Homebrew Computers

A novice level talk about assembling your own Windows PC at home, from the guy who’s done it about ten times. A mix of formal talk and lots of audience participation. What’s the right motherboard for you? Processor, RAM, fans, disks, and a PSU which can cope? How to do it right and how to do it wrong, and how he tried and failed to build a homebrew laptop!

Paul is still learning, building powerful gaming PCs (with expensive, delicate components) and making sensible, purposeful, workstations for business (using lower spec components). Generally, he can do that for half the cost of buying a new PC off the shelf.

There’s a strategy, there’s a process, and there’s documentation! And once you get the first one working, you’ll never want to buy another retail PC, ever! Why? What's the crowning glory?

The Universal Problem Solving Technique

Where’s the documentation? How did we do it last time? Are we there yet? Why are we having this meeting? What do you get when you combine René Descartes, Albert Einstein, Peter Drucker, Stephen Covey, Edward de Bono, Peter Checkland and a few dozen other luminaries? This is a whistle stop tour of problem solving for people who actually want to solve problems. As Thomas Edison said: “hell, there are no rules here, we're trying to accomplish something”.

Winnie the Pooh and the pint of Guinness

Improve your memory and your presentation skills.

Simple systems are the best said Einstein, and simple memory techniques are the most effective says Proactive Paul, author of “The Spiral Mindmap”.

This talk explores the value of story telling, visualisation, and Paul’s original and unique perspective on mind mapping. Have you heard the story of Winnie the Pooh and the pint of Guinness? Mr G on the train? Fred and Barney, and the SkyLiner?

Improve your presentation skills. No scripts, no notes, no auto cue. And no embarrassing gaps nor mistakes. Memory skills make all the difference. How’s it done?

A 5 Step Guide To Selling Your Tech Business

Growing a business and selling a business requires careful planning and a substantial amount of documentation. You can cut corners and get a lesser value, though the better the plan, and the better it’s executed, and the better it’s documented, then the better the price your buyer will pay.

This talk leads the business owner through strategy, opportunities, planning and exit. What are these docs? Operations Manual, Management Accounts, Opportunity Map, Heads of Agreement? What exactly does your buyer want? It’s a lot more than you might think.

Oh, and chocolate mousse. There's a bit about chocolate mousse!

Find out how to satisfy the buyer's needs and you can find your path to success.

Sustainability? No! Seriously? WTF!

What is it? Where did it come from? Why?

Sustainability is a word we all hear a lot, but what does it actually mean? This talk is both serious and humorous, unorthodox and enlightening, and it has a fair bit of audience participation. It brings together economics, business, legislation, history and science. Paul takes you on a “join the dots” tour of many disparate, argumentative and crucial discussions across a variety of stakeholders.

It’s a fascinating whirlwind tour of how we came to be where we are now, and it’s bizarre. You couldn’t make this stuff up, even if you tried!

You will take away your own personal action plan. Not how to be more “sustainability” oriented, but how to handle the awkward questions on the journey. How to counter the doubters, and how to do that diplomatically, whilst advocating a broader understanding of the subject.

Less about disparate, argumentative bluster, and more about encouragement, sympathy and the power of persuasion. Is that something you’d be interested in?

.

This talk is intended for a lecture theatre and requires the audience to be near enough to the speaker to permit at least some two way discussion. Paul is accustomed to large and small venues, and can modify the content as long as a minimum of the one or two rows of delegates can engage in dialogue.

Normally, the talk runs for anything between 15 and 30 minutes. A longer version is possible in a workshop style setting where (after the formal talk) the delegates can all interact with the speaker, and can all have enough space to use pen and paper. That leads to a lively Q&A. The talk + workshop version is ideally suited to a 60 min slot.