From Me to You (and to Me, too): Time to CHIRP!

ByDavid

It’s easy to give advice. I think I find it easy to take advice too.

But for me to heed the words that I say to others? Not so easy.

So this one is for both of us.

Every semester, I ask my students to give a CHIRP presentation. This is meant to be a gentle early presentation, in the pecha kucha format (20 slides timed for 20 seconds apiece), designed to let each person introduce themselves to their classmates.

As the name suggests, the CHIRP allows students to talk about their career, hobbies, institution, relatives, and personal details that they want to share. This way, everybody in the room gets to know each other and might even find that they have pastimes, passions, even parents’ hometowns, in common.

And more! Even without the slides or the 20-seond timer, this CHIRP allows students to craft their introductions and elevator pitches, suitable for networking events as well as elevators. To this end, I ask students to include their ikigai, a Japanese word that means “reason for being.” I ask them to share their wabi-sabi, another Japanese word that means “beautiful flaw.” They share what they consider to be interesting about themselves and what they consider to be boring. Another Japanese word: kaizen, or what they are trying to steadily improve about themselves. And I delve into other fun non-English words, like voorpret, iktsuarpok, meraki, otaku (also Japanese). I throw apricity and selcouth in there for good measure, a couple of English words that nobody knows. Until they know! Watch this space, I’ll define all of these words in the coming weeks.

With these words in mind, each student comes out of their CHIRP experience with a whole bunch of topics to talk about, including answers to those killer job interview questions like “what’s your greatest weakness?” It’s your wabi-sabi! It’s beautiful! Use it!

You can do it. You’ll be glad you did.

(And so will I!)

See you tomorrow!

(ALSO! My friend Rob and I just published the latest issue of our podcast for you to enjoy. Find “Marketing vs Sales” on your favorite podcast platform. Pull up a seat and join us, and let us know what you think!)