By Liz Gooster (MC12), Meyler Campbell Special Advisor

What exactly is Twitter? According to Twitter’s own website, it’s ‘a real-time information network that connects you to the latest stories, ideas, opinions and news about what you find interesting’. But to the novice, this twittering, chirping, messy online community can seem overwhelming. The only way to really get a sense of what it’s all about is to plunge in, join the conversation and check it out for yourself. So if you do dip a digital toe into the twittersphere, here are my top 10 tips to getting the most out of Twitter.

1)      Think carefully about your Twitter name, or handle. You can use your real name, your company name, a tag that captures your brand or personality, a nickname, whatever you want. It depends on why you’re using Twitter: make sure your purpose is congruent with your username. So, if you’re a CEO looking to build your credentials as a thought leader, maybe @bigteddybear isn’t quite right for you. Plus, it’s already taken: your Twitter name has to be unique, which is why you’ll see things like @bigteddybear41.

2)      Work on your Twitter bio. You only have 160 characters for this, but it’s important because this is your shop window. It’s what people see first and will help them decide whether or not they want to follow you and hear what you have to say. As with your username, use your profile to convey the right image, whether personal or professional. Upload a photo or an image and add a link to your website if you have one.

3)      Find people you want to follow. You’ll see the tweets of everyone you follow in your Twitter feed. You can search for people by their real name, even if that’s not their Twitter username and the beauty of Twitter is you can follow anyone you want to, even if you don’t know each other and regardless of whether they follow you back. Search for keywords that reflect topics you’re interested in to find people tweeting on these subjects. Twitter will also make suggestions for new people for you to follow, based on who you’re already following.

4)      Look at the people who are following you. Check out their profiles and tweets before you follow them back to make sure you want to read their stuff and be associated with them.

5)      Start tweeting! And remember, you only have 140 characters, so keep it pithy! Think about why you’re tweeting and check before you tweet that your message is in tune with the image you want to build.

6)      Tell, spread and interact. Don’t just broadcast news about yourself – that’s the equivalent of being the bore at the party who constantly drones on about themselves and ignores everyone else. Aim for your tweets to be a mix of new content about you; retweets (RTs) of interesting tweets you’ve read and think other people might like to see; and responses or conversation-starting messages to other tweeters. Use hashtags if you’re tweeting about popular topics (eg #wimbledon) to make it easier for people to find your tweets.

7)      Don’t get too personal. Twitter is all about engaging with people, and it’s best to be authentic. But don’t share more than you’re comfortable with, and be mindful of your own boundaries about privacy – once a tweet’s out there, you can’t get it back (see also Tip 9). For private messages, use the direct messaging (DM) facility, which is the Twitter equivalent of an email.

8)      Manage your Twitter feed. As you follow more people, your Twitter feed will start to get very full. You can’t read every tweet, so test out ways of filtering to make sure you see tweets from the people and on the topics you really want to. Create lists of groups of people that reflect your interests (eg business contacts, celebrities, cookery experts). Try out social media dashboards such as Tweetdeck, Hootsuite and Seesmic to help manage your feed.

9)      Never drink and tweet! Your tweets are there for ever, and anyone can see them, so drunk or sober, make sure that you’d be happy for your mum, your boss, your best friend and your worst enemy to see what you’ve written or linked to.

10)  Have fun. Twitter is a fast-paced, energetic, real-time way of communicating about anything you want, with anyone you want, anywhere in the world. So above all, just enjoy it!

Liz Gooster is an Executive Coach with The Alliance and Editor-at-Large for leading business publisher Kogan Page. You can read her blogs at www.lizgooster.com and http://goosterontheloose.wordpress.com/ and follow her on twitter at @bizclasscoach and @publishingcynic

by Liz Gooster (BC11)

‘Coaching should be more whisky and less water.’ This was the standout quote for me in Sir John Whitmore’s presentation at the recent Meyler Campbell fishbowl event. Rightly famous as one of the founding fathers of coaching, in business, sport and life, Sir John has also been a champion racing car driver, a ski coach and aHollywood film producer. An extraordinary character, just months after being hospitalised and in a coma as a result of a dramatically bad skiing accident, Sir John treated us to a breathstopping overview of coaching, the world economy, and everything in between.

As a newly-qualified coach whose training kicked off with Sir John’s bestselling Coaching for Performance, personally I would have preferred to trade some of the big-picture analysis for a nitty gritty display of the man himself coaching using the GROW model. However, it’s fair enough for someone who laid the foundation stones of coaching in the first edition of his book, more than 20 years ago, to want to move on to pastures new, and it was impossible not to be impressed by his vigour and forthright opinions. Standing straight and tall as a ship’s mast, he covered an exhausting range of topics in a voice booming like a captivating cannon ball. His wide-ranging speech leapt energetically from theme to theme, the core thread being that people skills are vital at a personal, organisational and even global level. The presentation was peppered with personal stories and tales of the colourful characters Sir John has met in the course of a life so eventful it would leave most of us reeling with fatigue.

