WELCOME TO OUR NEW OSW CERTIFIED TRAINERS

We are delighted to welcome Meghan Barnett from RIM, Michael Ferrabee of the Canada School of Public Service, Arlene Herman consultant , Joan Giannone – President of the Mentor Group Training Inc, Nick Kenyeres – President, The Technology Coach Inc and Lisa Wiley from Georgian College – as newly certified OSW trainers. They were joined by Jay Lundy, President Spark Innovation (aka Vitamin J) Jennifer Shram – George Brown College, Jen Holden – The Holden Group, Mandy St Germaine and Lisa Wiele from the OneSmartWorld team at the Boulevard Club.

FINDING YOUR NICK

One of the things I have learned after almost 40 years in business is how to shut up and listen to what others have to offer. These days we are inundated by the tyranny of the loud – loud people dominating conversations and telling everyone around what they believe, think and feel. By taking up most the the airtime and relentlessly focusing on themselves, a lot of smart people go unnoticed and their intelligence untapped. My new friend Nick Kenyeres is a quiet green guy who has a remarkable wealth of knowledge on all things technological. He continually comes up with cool solutions to our complex ( to me that is) technology problems. The Nicks are out there and all around us. But in this current climate of the loud – all that proclaiming and pronouncing - we lose out and we never even know what we missed. So – the more we listen and the more we turn the conversation to the other by asking a few good open ended questions and then really listen instead of re-loading and interrupting, the more we can learn from and gain from the Nicks. The Nicks are out there – ready to contribute and make a positive difference. I am lucky to find my Nick. Thank you Nick! I hope you can find yours to and be the nick to someone else.

THE GO TO MARKET CONSULTATION WITH GEORGE BROWN COLLEGE CONSULTING TEAM AND OSW AFFILIATES

We are currently engaged in a Go To Market project with a wonderful team of four George Brown College business and marketing students, Scott Carruthers, Michael Fiorino, Jeffrey Ribeiro and Jennifer Schram under the tutelage of my Nick – Nick  Kenyeres –(he is everywhere!). On Friday, March 4, we had an interim report to help us make strategic decisions on our business design. We ran a smart meeting with the student team and were joined by three of our OSW affiliates Joan Giannone, Jen Holden, Jay Lundy and our OSW home team of Ron Percy, Mandy St Germaine, Lisa Wiele and Bob Wiele. The goal was to help us tap into their brain power to re-design our business model and to work out a global go-to-market strategy. The George Brown College consulting team did a terrific job of laying out what they learned from speaking with our clients – work on sustainability and improve member support – and presented 14 factors to base the decision-making on the business design as well as 5 types of models to choose from.