Train-the-Trainer 1

Train-the-Trainer sounds like such a simple, logical idea: -

Because of language issues or the overall scale of the project or whatever, doesn't it make sense for you to just transfer the skills to deliver the programme to our people and we'll take it from there?

It's very hard to argue against this logic yet it has some wide-ranging implications for my business that I sometimes struggle to fully appreciate.  Perhaps its because of my background as a performer that I am most comfortable delivering my stuff directly to the end user.  My job is to facilitate behavioural change and it's easier to do when I can look in the eyes of the person whose behaviour is meant to change.

The usual analogy for Train-the-Trainer projects is that of the children's party game 'Chinese Whispers' (aka 'Telephone') and it's hard to dispute.  Information mutates as it passes along a chain and the longer the chain the greater the mutation.  As the supplier of the original content I find myself trying to second guess a raft of possible issues faced by a deliverer who isn't me.  This 'second guessing' must account for an astonishingly wide set of variables: -

• Does that person share the underlying values assumed by the programme?
• How competent is the trainer as a presenter?  As a facilitator of discussion?
• My programmes always feature drama-based elements.  Will the trainer enthusiastically embrace, half-heartedly attempt or drop them altogether? 
• Can I assume that the programme will be given the right amount of time?  Will my room layout and other staging requirements be adhered to?  Will the handouts be properly prepared?
• How hard will the trainer fight to ensure that these project parameters are in place?

The integrity of my programme can be compromised in many ways and I have to do what I can protect my creation.  My first instinct is to proliferate documentation; try to anticipate every possible problem and script a remedy.  The obvious problem here is that I'm assuming that the trainer in question even cares enough to read my carefully constructed notes.  Another unhealthy byproduct is that my value proposition is now attached to what I write rather than what I say aloud or even what I think.

A better solution is to engender an attitude.   Instead of offering a set of mechanical solutions, if I can instill a passionate belief in the programme then the trainer is much more likely to allocate enough preparation time to deliver it well and also to fight to ensure that parameters such as programme length are kept.

I do this by investing heavily in my own branding throughout the Train-the-Trainer.  I need to endow my work with as much value as I can so that the participants leave knowing that I'm trusting them with something precious to me.  At the close I openly admit that I'm like a nervous parent sending a child out into the world for the first time and that I need each of them to do the right thing by my brand.

Always endowing our ideas with value is a big step towards ensuring that they are treated with respect.

Interpreters

In my last post I owned up to being 'depressingly monolingual'.  I envy anyone who speaks multiple languages and deeply regret not studying harder in Latin and French classes at high school.

It is remarkably easy to thrive in a global consulting environment speaking only English.  I make all the typical tourists' effort of learning 'please', 'thank you', 'hello', 'yes' and 'no'.  As most of my clients have a stated policy that all multinational meetings are conducted in 'business English' this is rightly recognised as a pretty minimalist courtesy.

However, when I'm working with sales representatives I sometimes come up against a genuine language barrier.  Salespeople conduct their calls in local language and often only the ambitious bother learning English.  This is more likely to be the case in the major northern Asian countries, China, Japan and South Korea.  In such circumstances I have to work with an interpreter.  A piece of advice: -

Be cognizant of the interpreter's fatigue level and manage it

This is blindingly obvious when you think about it because interpreting is such an exhausting job.  Everyone else in the room is speaking freely (and quickly) in their native language and the interpreter has to continuously rearticulate every thought as eloquently as he can.  And because interpreters are meant to be unobstrusive they are often instinctively 'low status' personalities (see previous posts), but this also means he'll never interrupt the flow of conversation to say he needs a break.  

A bilingual trainee in Beijing put it like this: "As the day went on he got worse and worse at translating your jokes."

All of the usual rules about managing fatigue (ie introduce new concepts as early in the day as possible) apply, only more so.  Keep a close eye on your interpreter from lunchtime onwards and if he looks tired assume he is and call a break.  Don't bother asking him directly because he'll most likely wave you away and soldier on to the overall detriment of your session.

Translation services

Over the coming weeks I am delivering facilitated workshops to non-English speaking teams in Italy, Germany, France, Spain and Korea.  As such I have recently spent a lot of time working with translation services getting my documents rewritten in the local language.  I find this work quite boring and very time-consuming.  It also presents some quite specific challenges.

