Idevelop's Sarah Smith suggested the project and also became editor of the book, The book idea grew out of the cards, which never really sat that well with us. We looked into getting cards published and printed but decided that a book would be more effective (plus our huge egos were massaged by the thought of being published authors).
The development of the structure came about through Neil and I meeting up regularly and me asking him questions that came out of me simply not getting it. This forced him to examine in more detail how he did it and as he was able to articulate it I began to get it and he became clearer about what was going on, so we kind of met in the middle.
We were still sending out versions to ex Milton Club members and receiving feedback on our discoveries, which threw us back into research. Sometimes we thought we had it cracked, only to receive a comment from someone that sent us straight back to the drawing board. For this we have to thank Sarah Smith, Pauline Haynes, Tim Maude, Sue Beckett, Shone MacFarlane, Tom Smyth, Phil Miller, Reg Connolly, Steve Welsch and quite a few others on the way. Although Neil had been telling me something important about the process repeatedly it had failed to go in, until Tim e-mailed back one day and pointed out that he had realised that the 'How' element was the most important in learning how to loosen up. I realised that I was giving too much brain attention to the 'What' element of it, in terms of what you want someone to do, such as understand, comprehend, learn etc. When I concentrated on the 'How' element of it, such as easily, smoothly, wondrously etc, the penny finally dropped and I turned into a human Thesaurus.
Out of this grew the current format of 4 stages called 'Who', 'Moves', 'What' and 'How'. Imagine the many happy hours we have spent having discussions that sound like this "Yeah but why who? and when how who would use it, especially when what is what in that way"?
As a result of these bizarre conversation we got tranced out quite a bit when working on it, so we only worked in 2 hour blocks over the year or so that it took to complete and would break off to go for a curry and the inevitable 'Swift half' that followed. If you had been on an adjoining table at the 'Maharaj' in Taunton or the 'Ganges' in Bristol during that time you may well have thought that your co-diners had gone mad when listening in to our conversations.
We went for self-publishing through the Anthony Rowe company purely on economic grounds. When we looked into getting it published a frightening amount gets taken by publishers and distributors and frankly, if it isnt the next 'Da Vinci Code' nobody is going to bust a gut to promote it. So we sent it off to the printers before Xmas 2006 and by the time the kinks had been ironed out it finally saw the light of day in March 2007. Now we had to start learning how to teach it.
Tuesday, 1 May 2007
But Why?
As we went through our NLP Practitioner and Master Practitioner and Trainer Training we all grappled with Milton language to varying effect. There were a particular bunch of us who really struggled to get our heads around it. But somewhere in there Neil found a really good talent for it that made the rest of us green with envy.
During the evenings of our residential course modules we started a thing called the 'Milton Club'. A loose group of post-pub acolytes determined to master it. We sat in circles playing with the Salad cards of Jamie Smart and also Whack Cards, both of which throw words and phrases at you so you can improvise Miltonian sentences. They were good and worked well as long as we had them in front of us but we still couldnt quite grasp the 'How' of it. The drink helped and it did not go unnoticed that it was far easier to do after a couple of pints than before the pub visit. The trouble was, with one more pint it started to go again.
We picked Neil's brain and gained a few insights but beyond a couple of ideas he wasnt so sure how he did it either. So he and I decided to model it out.
We began with the idea of producing a set of cards and the design of the cards that you see in the book has survived from that initial idea (see www.influentialcommunication.co.uk/products.htm )
The names for the different sections changed though. We also wanted to go for an 'Early Learning Centre' kind of look, with primary colours to make it look like a kids book and hopefull fire some anchors of simple learning. However, when we sent them to all of the members of the old Milton club we got mixed repsonses to the layout. Some people found the bright colours distracting. One suggested that for them it would work better if the boxes were in pastel shades. We went half way and produced bold pastels which seemed to satisfy everyone, including us.
