Reference files to accompany An Introduction to the Art of Presales
References by section
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PART 1: INTRODUCTION
Presales in B2B transactions …lynch pins: [Video] Presales consultants are like lynch pins – holding the sales process together. Get inspired by those small, simple and important things in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUwzERG4EMY Core skills and paths into presales …beginning with the end in mind: [Book] The Secret by Rhonda Byrne https://www.thesecret.tv/products/the-secret-book/ [Book] 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey https://www.franklincovey.com/the-7-habits/ [Book] Unapologetically Ambitious by Shellye Archambeau https://shellyearchambeau.com/books What you might be surprised to learn …creativity – a skill to be learned and nourished: [Book with theory and practice] InGenius: A Crash Course on Creativity by Tina Seelig. Check out this and other books by her at http://www.tinaseelig.com/books.html. [Book] Breath for the Bones, Art, Imagination and Spirit: A Reflection of Creativity and Faith, https://www.lucishaw.com/books_featured.html [Book about God and science but also about creativity] God in the lab by Ruth M Bancewicz: https://www.faraday.cam.ac.uk/about/people/dr-ruth-bancewicz/. This blog post by her is a good start of discussion: https://www.faraday.cam.ac.uk/churches/church-resources/posts/what-makes-us-creative/ …time management, productivity and prioritisation: [Method and theory] Pareto’s Law says that you get 80% of your results from 20% of your work: https://www.forbes.com/sites/kevinkruse/2016/03/07/80-20-rule/. If you would like scientific proof and read more about the time vs cost conversation, this scientific paper is worth a peek: “[Nobel prize winner] Gary Becker's a Theory of the Allocation of Time” by Pierre‐André Chiappori and Arthur Lewbel https://academic.oup.com/ej/article/125/583/410/5076992 [Book, infographic and method] 15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management: The Productivity Habits of 7 Billionaires, 13 Olympic Athletes, 29 Straight-A Students, and 239 Entrepreneurs by Kevin Kruse. This and other books at https://www.kevinkruse.com/books/. A summary of the book, with an infographic, is at https://www.forbes.com/sites/kevinkruse/2016/01/20/15-surprising-things-productive-people-do-differently/?sh=28cc9d9e44b2 and is aptly titled Ultra-productive people do these 15 things differently. [Method] 4 Ds Of Effective Time Management, summarised e.g. on Forbes https://www.forbes.com/sites/bryancollinseurope/2018/06/14/effective-time-management/?sh=6f0f5a111938. [Video] Figure out what your high priority tasks are: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3kNlFMXslo&feature=youtu.be [Task management tools] There are countless time & task management tools, but my favourites include Atlassian’s Trello https://trello.com; and the humble sticky note (the paper version stuck on a wall). Time management is more about the process than technology, so focus on the intended outcome first, then the process and then the technical application. [Scheduling tools] Scheduling tools include X.ai https://x.ai, with a bonus that you will get to work with Andrew or Amy, your personal AI robot. Other solutions include Calendly https://calendly.com and Vocus.io https://vocus.io/product/calendar and Calendar https://www.calendar.com. [Outsourced service] Virtual assistants are Virtalent in the UK https://virtalent.com and Virtual Gurus in Canada https://thevirtualgurus.com. [Way of life] Organising your life generally (see happiness later). [Specific productively tools] These will differ from person to person. An application I couldn’t live without is 1Password https://1password.com. It is a password management solution (there are others, of course, to choose from) and has saved me hours of work and a lot of headaches. [Philosophical question] Does productivity increase happiness? Research (and common sense) suggests that living in the moment makes you happy. But does productivity have the same impact? Supporting the salesperson, and the sales process …inspirational autobiographies: [Book] Becoming by Michelle Obama [Book] Between the stops by Sandi Toksvig [Book] Unapologetically Ambitious by Shellye Archambeau https://shellyearchambeau.com/books - yes, it is mentioned twice in the list of references (also in ‘Beginning with the end in mind’) …communication: [Book] Nonviolent communication: A Language of Life by Marshall B. Rosenberg https://www.nonviolentcommunication.com/product/nonviolent-communication-a-language-of-life-3rd-edition/ [Book and method] 5 Love Languages by Dr Gary Chapman is a book that I