Timelines

Translation forces me to focus on supporting documentation ahead of actual delivery requirements (ie my facilitated workshop).  This disrupts my 'project rhythm'; that internalised sequence of tasks that experience has taught me must each be completed a certain number of days ahead of the delivery date.

Furthermore, as a small-shop consultant I pride myself on flexibility, being able to nimbly adjust to last minute changes from the client more easily than my larger competitors.  Translation timelines threaten this flexibility and therefore my competitive edge feels reduced.

Who To Use

There is massive variability in the quality of translation services both between countries and within a given market.  Cost is only a rough indicator of quality at best.  Being depressingly monolingual means I can't assess the quality of the work ahead of the workshop itself and so this is one area where I don't necessarily advocate the use of other small-shop suppliers.  We've all laughed at those books of signs that have been badly translated into English and I don't want to be the butt of a joke going in the other direction when I flash up a particularly vital PowerPoint slide.

One answer to this would be find a proofreader to check for clangers but that adds to both cost and timeline and now I'm sourcing two new suppliers instead of one.  Instead I prefer to go with a single, larger organisation that is more likely to stand behind its reputation.

When I'm working in a brand new country there is the additional challenge of finding anyone at all so there is always the temptation to use some one recommended by the client.  The upside of this approach is that the risk of poor quality work is somehow spread ("Hey, it was your suggestion...").

One downside is that the recommendation may be personal not institutional.  Unwittingly I may have been put in touch with someone's underemployed brother-in-law, resulting in poor quality work and even less leverage over my supplier than usual.  An even bigger threat is that the translator is loyal to the client not me thus creating a nasty triangular relationship with the risk that my IP is shared without my knowledge or permission.  Of course every translator signs a confidentiality agreement but I still feel exposed, especially when working in Asia.

There are two solutions: -

1. I can deliver documentation in English and hand over all further responsibility to the client.  This absolves me of any responsibility whatsoever for quality, however, I have lost additional control over my product and there may be a sense that the client somehow 'owns' more of my IP than the license indicates.  That said, I am okay with this approach in Europe
   
2. I find a 3rd-party supplier via my own network (other suppliers and even old clients) and establish an entirely separate relationship with the translation service.  I also insist in physical delivery of documents with no PDF files released to the actual client.  From bitter experience I have learned to go this way in Asia and in developing markets

I have worked hard to create a global presence in my business niche and I genuinely enjoy working with new teams in new parts of the world.  Resolving translation issues ahead of time means that I can spend my time in-country concentrating on similarities not differences.

Status 3 (facilitation)

This is my third post on the idea of 'status' as explored by Keith Johnstone in his book Impro.

As well as high and low status 'players', Keith also identifies 'status experts' who raise and lower their status at will.  Why do this?  Because low status is better for gaining information efficiently whereas high status is better for giving commands.

I remember an account by one of Margaret Thatcher's aides that sums this up perfectly.  When she wanted to know something of you, you felt like the most important person in the room.  The information was simply sucked from you.  Then in a heartbeat she would reassert her authority and issue you with orders to be followed without further debate.  This ability to alter status at will is a trait of all good leaders.  Some do it instinctively but many more have learnt it over time.

I think that facilitation requires something similar.  My definition for facilitation is as follows: - 

"Facilitation is the art of helping experienced people articulate intelligent conclusions"

I am not paid to simply tell people what to think and do in a high status manner but rather to usher them towards the 'correct' conclusion.  This requires me to: -

• Provide the group with new stimulus (requiring me to be high status)
• Get them to articulate an assessment of that stimulus in the light of what they know already (I have to be low status)
• Then insist that certain activities and exercises are undertaken so as to enact behavioral change (high status again)
• Finally I need them to voluntarily commit to applying what they've learned in my session in 'the real world' (low)
  

As an external consultant I don't have the luxury of demanding a commitment to change.  Instead I have to earn that commitment.  Yet even when people recognise that I'm deliberately altering my status to achieve this goal they're usually happy to go along with it.

