I posted about something I learnt last week, and decided to do the same kind of thing this week. Maybe I should start a new weekly meme actually. I think it would be quite fun to think of something, anything, no matter how small, that people have learnt in the last week. Let me know what you think!

I’ve actually learnt quite a bit in the last week. I went on a management offsite over the weekend and discovered yet again, that I’m apparently difficult to speak to. And that people are not sure how I’m going to react to news, so they’d rather not tell me! I apparently come across very defensive.
Hopefully I’ve managed to convince them that if I’m quiet after they tell me something, it’s because I don’t know what to say yet, but I’ll retaliate once I have an answer.

Anyway, enough about me… and I’ll speak more about the offsite in the next few days when I have more time. What we got told there has sparked some blog thoughts which I just have to think a bit more about.

As far as this week is concerned, even though it’s only Tuesday, I’ve learnt a heck of a lot so far. I’m on a Competitive Intelligence course for the week. Even though I vaguely knew that I’d be learning how to gather information about our competitors, I had no idea the extent to which people go with this science.

Firstly, I had no idea that companies employ teams of people that JUST do that. And they in turn hire external consultants to do the “dirty work” if they can’t find the information themselves. Wow! It’s sure opened my eyes to what is out there.
Secondly, I’ve decided that I’m very naive when it comes to gathering information. I had no idea that military means of gathering data was used. I did know that you get systems that scan and store publications for information, but had no idea how it was really used.
Thirdly, it’s a lot more systematic than I thought it was.

Well, anyway, wish me luck, I’m going to need it. My team (there are 2 of us) have an assignment for Friday. To do an industry analysis on a company’s potential growth into China.