got as a wedding gift from my mum. If you are not sure you can cope with quite conservative ideas about marriage, or just want the learnings from the book, I would recommend reading a LinkedIn post by Fiona Brennan-Scott https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/whats-love-got-do-fiona-brennan-scott/. It is a short but informative article about how basic human desire (love) dictates the way we prefer to be treated and appreciated, at work. Technical wizard a.k.a. customer’s trusted advisor …personal leadership, trust, and finding your values: [Book/meditative journal] The Art of Presales: Workbook: Your very own curiosity, creativity and happiness journal to explore the amazingness of your career in sales engineering by Dr Tuuli Bell (yes, that’s me) https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B092P6WTX1 [Book, PDF, website, movement] Dare to Lead by Brené Brown. Her research on trust is summarised in a PDF at https://daretolead.brenebrown.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/BRAVING.pdf but if you have time, I would really recommend reading the book, too. [Book, TED talk on YouTube, sales method] Start With Why by Simon Sinek https://simonsinek.com/product/start-with-why/ and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4ZoJKF_VuA&vl=en [Book and prioritisation method] 18 minutes by Peter Bregman https://bregmanpartners.com/books/18-minutes/ [Book and action-packed website] Six months to six figures by Peter Voogd https://peterjvoogd.com [Book] Similar to Six months method, The 12 week year: Get More Done in 12 Weeks than Others Do in 12 Months by Brian Moran talks about prioritisation of time and energy https://12weekyear.com. …learning about IT projects: [Book] The Phoenix Project: A Novel About IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win by Gene Kim, Kevin Behr, and George Spafford https://itrevolution.com/the-phoenix-project/ [Framework and book] Flow Framework: https://flowframework.org/ and the related book https://projecttoproduct.org/ by Dr Mik Kersten [Framework] Closely related to the FlowFramework, the SAFe framework also talks about value streams with some useful diagrams https://www.scaledagileframework.com/value-streams/ [Book] The DevOps handbook by Gene Kim, Jez Humble, Patrick Debois, and John Willis (https://itrevolution.com/the-devops-handbook/), and others by ITRevolution https://itrevolution.com/devops-books/. Qualities of a great presales consultant …change management – making anything happen: [Book] Managing Change: Enquiry and Action by Nic Beech and Robert MacIntosh [Method] Tamsin Napier-Munn (https://www.rawtalksacademy.com/meet-tamsin) taught me the “3-2-1: physical action” way of making anything happen: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=359753041812866 …understanding the impact of gender bias: [Book] Reflections on Gender and Science by Evelyn Fox Keller [Online test] Test Yourself for Hidden Bias: https://www.tolerance.org/professional-development/test-yourself-for-hidden-bias [Book] Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias by Caroline Criado Perez [Book] Why Women Will Save the Planet, edited by Friends of the Earth, Zed Books [Infographic] UN infographic of impact and types of gender discrimination https://www.unwomen.org/en/digital-library/multimedia/2015/12/infographic-human-rights-women [Podcast] Women in Sales podcast http://barbaragiamanco.com/women-in-sales-podcast/ [Community] BCS Women https://bcswomen.bcs.org/ [Community, conference] Slack group, mentorship community, and international conference by WomenTech https://www.womentech.net/women-tech-conference [Framework, infographic] UN Sustainable development goal on gender equality https://sdgs.un.org/goals/goal5 What makes a good presales consultant? …staying healthy (so you can live to do great things): [Book] Gut: the inside story of our body’s most under-rated organ by Giulia Enders (Author), David Shaw (Translator) [Book] WomanCode: Perfect Your Cycle, Amplify Your Fertility, Supercharge Your Sex Drive, and Become a Power Source by Alisa Vitti …developing your thinking: [Book] Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman [Book] Good Thinking: Seven Powerful Ideas That Influence the Way We Think by Denise D. Cummins Self-awareness: do you know yourself? …self-awareness and controlling your emotional reactions [Video] Dr Daniel Siegel presenting a hand model of the brain on Flight, fight, freeze response and how to cope in difficult situations https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gm9CIJ74Oxw [Video] Understanding what is going on in your brain when you find yourself in a difficult situation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVhWwciaqOE (it is made for, and by, children but it is worth watching) [Personality test] Find out your personality in an online test, by answering 10 multiple choice questions. The platform gives you the opportunity to validate your perceived personality with others, too. You will need to register but it only takes a few moments: https://innerworks.me/ [Personality platform] CrystalKnows https://www.crystalknows.com integrates with LinkedIn and the platform’s AI categorises and analyses anyone’s profile (and even gives you personalised selling tips). [Article] Further, decision-making goes hand-in-hand with feeling emotions: https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2019/02/human-decision-making/ [Article] Creating a space between a stimulus (a difficult situation) and your reaction: an article inspired by Viktor Emil Frankl who was an Austrian neurologist, psychiatrist, philosopher, author, and Holocaust survivor: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescoachescouncil/2019/10/02/be-a-better-leader-by-creating-space-between-stimulus-and-response/?sh=5c1017562feb [Book] Interpersonal Networks in Organizations: Cognition, Personality, Dynamics, and Culture by Martin Kilduff and David Krackhardt is a very academic book which talks about the importance of self-awareness as a success factor in life https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/interpersonal-networks-in-organizations/37EAF702397220E72882BD5480D4928C |
PART 2: SALES
A very short introduction to sales …understanding the humankind – a bit of philosophy to help put things into perspective during busy times: [Book] Uncharted by Margaret Hefferman https://www.mheffernan.com. Future research at its best, which will change your thinking about today. [Book] Sapiens: A brief history of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00K7ED54M/ [Book] Adapt and Thrive: The Sustainable Revolution by Peter McManners http://petermcmanners.com. This could belong to the “climate change and sustainability” section due to its content. However, it is a book that will change the way you look at life and appreciate the need for changes within business and society as a whole. Sales methodologies …sales methodologies: [E-book] The State of Sales Methodologies in B2B SaaS by MetaCX & Revenue Collective https://metacx.live.e3cms.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/The-State-of-Sales-Methodologies-MetaCX-Report.pdf [Book] MEDDICC: The ultimate guide to staying one step ahead in the complex sale by Andy Whyte https://meddicc.com/product/meddicc-book/ [Book] The Challenger Sale: How To Take Control of the Customer Conversation by Matthew Dixon, Brent Adamson https://www.hive.co.uk/Product/Matthew-Dixon/The-Challenger-Sale--How-To-Take-Control-of-the-Customer-Conversation/14082778 Sales process …sales process: [Process template] Detailed sales process example for you to download at https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1KS6xmLFXzEb2JSfqrvAZnrI0ZaSyYlg0_aJCfWA1Ccc/edit?usp=sharing Sales from a legal perspective Quote provided by: Donna Sewell, CEO LegalEdge https://www.legaledge.co.uk/our-team/donna-sewell/ …negotiating (some would say that any discussion is a negotiation): [Book by a hostage negotiator] Never Split the Difference: Negotiating as if Your Life Depended on It by Chris Voss and Tahl Raz https://info.blackswanltd.com/never-split-the-difference [Method] "Empty the bucket method", courtesy of an old sales manager of mine. Ask your customer and partner(s) involved in the sale if there's anything else they can think of that might stop the sale from happening or slow it down. Write them down and tick them off one by one. [Book] Effective negotiation: Effective negotiation by Ray Fells and Noa Sheer https://www.cambridge.org/gb/academic/subjects/management/management-general-interest/effective-negotiation-research-results-4th-edition?format=PB. …introduction to finance: [Book] Financial Intelligence, Revised Edition: A Manager's Guide to Knowing What the Numbers Really Mean by Karen Berman and Joe Knight. A great introduction to finance, for any leader in any industry. [Book] Who cooked Adam Smith’s dinner? by Katrine Marçal https://www.katrinemarcal.com highlights the in-equalities of current economic metrics. The sequel, “Mother of Invention: How good ideas get ignored in an economy built for men” is published in June 2021. [Financial metrics for climate change] The next era of circular economy and sustainable development will demand companies to include metrics on sustainability. The related law is being prepared in the UK, and is mainly based on the framework of Financial Stability Board’s (FSB) Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD). See e.g. https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/mandatory-climate-related-financial-disclosures-by-publicly-quoted-companies-large-private-companies-and-llps. [Book, TED Talk, a way of managing cities] Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist by Kate Raworth https://www.kateraworth.com/doughnut/ …finding joy and humour at work and in life: [Book] “Research shows that adults fall off a humour cliff around age 23” so if you are older than that, read this book. “Humour, Seriously: Why Humour Is A Superpower At Work And In Life” by Jennifer Aaker and Naomi Bagdonas https://www.humorseriously.com. [Book and movement] Marie Kondo actually made me enjoy cleaning (to an extent), and appreciate a tidy environment on a different level. Find out more about the KonMari method through your choice of search engine. Books include Spark Joy https://www.amazon.co.uk/Spark-Joy-Illustrated-Japanese-Tidying/dp/1785041029/ and The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying: A simple, effective way to banish clutter forever https://www.amazon.co.uk/Life-Changing-Magic-Tidying-effective-clutter/dp/0091955106. She’s even written a picture book for children https://www.amazon.co.uk/Kiki-Jax-Life-Changing-Magic-Friendship/dp/1529032113 (also works as a summary for adults). [Book] Happy Hour is 9 to 5: How to Love your Job, Love your Life, and Kick Butt at Work by Alexander Kjerulf [Book] The Courage to be Happy: True Contentment Is Within Your Power by Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga Marketing fundamentals …expanding your influence (these powerful methods should only be used in an ethical way, careful not to create addiction to devices/ tools/ software): [Book] Exponential influence by Adrian Ott. Summary: You are competing for customers' attention (not only time). Use multiple triggers to form a digital habit (though repetition kills a digital habit!) [Book] Words that change minds by Rose Charvet. There’s a great summary about the book at https://www.solutionsforresilience.com/words-that-change-minds/. …creating a safe atmosphere for online and face to face meetings: [Book] A book that has influenced my way of leading workshops forever (check out my video on preparing for workshops at https://www.tuulibell.com/values.html). Time to Think: Listening to Ignite the Human Mind by Nancy Kline https://www.timetothink.com/nancy-kline/ [Book] Looking for creative ideas to transform a physical space? Check out this highly visual book. Make Space: How to Set the Stage for Creative Collaboration by Scott Doorley and Scott Witthoft https://dschool.stanford.edu/resources/make-space-excerpts [Book] The art of gathering: How we meet and why it matters by Priya Parker is undeniably a great resource for re-discovering meaningful gatherings, both social and work-related https://www.priyaparker.com/thebook …sales tools (non-exhaustive list, it gives you ideas about different types available): [Customer relation management (CRM) tools] Your sales team might use one of Salesforce, HubSpot, Freshworks CRM, Zoho CRM, Monday.com; or ITSM tools such as ServiceNow, Cherwell, Jira, or HaloITSM for example. Most likely you will be using the same software to update your conversations and meetings with customers. [Presentation software] In addition to Microsoft PowerPoint and MacOS Keynote, there are more interactive options such as Miro https://miro.com/, Mural https://www.mural.co/, and Prezi https://prezi.com/. Opensource, heavy-coding options include Latex Beamer https://ctan.org/pkg/beamer. [Marketing automation software] There are thousands of tools to choose from; these technologies are designed to drive more leads to your sales team through web, mobile and AR digital traffic. They work by inviting people to engage with content that is interesting to them, and then capturing the persons’ details (either implicitly or explicitly). Examples include Factoreal https://www.factoreal.com, Marketo https://uk.marketo.com, Eloqua by Oracle https://www.oracle.com/uk/cx/marketing/automation/, Hubspot https://www.hubspot.com, and Customer.io https://customer.io. |
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PART 3: SHARING YOUR WISDOM