Status isn't a 'trick' to be pulled so much as an insight into human interactions to be understood.

Recruiting

When working with new organisations I make a habit of asking about the recruitment profile for team members.  Inevitably the client finds this an intelligent yet intriguing question, addressing an issue that they've paid very little attention to themselves.

Understanding how the individuals see themselves before attempting any behavioral change is vital and as corporate job adverts are a sort of self-selection process why not start there?

If the headhunter is recruited 'experienced salespeople' then I should start by respecting their experience.  If the advert said 'creative and enthusiastic' then any meetings, training and events that I run must further that expectation not stymie it.

Status 2 (salesmanship)

This is my second post on Keith Johnstone's idea of 'status'.

Let's think further about the difference between 'rank' (where you fit in a formal power structure) and 'status' (your relative importance in a social setting).  This post is about what happens in face-to-face selling situations.

Usually rank and status are in synch: the more powerful person is also more important.  Sometimes this is formally imposed and history is filled with examples of social structures wherein the King is consistently treated as the smartest, strongest, bravest, funniest and best looking person in the room irrespective of the truth.  As illustrated by the story The Emperor's New Clothes the problem of 'speaking truth to power' is an out and out status issue.

Let's move on to selling and consider the problem that the following statement creates for a consultant: -

The seller will always outrank the buyer but the person with 'knowledge' has higher status

If I am selling to you then you outrank me; you don't have to buy what I'm offering* so I should always appear thankful should ever you hire me.  However, the only motivation that you'd ever have for so doing is that in some way I'm 'more knowledgeable' than you; I bring a skill, an insight or a process that you don't have in-house.

Every consultant is familiar with this balancing act: how do I establish myself as a worthwhile expert without making the client feel stupid?  If I underplay my 'knowledge' to make the client feel comfortable I run the risk of looking like I bring nothing new to the table.  Conversely, if I overplay my hand and come across as a know-it-all I'm turning off the client in a different yet equally fatal manner.

Isn't salesmanship fun?  Let's apply this idea to three selling scenarios: -

Repeat Business

The client knows what I do and wants more of the same.  Because I don't have to sell my 'knowledge' I don't have to adopt a high status position at all.  I can remain lower in status and simply thank the client for any additional work.

3rd-Party Referral Business (Word-of-Mouth)

The reason that 3rd-party referral is an easy sell is that someone that the client trusts has established my 'knowledge' credentials for me.  I can go into the pitch meeting and treat the client as someone who outranks me; I talk modestly about previous successes (not being too high status) but concentrate on giving the impression that I'd be honored to get the work.

Cold Calling

Cold calling is far harder because I'm forced to start with a high status position so that its clear that I'm not wasting anyone's time.  Then I have to drop that status to indicate that I'd be grateful for any project that might come of the meeting.  In a successful cold call you can feel the point at which the conversation pivots away from what you're offering and towards what will or won't be happening next.

This is why cold calling is never easy and I am convinced that it's the reason why repeat and word-of-mouth is the mainstay of most consulting businesses.

* There are some obvious exceptions to this statement that actually prove the point I'm making.  I'll deal with them later.

Status 1 (introduction)

As promised, this is the first of several posts on Keith Johnstone's idea of 'status' and how it might relate to the world of a freelance consultant.

As Keith is mainly interested in on-stage drama we'll start there.  He uses the term 'status' to mean one character's relative importance in a social setting.  In a two-person situation its necessarily binary: 'high status' and 'low status'.

Three observations: -

1. Status is not the same as 'rank'; the master will always outrank the servant but he can certainly be lower in status
   
2. Status is fluid; a character's (relative) importance will fluctuate depending on circumstance; sometimes being the 'wealthiest' grants a character top status but at other times it might go to the 'smartest', 'bravest', 'strongest' or whatever
   
3. On stage (as in life) characters have a preferred status; just as some people are instinctively 'high status' others are instinctively 'low status'
   

Much fun can be had using these three ideas to analyse the character relationships in pretty much any play, film or TV show you care to name: -

• Hugh Laurie's eponymous character in House is not the top-ranking doctor in his hospital but is the high status player in pretty much every situation

• The ensemble of characters in Friends are forever fluctuating in status depending on what's important at the time.  For example, Ross being 'smart' doesn't automatically grant him high status over Joey who is 'sexy'

• In The Sopranos Tony is an instinctive high status character and reacts violently whenever this is challenged

A more complex example might be the relationship between the characters played by Russell Crowe and Joaquin Phoenix in Gladiator.

