not exist. I'm not exactly sure how you design an order processing system that can spit out order numbers while simultaneously losing the actual orders, but it's obviously doable.

To Dell's credit, the luck of the draw put me in contact with a friendly, understanding and helpful customer service rep. Andrea went out of her way to make what had started out as a painful experience as simple and pleasant as possible. But while I was extremely impressed by the service Andrea provided I'm still disappointed with the overall experience with what should have been a routine online transaction.

So consider this as a cautionary tale. The moral of the story: No amount of extraordinary customer service will fully salvage your reputation if your customer's initial experience does not meet their expectations.

UPDATE: Looks like it's not just me...

Email one comes in saying, your order is verified, life is good, let's rock -n- roll.

Email two comes in time stamped AFTER email one, 10 minutes or so later saying, just want to let you know we're thinking about this and we'll send you another email shortly verifying/confirming, etc, etc.

Hmmm.. This don't look good for moose and squirrel....

My presentation this past Saturday at Podcamp Ohio was my first go at leading a session in an unconference format. If you're unfamiliar with the term "unconference", here's the wikipedia definition -

An unconference is a facilitated, face-to-face, and participant-driven conference centered around a theme or purpose.

As you can see, rather than serving as an "instructor" or "presenter," my role in an unconference is to be a facilitator. The idea is that "we" are smarter than "me" - that the aggregate knowledge of the group will provide far more value than the knowledge of an individual - in this case, me.
I tried hard to honor that concept, but taking a presentation developed using a traditional seminar model and turning it into a facilitated conversation was more difficult than I expected. It generally went well, but I walked away with a few lessons learned:

Have a Roadmap - While the intent is for the discussion leader to facilitate a conversation, the participants will get the most out of your session if you have a basic plan of what general themes or ideas are important to the topic at hand. That's not to say that you have to adhere slavishly to your plan (after all, sometimes you get the most out of unplanned side trips), but you should have one.

Listen More Than You Talk - Aside from your opening and closing remarks, the participants should do most of the talking. This may feel unnatural if you normally operate in the seminar/instructor mode but it's the heart of what an unconference is meant to be.

Turn The Projector Off - How can you prepare effective slides if you don't know what the participants are going to talk about? If you feel naked without a slide show, at least limit it to a few (emphasis on 'few' - no more than 2-3) introductory slides to establish your credentials and the session topic.

Pick Up A Marker - Use a whiteboard or flip chart to record the key points of your session. Ask someone to be a scribe if you're not good at simultaneously leading a discussion and writing.

The Participants are the Experts - Even if they're not. In  an unconference everyone's ideas and opinions are welcome. Your job as facilitator is to lead the participants in discussing the validity of those ideas and opinions.

In my presentation Saturday I'd say I batted about 50% at honoring those points; the hardest for me as a traditional speaker being the "listen more than you talk" precept. I enjoyed the experience, though, and have become a believer in the effectiveness of the unconference format. And, since practice makes perfect, I'll be looking for more opportunities to facilitate unconference sessions.

I'll be spending most of today putting the finishing touches on the presentation I'll be giving tomorrow afternoon at Podcamp Ohio.  According to the most current draft of the day's schedule I'll take the stage at 4:00 PM to present "Dude, Your Podcast Sucks: Six Steps to a More Powerful Podcast." The focus of my discussion will be on how to use some of the tips, tricks and techniques of professional speakers in order to produce effective and entertaining podcasts. It should be a good time, especially since I'm trying out a new opening that, assuming it works as planned, should be a lot of fun for everyone.

Since I live about 4 hours from Columbus, and the event begins at 9:30 AM, I'm in for a very long day. But there are sessions I want to attend and plenty of people I want to meet so I'll be hitting the road before 5AM in order to not miss a beat. I've been following the planning of this one through both the Podcamp Ohio site and the Podcamp Ohio Twitter feed and it's certainly shaping up to be an excellent event. They've got everything covered - from schwag to eats to providing space to escape the insanity if you find the need. I definitely appreciate the work the organizers have put in up to this point and will be surprised if the event isn't a rousing success.

Of all the methods you can use to help you achieve your goals, one of the most effective is to form an accountability partnership. Just as the name implies, in an accountability partnership you and a partner hold each other accountable for staying on task to complete specific tasks. Beyond that basic requirement, there are very few limits on how you form your partnership and with who. For example, although I've been involved for the past year in an accountability partnership with Dan Weedin, we have yet to meet each other face-to-face. Regardless, I've found our weekly discussions to be extremely important in keeping me focused on achieving my goals (and I'm confident that Dan feels the same).

While that lack of limitations makes it very easy to form an accountability partnership, there are some steps you can take to make your partnership as effective as possible. Beyond joining forces with someone who you believe will be a good 'fit' as a disciplined and supportive partner, here are five tips for forming an effective accountability partnership:

1. Set a specific day of the week and time of day to talk. This will make it easier to develop the habit of talking on a regular basis as well as provide some needed predictability.
2. Use a strictly enforced agenda for your discussions. If either of you needs to discuss something outside the agenda schedule a separate call/meeting. Your accountability calls/meetings are strictly for accountability discussions.
3. Adhere to a 1/2 hour time limit for your calls/meetings. Anything less makes it difficult to accomplish a full accounting while anything more can encourage wandering off-topic.
4. Send 'read-ahead' information to each other whenever possible. If one of your goals for the week was to complete a written document promise to send it to your partner. Not only does that provide an even more tangible deadline, your partner may notice something (spelling/grammar/etc) that you missed.
5. Be brutally honest with each other when it comes to what you have and haven't accomplished - and why. This is the cornerstone principle of using an accountability partnership to its best advantage.

While I consider these 5 tips to be the most important to forming an effective and productive accountability partnership there are no doubt others that warrant consideration. If you have any tips that you think are equally important I'd love to hear about them in the comments.

I'm trying a different weblog api (since MarsEdit doesn't explicitly support Drupal) so, of course, this means you get to read a test post. The high point of your day, no doubt.