Sustainable presales is the future of presales …understanding climate change, and what we can do about it: [Interactive infographic] A detail from the easy-to-understand, effective Ellen McArthur Foundation’s infographic on circular economy https://kumu.io/ellenmacarthurfoundation/educational-resources#circular-economy-educational-resources/key-for-general-resources-map/butterfly-diagram [Framework, infographic] UN Sustainable development goal on energy (think IT/ data energy usage) https://sdgs.un.org/goals/goal7 and how technology impacts the goal of “Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development” https://sdgs.un.org/topics/technology [Good life goals] How we can all help UN Sustainable development goals become a reality https://www.goodlifegoals.org. Manuals, flashcards, emojis at https://sdghub.com/goodlifegoals/. [UK government policy, PDF] UK Government’s 10 point plan for green industrial revolution: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-ten-point-plan-for-a-green-industrial-revolution. A must-read if you are in a leadership role in a UK-operating company, to stay ahead of future laws on sustainability. [Reading list] Check out the recommended reading list, on pages 6-8 in IT and Environment (BCS Higher Education Qualification, level 6) https://www.bcs.org/media/3764/heq-pgd-ite-syllabus-old.pdf [Research article] How to ‘recycle’ software. Towards a Circular Economy of Industrial Software written by Vladimir Kutscher et al. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2212827120303127 [Community] Green IT, a BCS specialist group https://www.bcs.org/membership/member-communities/green-it-specialist-group/ [Self-improvement website] Giki Zero for tracking and baselining your carbon footprint https://zero.giki.earth [Conference] Collision (Canada) and WebSummit (Europe) for all things applied tech, including sustainability https://collisionconf.com/ and https://websummit.com/ [Climate friendly blockchain technology] NEAR is an opensource platform for decentralized applications – currently the only climate-neutral blockchain technology (as at May 2021) https://near.org/. [Reading list, video, movement] Part of Facing Change collection, this list of highly readable resources is compiled by Paddy Loughman. I learnt about it via Sam Conniff’s Be More Pirate newsletter (thank you both!). Google document is at: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1PbtEqTKBIhn7CEP5vGRIJfqRb9Qr03Ac0vp--u4Xmkw/edit. Video about Facing Change is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSZQMJg6Z-Y&t=7s. …business ethics – similar to environment, this is a hugely growing topic: [Book] Morality in the technological world: Knowledge as Duty by Lorenzo Magnani, Università degli Studi di Pavia, Italy. [Self-assessment webpage and PDF] Assessment List for Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence (ALTAI) by European Commission https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/news/assessment-list-trustworthy-artificial-intelligence-altai-self-assessment. [Community] BCS specialist group ICT Ethics https://www.bcs.org/membership/member-communities/ict-ethics-specialist-group/. …about positively disruptive leadership: [Book and movement] Be More Pirate by Sam Conniff https://www.bemorepirate.com [Book and management style you will want to adopt] Employees First, Customers Second: Turning Conventional Management Upside Down by Vineet Nayar [Book] Accelerate by by Nicole Forsgren, Jez Humble & Gene Kim https://itrevolution.com/book/accelerate/ [Book and humble leadership] Lead with Respect: A Novel of Lean Practice by Michael Ballé and Freddy Ballé, [Book and a transformative workload prioritisation method] Making Work Visible: Exposing Time Theft to Optimize Workflow by Dominica Degrandis https://ddegrandis.com/book/ [Book] Leadership lessons from the navy. Turn the Ship around: A true story of building leaders by breaking the rules by L. David Marquet and Stephen R Covey Updating internal process documentation and tools …sales tools for virtual meetings & phone calls: [Video meeting solutions] Anything from consumer-focussed tools such as FaceTime, Skype and WhatsApp video to Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Vidyo which are aimed at businesses. [Cold-calling solutions] Your sales teams might use technologies like ConnectAndSell to increase the number of initial conversations https://connectandsell.com. Alternatives, albeit with different product features, include Aircall and SalesLoft amongst others. [Transcription and phone analysis technology] Refract analyses sales conversations for coaching and professional development purposes https://www.refract.ai/. Similar technologies include Chorus https://www.chorus.ai, Marsview https://www.marsview.ai/, and Otter https://otter.ai/. Slightly differently, Rev https://www.rev.com/ offers automated captions for Zoom and human-verified transcription and translation services. [Integrated platform analysis / AI technology] Gong captures information from phone calls, CRM, and other sources to give a more accurate overview than a standalone CRM: https://www.gong.io. [Phone / AI technology] A more