(Do I really need a 'spoiler alert' for a film released in 2000?)

The plot is driven by the fact that Maximus (Crowe) is outranked by the emperor Commodus (Phoenix) but is the higher status character, something that causes Commodus to react evermore viciously.  By the film's end Commodus' status is eroded until he is left dead in the dust whilst Maximus' corpse is carried aloft from the Collosseum.

In the next post I want to take these same ideas and apply them to my world.

Impro by Keith Johnstone

The book that changed my life was Impro by Keith Johnstone.

Keith is the grand old man of performance improvisation.  If you've ever laughed at Whose Line is it Anyway? then you have Keith to thank.  He worked at the Royal Court Theatre in London in the 1960's, founded the Theatre Machine improv group and created the global phenomenon that is  Theatresports.  Keith has influenced thousands of writers and performers around the world and I've been lucky enough to work with him on three separate occasions over the last twenty years.

In 1989 a new girlfriend took (dragged) me along to Belvoir St Theatre in Surry Hills, Sydney to see Theatresports.  It was a genuinely stellar cast that night that included Daniel Cordeaux, Ewan Campbell, Marko Mustac and Andrew Denton with Lynn Pierse as her strange uber-nun character Sister Mary Leonard.  I left the theatre thinking, "I must do that."

Within a week I'd enrolled in a course and on Lynn's recommendation I bought Impro.  Six weeks later I performed on the Belvoir Street stage for the first time.  A few months after that I started my own theatre company (Instant Theatre) with two partners.

As I was still working for Unilever we decided to concentrate on the conference and seminar market with a specific focus on what Keith describes as 'status issues'.  Instant Theatre successfully packaged up the lessons of Impro for the Australian corporate scene and my current business (Dramatic Change) is a direct evolution of that work.

Dramatic Change only exists because I was taken to the theatre then given a book to read.

I recommend Impro to anyone interested in creativity, narrative or especially Keith's very specific idea of 'status'.  Over the next few posts I'm going to unpack that idea and apply it to the world of the freelance consultant.

In Brussels

Tomorrow is a 'rehearsal day' for an EU rollout with a new marketing client.  Actually tomorrow is the rehearsal for the Launch meeting.  The rehearsal for the rollout proper is a week away.  I have no role at the Launch (I'm not even attending) so I don't know why I'm even in Brussels.

That's not true.  I know exactly why I'm here.

Every now and then I work with a team that is smart, driven, good to be around, strategically astute yet something is missing.  It's as if the very essence of the project eludes us.  This has  been bugging me for weeks and I've worked out why: -

The project culture is flawed, albeit not fatally

Every extended, team-based project takes on its own culture and ours was flawed from the start.  At the first meeting we embarked on an informal competition to be the most farsighted person in the room.  Genuinely important conversations were derailed by grave, oracular statements about the most trivial possibility.  We never shook the habit and decisions were made in February that could have waited until August, whilst critical issues raised months ago remain unresolved.

We'll get there.  That's why we have tomorrow and next Friday.  There's nothing like a deadline to sharpen up the discipline of a group.  Even a group of marketers.

Pneumonia

Looking over my journal I see that two years ago I was diagnosed with an atypical pneumonia with secondary reactive arthritis.  I'd been having dreadful coughing fits and becoming increasingly lethargic for a while so my doctor sent me for chest a X-Ray.  This led to one of the all-time great interactions with Britain's National Health Service: -

Nurse: "You've obviously got some sort of pneumonia.  Before we go any further, have you traveled anywhere unusual of late?"

Me: "Well, I was wandering around respiratory care hospitals in Beijing a few weeks ago."

Nurse: "Excuse me whilst I put on this mask."

This was 2006 and for a while there I was 'Patient Zero' in the upcoming European Bird Flu pandemic.  In the end it was diagnosed as 'atypical', meaning that no one had any idea except that I'd probably been on too many planes.

