Open vs closed questioning

One of the skills that I took away with me from my two days of sequential training (it's a CIPD term for a training away day, I don't know why they call them that) was a concious appreciation of open, closed and probing questions. It's not something I think about at all in day to day conversation - fortunately almost all the people I encounter are easy enough to talk to and if they're not, I can make my excuses and take my conversation elsewhere!

But listening this evening to Jeremy Paxman and Jonathan Ross interviewing politicians and celebrities respectively this evening on the television (well, the iPlayer anyway), it made me think about how you can steer conversation the way you would like it to go by framing your questions carefully and having follow up questions primed to ensure that the answers you get are either informative or entertaining, depending on what you're aiming to achieve.

I suppose I'm lucky in never having had to really think much about how to control conversation other than to be aware of when I'm talking too much, when I've interrupted and when I've repeated something I've told someone already - I hope I'm sensitive enough to realise when I should speak, and when I should listen (even if I don't always do as I should ;-) ).

Happy Halloween

This is the best spoof of the Conservatives since Dave the Chameleon - as one commenter over on Tom Harris' blog suggests, is Tony Blair the bat on the wall and Gordon the floor of the cave?

Update: Of course, the Prime Minister doesn't need any photoshopping to look creepy.

Update: Red Rag's repost:

For your viewing pleasure: pictures of the NMM/ONRC/Park in autumn colours...

Do your bit to mock the foolish...

http://www.slapnickgriffin.co.uk/

Goodbye summer time, greetings GMT

My body clock's all over the place today - it feels late when really it isn't! All of my gadgets seemed to have set themselves to go back one hour, apart from my phone which meant a nice early start for me this morning!

It's played havoc with international (telephone) interview timings too - because Europe, America and Australasia all pick slightly different times to adjust their daylight saving, it's created a couple of inconvenient surprises (and headaches!) at work.

It also means (because my commute is shorter than most) that I'm now joined up to the "go to work, dark; come home from work, dark" club. :-(

On the bright side, I'll be looking forward to crisp frosty mornings, bonfire night and perhaps even a little seasonal goodwill. Speaking of which, delivery for November's inTouch begins soon!

Financial ratios

Mmmmmmmmm! Sounds good doesn't it? This evening was spent partly getting to grips with various profitability, liquidity and investment ratios, partly forgetting what I was talking about half way through a presentation. Repetition, big wavy arm gestures and a moderate amount of verbal incontinence do not great speechmaking make. Still, at least it's out of the way now!

Turns out that accountants have ratios to measure all sorts of things about a business - from how good they are in days at paying debtors and receiving from creditors, to whether a company's swimming up to its eyballs in debt, or shifting stock faster than my brother shifts beer. All this information can be used to compare performance with other companies.

My dad tells me that in a small business he prefers to use common sense to work out if things are going right - a quick look at your balance sheet and P&L is enough to give you a feel for if life is good, or if you're in a bad place. (Couldn't resist)

(Un)ethical retailers

After my comments touching on working conditions in places less affluent than ours, I've just happened upon this article in the Times. Not so surprised by big American companies like Levis and Walmart, and perhaps not even so surprised that brands like Primark who might be more susceptible to negative publicity.. but I am surprised that John Lewis* and Sainsbury's, bastions of the middle class, don't appear to be taking supply working conditions seriously. Perhaps that says more about how the average consumer's (and the media's, and my) prejudices sit firmly with low cost brands, at the expense of looking at every brand.

* Waitrose is reputedly very up on offering "fair" prices to their food suppliers, which again leads me to think that "corporate responsibility" is almost entirely a device to boost sales. Of course, I'm not so naive to think that this couldn't be a primary motive, or that all companies operate the same way, or self righteous enough to say that it's a bad thing, but it does demonstrate quite neatly that if consumers don't care where the goods come from, the supplier almost certainly won't!