SAFIRA 2.0

So, you’re telling me you have…

After the 2009 kickoff sessions, I got the feedback that I could give back to the SAFIRA community some of my clipart researching skills. That and maybe justa couple small, brief, if not too mind boggling ideas about presentations.

Ok, I’m up for it. Now it’s up to you. It’ll only work with an audience so… SIGN UP!
To sign up, just comment on this post something that roughly translates to “count me in”, and leave your REAL name, not some lame alias.

The schedule will be Thursdays, 1800h, recurring every 15 days, at the big meeting room of the Lisbon headquarters. Skype remote attendance is welcome! Every session will be recorded on video as it is a best practice in this kind of training. All documents and references will be in English. English will be spoken in case of foreign speaking attendants.

And now… the picth!

You know what you want to say! Or, at least, you feel like you do. But saying it in a way that really reaches out to your audience, and puts your ideas across to them, is a different matter. Innit?

Making yourself clear, and compelling, to an audience is a fundamental soft skill that you’ll cherish throughout your professional life. Once you’ve mastered it, you’ll be able to use this powerful tool for leading, for teambuilding, for motivating, for selling and for teaching, just to name a few. The self Xpress ^tm sessions is my contribution to everyone* at the SAFIRA community that wishes to empower himself in this field, and is willing to take this night train to self expression awesomeness. Wicked!

This is not about building a cute clipart library, selecting acceptable color schemes, or about creating neat PPT templates with well placed text and hightechish backgrounds that produce numb presentations, slide after slide. This is about making yourself clear and compelling. Better yet. It’s about making yourself compellingly clear! And, just maybe, eventually, it’ll include slideware.

* When I say everyone, I mean everyone. From technical to backoffice, from Operator and developer to Manager, from Lisbon to Warsaw.

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Thank you all that provided me with feedback, by filling the forms. Your feedback is the only way to improve the way we communicate internally, and a valuable tool for all the speakers.

Thank you, and thank you to all the speakers for their dedication and efforts.

Congratulations to all the 2009 SAFIRA Awards winners and nominees. May your deeds and achievements inspire others to follow your footsteps, and this acknowledgment push yourselves to excel even more.

Comic Relief Award - Tiago Pinho (TFP)
Team Spirit Award - Filipe Patrício (FMP)
Revelation Award - Francisco Filipe Louro (FSL)
Best Recruiter - Pedro Vieira (PTV)
Best Technological achievement - Luís Alves (LPA)
Best Team Leader - Dinis Luis (DML)
Best Project - SRS ZON (TVCAB-7-2)

Here’s the session plan for this year’s kickoff event.

Once more, my thanks to all speakers and team members that somehow contributed to this morning, of what we all expect to be an energizing, communication rich, team building day, that will jumpstart us all for the year that just begun.

09:30 Keynote - Energizing 2009
09:45 The good, the bad, and the ugly - Lessons learned
09:55 ZON está ON @ SAFIRA
10:10 Projecto Ibéria
10:25 Safira no BES
10:40 PMO Millennium - rebuilding a relation
10:55 Q&A

11:00 Coffee Break

11:30 Quest for talent
11:45 Nurturing talent
12:00 Directions for talent
12:15 DSI
12:20 DCM
12:30 SAFIRA Polska
12:45 SAFIRA Awards 2008
13:05 Closure

Thank you very much for your submissions of presentation proposals for the SAFIRA 2009 event’s. The selected presentations and Team Leaders are:

1. Portal Ibérico, by Nuno Perdigão, Senior Software Engineer (nrp@safira.pt)
2. SAFIRA no GBES, by Pedro Vieira, Senior Software Engineer (ptv@safira.pt)
3. Millennium, hoje e amanhã, by Luis Alves, Senior Software Engineer (lpa@safira.pt)

I believe these sessions will be an essential contribute to this event. One thing I’m extremely pleased to see is that, this year, it is the Seniors that are putting themselves on the stand. WELL DONE guys!!!

To all of the speakers of the last event, but mostly, to all of you in the audience, your feedback is very welcome, and a precious tool for improving the event’s content quality. Post your suggestions here, or if you’re still in web-1.0-land, e-mail the authors directly.

You can also use this space to make suggestions for the overall topics that you’d like to see addressed at the event.

Thank you