The arthritis hit a month later.  I was running a two-day workshop in Newmarket in Suffolk when just before lunch on the second day I felt a twinge in my left ankle that I couldn't explain.  By mid-afternoon I was limping badly and by the time I got off the train at Liverpool Street station at 7pm I couldn't walk at all.  I was on crutches for about seven weeks including a few excruciatingly painful days on the cobblestoned streets of Lisbon.

Again, the NHS had no definitive diagnosis; the arthritis was probably my body's reaction to the earlier pneumonia and both conditions would totally resolve with no long-term after-effects.  Two years on this prognosis seems happily correct.

My journal from the time is unsurprisingly depressing, the consistent theme being if I don't work I don't get paid.  And much of my work involves plane flights.

This is the reality of self-employment.  You have to look after your health because you will go broke if you don't.  This is not to say that your clients aren't nice people who wish you well.  I consider quite a few of my clients as friends but as much as they'd like to help me out, I have to do the work first.

Over the next few months I have a lot of flying to do and there is no excuse for getting ill.

Farming v. Other forms of self-employment

In my last post I alluded to the fact that I am a farmer's son.  I grew up on a farm near the town of Cumnock in the Central-West of New South Wales.  As the eldest child and only son it was actually an active choice for me not to become a farmer (see last post).

My father was a very good farmer and I long before I could articulate the reason why I knew that I didn't want to follow in his wake.  When asked about it now I explain that my definition of a good farmer is as follows: -

Someone who gets up at dawn on a rainy morning in the middle of winter to go and fix a fence that isn't broken yet.

As far as farming goes that was never going to be me.  I've never regretted the decision to do other things with my life but I do like to think that I carry that attitude with me nonetheless: -

Get up every morning and solve a problem before it even arises.

Talking to farmers

My wife and I spent a lovely August Bank Holiday Weekend in Norfolk as guests of friends who are farmers growing wheat, canola (rapeseed) and beans.  On Sunday afternoon we went to the local pub and met up with their friends, most of whom are farmers also.

As we stood around in the soft evening light chatting, much of the conversation revolved around work; in particular comparisons between the working life of a farmer and a self-employed consultant.  The similarities were all pretty obvious: self-employment, working alone and making every decision for (and by) yourself.

The differences were far more revealing.  There are the obvious things like the physical nature of farming work, the dangers of producing a commodity when selling to an aggressive buyer like Tesco and the near-total reliance on weather.

Harder to spot but far more interesting was the idea of 'cost of entry'.  With the exception of one man who was the farm manager of a large estate, everyone at the pub had inherited the land they worked.  The best way to become a farmer is to be a farmer's son.  In fact given that you can no longer go west and simply stake a claim, the only other ways to get into the business are to either sink a lot of cash (yours and the bank's) into buying land or to manage a large holding owned by someone else.  The barriers to entering the farming profession are thus remarkably high.

By contrast becoming a consultant requires nothing more than an email address and a business card.  Consultancy like stand-up comedy, motivational speaking and any kind of freelance writing has very low barriers to entry.  There is no blanket expectation that we be accredited like accountants or even be educated to a given level.

You are a consultant the moment you say you are.

This means that there will always be someone coming after you.  Some 'lean and hungry' type who will argue that your 'years of experience' equates to 'complacency' and that she can do a better job cheaper.

In no way am I saying that a farmer's lot is an easier one; I know that as a farmer's son.  But farmers should at least be able to see where the next big threat to their livelihood is coming from.  For all I know someone was made redundant last Friday who spent the long weekend deciding to go out on her own as pharma marketing consultant rather than applying for another job.  Today we don't even know that the other exists but my business depends on me behaving as if she does.

When businesses in high cost-of-entry markets fail its like the Titanic hitting the iceberg, in low cost-of-entry markets like mine its usually the death of a thousand invisible cuts.

A good day

Last week I successfully completed that job with the Finnish sales team.  There was certainly a buzz around the room when we wrapped up the project and yesterday I got an urgent request for information to be shared across the Nordic* region.  I knew that there would be follow-up at some stage but the speed of turnaround was especially gratifying.

When a new client comes looking for me; that's a good day.