generic tool than Gong, Contexta360 is a speech and chat AI for big data and its technology can be used to understand pre-sale and post-sale conversations at a large scale https://contexta360.com. …presales tools (in addition to the sales tools above): [Presales operations] A comprehensive presales tool puts presales operations at the heart of sales. Check out Vivun, for example https://www.vivun.com, and Prelio https://www.preliotech.com. [POC management] Success app, for example https://www.success.app. [Demo automation] Creating automated demos is possible through e.g. Consensus https://www.goconsensus.com/how-it-works/ [Product feedback management] For collecting feedback from customers and making product decisions based on data. See Uservoice, for example: https://uservoice.com/. [RFP management] Loopio, for example: https://loopio.com. Internal ‘wiki’s’ or knowledge management software such as Atlassian Confluence (https://www.atlassian.com/software/confluence) can be used for the same. [RFP security questionnaires] Specialised software for responding to security questions in RFPs: see e.g. https://www.rfpio.com/ or https://www.hypercomply.com Making your efforts visible and reusable by the rest of the organisation …communication and collaboration tools: [Instant chat messaging] Slack is a great platform for internal and external chat. Others include Facebook messenger, WhatsApp or Discord https://discord.com (depending on your audience). [Document collaboration] Depending on the other tools you are using, pick one that integrates well with your existing tech stack: from e.g. Google Drive https://drive.google.com/, Dropbox https://www.dropbox.com or Microsoft’s OneDrive http://onedrive.live.com. [Document management for large teams] Atlassian products https://www.atlassian.com are great for transparent business processes and document sharing and you might already be using some or all of them e.g. Trello, Confluence, or Jira. If you have multiple document sources, tools such as Egnyte https://www.egnyte.com are very useful for governance and productivity. …resources for developing presales techniques for pros: [Book] Sales Fundamentals for Technical Specialists Kindle Edition, Janne Korhonen https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B072BWCSVD [Book] Driving the Technical Sale: Winning over the technical influencers. Master the Evaluation process by Lance Knight https://www.amazon.com/Driving-Technical-Sale-influencers-Evaluation-ebook/dp/B01MTON5YO [Book] The Six Habits of Highly Effective Sales Engineers by Chris White https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07T2TCHNT/ (similar sounding to 7 Habits of Highly Effective People® by Stephen R. Covey but not the same https://www.franklincovey.com/the-7-habits/) [Book] Demonstrating to Win!: The Indispensable Guide for Demonstrating Complex Products by Robert Riefstahl https://www.amazon.co.uk/Demonstrating-Win-Indispensable-Complex-Products-dp-0615477097/dp/0615477097/ [Book] Great Demo!: How To Create And Execute Stunning Software Demonstrations by Peter Cohan https://www.amazon.co.uk/Great-Demo-Stunning-Software-Demonstrations/dp/059534559X [Book] Mastering Technical Sales: The Sales Engineer’s Handbook by John Care and Aron Bohlig https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mastering-Technical-Sales-Technology-Management/dp/1596933399 [Website resource] My website https://www.tuulibell.com/presales.html is dedicated to ambitious presales consultants for continuous learning and development, especially on the subject of sustainability and circular economy. |
Closing remarks
…presales communities, and about community building: [Community and podcast] Presales Collective for presales consultants of all abilities and from all continents: https://www.presalescollective.com/. Podcast is at https://www.presalescollective.com/podcast; also on Clubhouse. [Community] WISE: Women in Solution Excellence, part of the Presales Collective https://www.presalescollective.com/wise. [Community] BCS, the Chartered Institute for IT is a UK-based organisation with lots of different specialist groups to choose from: https://www.bcs.org/membership/member-communities/ [Book] Understanding and building communities: Hacking Communities by Laís de Oliveira https://hackingcommunities.com/. The most interesting take-away for me was how wide-spread the issue of lack of communities is in ‘modern’ societies. This lack of community-feel results in loneliness, depression, and lack of meaning for a large proportion of people. On a positive note, anyone can start building a community, whether virtual or physical; and positively influence the wider society through cohesive support networks. |