Three years of research. Seven minutes on stage.

 

David Allison, a marketing and consumer behaviour expert spoke at Concordia University Presents The Walrus Talks Disruption in Calgary on Oct. 22, 2018.


Never before has so much been said so quickly. Well, at least not by me. I can spend seven minutes ordering lunch in a restaurant.

The Concordia University Walrus Talks bring people from very diverse backgrounds together to talk, very quickly, about what they do and what keeps them excited about the world.

It’s a great honour to be asked, and you end up meeting the most fascinating people. I met a professor who studies maker-culture, a famous philanthropic country western singer who builds real estate developments for aging-in-place on the side, a Metis academic with a background in social work who believes our educational system would benefit from indigenous ways of being (I concur), and so many more. I was a bit starstruck being in such august company.

I was also the first up on the stage and to be frank, only having seven minutes freaked me out. I don’t generally rehearse a speech about Valuegraphics very much, if at all: I know the material inside and out. But I found myself “running lines” in my hotel room in advance of this one. Sitting in the front row waiting for the preliminary greetings and sponsor recognition to conclude, I could feel all the things people tell me they feel when they have to get up and speak in front of people. A cold sweat bespangled my brow, my mind was racing, my heart was racing, I had a dry-mouth, and more. I don’t normally feel any of that! Public speaking is my happy place! So the fact that I was freaking out was freaking me out even more.

Regardless, here is the end result. Three years of talking and research and writing and story-crafting boiled down to just – cough cough – six minutes and 59 seconds. Aced i, with one second to spare. :)

UPDATE: Since making this speech the database has grown – a lot. We now have the data from 100,000 surveys across Canada and the USA, and a half-million surveys (in 152 languages) from around the world which makes Valuegraphics available to help influence behavior in a total of 195 countries!