* Here's something else I learned last week:  'Nordic' is a geographic descriptor for Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Finland.  'Scandinavian' is essentially a racial term which applies to all of the above except Finland.

In Holland

This week I delivered a 1.5 day programme at a conference in Holland.  I arrive Tuesday night in order to work with a sales team on Wednesday and Thursday.  As arranged I make contact with the Sales Manager immediately upon checking into the hotel.

Over coffee she updates me on the event so far.  We speak for about twenty minutes but as we get up to go, in an attempt at an afterthought she says,

"I hope you don't mind but we're going to start your session an hour later in the morning.  There's some admin issues that we desperately need to sort out so we'll do that first."

I say nothing.

"If you like we can go a bit later in the afternoon to make up the time.  Until six o'clock if you like."

Again I say nothing.

"It really has to be completed before midday and there's no other time available."

We both know what's going on.  There's been misorganisation at some point and she's playing catch-up.  She's aware that she's taking high-value time from me at the beginning of the day in exchange for low-value time at the end.  There's no way I can go to 6pm without the team either falling asleep or mutinying.  It's hard to add value to a training room where the overwhelming sentiment is 'seething resentment'.

The Sales Manager so obviously wants me to airily say that it'll make no difference to my programme but I can't do that without lying.  Aside from fatigue issues, the later start means that I can't arrange the room the way I want.  The lost hour also means that my timings are out of synch with the conference coffee and meal breaks.  Of course I'll manage but I'm going to have to work a lot harder to achieve what I've promised her.

I smile and say that my philosophy is to 'play the cards I'm dealt'.

The change has an interesting effect on me: I could look at it and say that I'm going to get paid exactly the same fee for an hour less work.   I've also earned a 'Get Out Of Jail Free' card - if the programme is deemed unsuccessful I can offload some of the blame on the effect of the later start.  It's like a little cartoon demon has appeared at my shoulder to tempt me with easy options.

But I don't get paid by the hour and I didn't get where I am by grabbing hold of excuses.  I claim to be only as good as my results and no one will remember that lost hour when the client considers whether or not to use me again.

I really do have to play the cards I'm dealt.

The session goes well enough although I have to work a hell of a lot harder to get it there.  It ends with a sense that there'll be a follow-up programme in the coming months.

This is what standing by your results means.

At the Edinburgh Festival 6

The Fringe is over for me for 2008.  I was only planning on doing my show for the first ten days but events elsewhere means I had to cut back even more.  My final performance was last Thursday night.

It was an almost entirely positive experience.  The beauty of doing a run at a single venue is that every night you build on what you learnt the night before; you feel your act sharpen and tighten as your timing improves.

Offstage I had time to think about the underlying mechanics of the festival experience; observing how the invisible hand ushers audiences out of one show and down the road and into the next.  I had the chance to consider what projects I might bring back here in the future, under what conditions and to what end.  Being self-employed I need to consider the opportunity cost of a month of late nights in Edinburgh.

At my last show we had standing room only again.  We ended on a high.

At the Edinburgh Festival 5

So much for the Scottish summer.  It's been raining for two days straight which makes flyering very unpleasant and even less worthwhile.  However, the audiences don't seem to be affected all that much.  If you're in town for the Festival, a collection of mostly indoor events, then rain is a reason to see more shows, not less.

But it does mean that audiences tend to stay in the one venue and see a series of shows rather than pick and choose between shows / venues around town.  Given that our show is quite broad in its appeal we benefit from this.  However, the act on immediately ahead of us is far more specialised.  The show is a work of genius but one glance at it's promotional material says it ain't for everyone.

My comments about Long Tail at the Fringe seem to be borne out by the fact that the model breaks down when the distribution (ie punters walking between venues) seizes up.

We had about 14 in last night.

At the Edinburgh Festival 4 (Long Tail analysis)

I was standing at the bar waiting for my drink when a local turned and asked,

"You up for the Fringe?"

"Yes."

"Wanna know what's wrong with the f***ing Fringe?  Too many of the f***ing acts are f***ing sh*t.  You cannae work out what's good and what's not."