LEARNING POINT AT THIS STAGE: Layout and colours are very important in a highly visual book. Some respond well whilst others can be thrown by it. Also getting feedback from possible users can be tremendously important in developing a project. This is when we decided to keep this element going. It is not watering your material down to keep everyone happy. You can accept, reject or modify the feedback suggestions you get but it is helpful to get perspectives from different learning styles and preferences.
During the evenings of our residential course modules we started a thing called the 'Milton Club'. A loose group of post-pub acolytes determined to master it. We sat in circles playing with the Salad cards of Jamie Smart and also Whack Cards, both of which throw words and phrases at you so you can improvise Miltonian sentences. They were good and worked well as long as we had them in front of us but we still couldnt quite grasp the 'How' of it. The drink helped and it did not go unnoticed that it was far easier to do after a couple of pints than before the pub visit. The trouble was, with one more pint it started to go again.
We picked Neil's brain and gained a few insights but beyond a couple of ideas he wasnt so sure how he did it either. So he and I decided to model it out.
We began with the idea of producing a set of cards and the design of the cards that you see in the book has survived from that initial idea (see www.influentialcommunication.co.uk/products.htm )
The names for the different sections changed though. We also wanted to go for an 'Early Learning Centre' kind of look, with primary colours to make it look like a kids book and hopefull fire some anchors of simple learning. However, when we sent them to all of the members of the old Milton club we got mixed repsonses to the layout. Some people found the bright colours distracting. One suggested that for them it would work better if the boxes were in pastel shades. We went half way and produced bold pastels which seemed to satisfy everyone, including us.
LEARNING POINT AT THIS STAGE: Layout and colours are very important in a highly visual book. Some respond well whilst others can be thrown by it. Also getting feedback from possible users can be tremendously important in developing a project. This is when we decided to keep this element going. It is not watering your material down to keep everyone happy. You can accept, reject or modify the feedback suggestions you get but it is helpful to get perspectives from different learning styles and preferences.
The genesis of a book and a course
In this blog Neil Connolly and Ben Reeve, authors of "Influential Communication Made Easy" will be mapping out the process involved in both putting the book together and developing a training course to accompany the material.
In essence, what we have done is take a language pattern familiar to NLP practitioners, known as Milton Presuppositions, and established a simple structure which allows anyone, not just NLPers to master this particularly tricky speech pattern.
Our intention is to take this system, more often than not used in hypnosis and training, and promote it in everyday areas of life, such as teaching, presenting, working with children and even self-talk.
This is a work in progress and in getting it to this stage we have drawn on the help, advice and feedback of many others. We intend this to continue so please feel free to make comments by e-mailing either myself benreeve@idevelop.co.uk or Neil on neilconnolly@idevelop.co.uk
As this blog progresses you will be able to follow the experiments that we are playing with, the questions that we asking ourselves and discovering along with us not only how the influential communication material develops but also how the art of training it comes into being. We will mark out key points as we discover them too.
So join us on the journey. We expect fantastic developments and a fair share of embarassing faux pas, because that is the nature of the work.
In essence, what we have done is take a language pattern familiar to NLP practitioners, known as Milton Presuppositions, and established a simple structure which allows anyone, not just NLPers to master this particularly tricky speech pattern.
Our intention is to take this system, more often than not used in hypnosis and training, and promote it in everyday areas of life, such as teaching, presenting, working with children and even self-talk.
This is a work in progress and in getting it to this stage we have drawn on the help, advice and feedback of many others. We intend this to continue so please feel free to make comments by e-mailing either myself benreeve@idevelop.co.uk or Neil on neilconnolly@idevelop.co.uk
As this blog progresses you will be able to follow the experiments that we are playing with, the questions that we asking ourselves and discovering along with us not only how the influential communication material develops but also how the art of training it comes into being. We will mark out key points as we discover them too.
So join us on the journey. We expect fantastic developments and a fair share of embarassing faux pas, because that is the nature of the work.
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