First impressions, reliable or not?
This joke that I received recently might amuse you:
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.
That happens! In some cases, you might have preferred to retain the first impression and wish that they had never spoken!
But sometimes, this “don’t judge a book by its cover” effect can work in the opposite direction; as a result, I nearly missed out on enjoying a passionate presentation.
Recently, I was watching some videos of presentations at an event in which you might or might not be interested, but is relevant to other work that I do. It was the keynote presentations at Nokia World ’09. In the list of presentations I found, most looked quite interesting, but one looked decidedly uninteresting; consequently I nearly skipped it! It was titled “Cash goes mobile” and was about the use of mobile phones for financial transactions. While this is a major area, it did not excite my interest very much. Nevertheless, I decided to watch it anyway! And I am glad that I did.
As I watched the presenter walk onto the stage, my low level of initial interest was confirmed and even lowered further! My impression was of a person who was unlikely to be interesting, and I very nearly stopped watching.
But then she spoke!
Immediately, I detected her passion about what she had to say. As it happens the content was initially boring and she seemed to acknowledge that in describing that she was retired, she had worked in financial services and she was a technologist. Not an exciting start!
But her passion kept me watching intently for the rest of the presentation.
The characteristic of someone with this passion is the strength of their faith in clearly visualising a better future. Other people have described these people as having the ability to distort reality. At one point, in a phrase which is somewhat out of character at such a business event, she encapsulates that in saying:
This would be such a breakthrough!
Now I apologise that this topic is all rather business orientated, and if you’d like to watch it then it might help to know that she is addressing Nokia’s partners who distribute and sell products and services. But, if you are still interested you can follow the link above or view it directly here.
People who are passionate about business and the contribution that their business can make are too rare … but they almost always succeed!
By John Lewis
Learning from Dogs 