(He was, after all, an Edinburgh local)

He had a point.  As I've mentioned in previous posts there are over 2000 shows and the Fringe positively prides itself on the total lack of quality control.  The very best of theatre and comedy is right alongside shows so awful that they beggar belief.

The obvious comparison is between the Edinburgh Fringe and the World Wide Web.  Let's look at the Fringe through the prism of Chris Anderson's 'long tail' model.  We have near enough to an infinite variety of products available and since audiences are happy tramping around the city to obscure venues at all hours, a surprisingly efficient mode of delivery.  The problem, as my drunken Scottish mate identified, is how do you know what's good and what's not?  Price is no guide as some terrific acts are performing in the free venues whilst terrible ones are charging £12 ($24 USD).

This is where the Long Tail analogy falls down I think: much of what's on offer out on the far left of Anderson's tail isn't merely outdated or obscure, it's just bad.  The Fringe is that tail in living colour.

In this environment the various Fringe reviewers wield immense influence as the only vaguely efficient guide of what to see and what to avoid.  I think the more important role is in warning people away from the bad rather than towards the good.  An hour in the company of a delusional idiot who thinks he's the next Eddie Izzard is an hour you're never getting back.

Last night we were standing room only again, which means over 30 in the audience.  And we got reviewed!

In Helsinki

I've had to leave the Festival for 36 hours or so to attend a meeting in Finland.  The shift in mindset I'm facing in the morning will take some work.

Self-employment, eh?

At the Edinburgh Festival 3

Performers' attitudes to the festival are as varied as their acts.  For acts established on the circuit it's often the one month of the year they get to do a show about something that they find genuinely interesting instead of running out the same lowest-common-denominator gags that work for office parties and hens' nights.  For newer acts it's a chance to try out longer routines (working up that 20-minute set in a relatively safe environment).  And for pretty much everyone it's a chance to laugh with (and at) old mates, drink too much and stay up way too late. 

All the usual showbiz mythologies are writ large here; talent will out, there's a lucky break out there waiting to happen, you've got to sleep with the right people to get anywhere, its about the looks these days and so on.  Most performers will lose thousands of pounds at this year's Festival yet few are willing to see the money as an investment to be capitalised on rather than a good time that they've paid for.  

In reality the Edinburgh Fringe is just a very long, very crazy trade show and the more focused acts spend every waking moment with an eye on the next opportunity: getting an agent or a run of better quality bookings or a TV deal.  Acutely aware of what shows to 'drop in on' in the hope of grabbing stage time, even in their cups they'll never admit to a single bad gig and mere socialisng loses out to networking opportunities every time.

I look at this relentlessness, this hunger, and see the same thing in the origins of my own company all those years ago.  And just as with my business, it wasn't ever talent alone that made it to the top.  Talent is 'cost of entry' but no more than that.

On Saturday night we had over 30 people in the audience (standing room only!) and last night we had 13.

At the Edinburgh Festival 2

An unavoidable part of any visit to the Festival is the flyering.  Across the city but especially near the major venues and along the Royal Mile are swarms of enthusiastic people thrusting brightly coloured paper flyers for their shows at unresponsive passers-by.  For a sector of society (ie performers and writers) purportedly concerned with environmental issues the waste is unbelievable.

It is an article of faith that a successful show Edinburgh relies on a minimum of one hour a day of flyering per cast member.  Yet the widely held rule of thumb that a 1% yield (ie one audience member per every 100 flyers handed out) is par doesn't bear out this argument.

I think that flyering has more to do with regaining a sense of agency in the face of the overwhelming odds against success; most shows lose money because there are so many shows competing for business; performers are reduced to attempting anything at all, regardless of its efficacy, to increase the chance of success, regardless of the efficacy of the action.  Your own time is cheap, why not use it?

Of course this grasping at straws is nothing more than superstition.  Although there is no logic in agency for agency's sake, most of us are guilty of those silly rituals that seem to pay dividends in the face of their illogicality.

Performers who would never deign to flyer their own show in London, instead employing kids who are happy to take a few quid for a few hours work, happily do so at the Festival.  Superstition notwithstanding, I suspect that the real reason is that this pointless task is a leveler; part of the shared 'Edinburgh experience' to bond over.

We had an audience of 9 last night.