Demonstrating the value we bring to clients is a constant challenge for coaches. You couldn’t get a clearer illustration of return on investment than Sir John’s example of the Royal Navy’s field gun race. This is a gruelling military competition that has been held for over a century. A top team of elite soldiers disassembles a massive gun, carries its crushingly heavy components over an obstacle course and then reassembles it at the other end – all against the clock, and against a competing team of equally finely honed men. I was enthralled to hear how a field gun team whose leader applied a coaching approach to training (having himself been trained by Sir John) raced to unprecedented victory, winning all five available cups in the tournament. Not only this, the team sustained just one injury (a broken wrist) during training, compared with an average of 16 in non-coaching teams. They went on to repeat the feat over three consecutive years. As Sir John said, ‘the results speak for themselves’. This is a stirring example of how coaching can help achieve seemingly unattainable results. (Follow the link to watch a video of the 1999 field gun race) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32s4qCCFnmk)

Less dramatic, but no less impressive, was the golf coaching video we watched, in which Sir John coached a novice golfer while a golf pro taught another using traditional training methods. The video was rather dated, and so the backdrop to the film was a row of slightly sinister looking players with 1970s moustaches and loose, grubby-looking outfits, a bit like the men in the ‘118 directory enquiry’ ads. Beyond these amusing distractions, the results again spoke for themselves. The lucky player who was coached by Sir John came across as relaxed, excited by her progress and energised by the whole process. The other was less fortunate: she appeared stressed, overwhelmed and confused. She made progress in her golf, but not as much as the coached player, and from an observer’s viewpoint, she’d had a less fulfilling journey.

So where does the whisky come in? Sir John cautioned us firmly against using wordy questions with our coaching clients, a warning which I’m sure resonated with several members of the audience, including me. Stick to the simple, clear and concise, he exhorted. This is the coaching equivalent of going easy on the water you add to your whisky, which dilutes its kick. Like an unstoppable train, he told us that ‘if your coaching doesn’t work, you’re not doing it right’ and reminded us that the responsibility falls back on us as coaches to adjust our approach until it’s effective. A legend of the coaching turf indeed, and a pleasure to hear him speak. Now, where did I put that whisky?

* Credit goes to Dena Arstall for the title of this post

(to read more from Liz go to her blog (http://www.lizgooster.com/2011/11/14/legends-of-the-coaching-turf-sir-john-whitmore/)

By Liz Gooster (BC11)

In the ‘posh tent’ ambience of the lunchroom, we settled into our starters of fresh asparagus and smoked salmon, with a crisp glass of pink fizz. Outside, we could see a giant boat-shaped pod in a gaudy shade of candyfloss pink, suspended high up in the air and overflowing with ferny plants and frondy leaves. As we watched, it was raised and lowered by the overarching arm of a huge metal crane. Across from the floating pod, and just out of sight, was a tall glass tower sectioned into cubby holes packed with shredded books, straw, peat plant pots and other enticing paraphernalia, each ‘room’ in the ‘insect hotel’ a perfect mecca for small birds and insects. We smiled contentedly across our heavily linened table, now loaded with a light fish main, perfectly cooked and served with a creamy primrose yellow sauce. Where else could we be but Chelsea Flower Show, the annual festival of flowers and creative gardening? The pink pod was part of Dermott Gavin’s Irish Sky Garden, described as ‘a flying machine, hanging Eden and reflective launch pad’. This bright, daring, frankly astonishing concept was inspired by the Giant’s Causeway in Ireland and by the visual effects in the film Avatar. It won the RHS People’s Choice Award for large gardens. The glass tower was part of B&Q’s show garden, a geometric joy of landscape architecture, combining flowers, herbs, vegetables and trees in pleasing straight lines and smooth curves. My green-fingered hostess was particularly impressed by the neatly plenched mulberries.

It was my first ever visit to Chelsea, and it was stunning. My marvellous coaching author, Anne Scoular, had invited me, and I’d accepted eagerly, not yet realising the riot of colour, rainbow of greenery and botanical prowess that awaited me. It was the Rio Carnival of the gardening world. We prowled around the show gardens, marvelling at the miraculous blue of the pool in the Monaco garden and the smorgasbord of greens in the Tourism Malaysia jungle. We found fault with the overly graphic blood vessel tubes in the British Heart Foundation display and criticised the drab concrete pillars in the Daily Telegraph’s entry. It could not have been a more idyllic summer day with a blissful blue sky and a sun that shone especially beguilingly, just for Chelsea. It was a floral fairground, with wildly artistic plantings everywhere you looked.

The highlight for me was the Great Pavilion, a vast, tented hall of horticultural delights. Banks of heavy-scented lilies made me swoon, I was captivated by the sleek, colour-themed arches that Interflora had created and enchanted by endless groves of spring flowers, verdant foliage and soft foxgloves. There were dewy roses of every imaginable hue, cheek-by-jowl with spiky carnivorous plants. There were bright peonies, dusky lavender bushes, Spanish torero jackets woven from leaves and flowers. But the biggest gasps were drawn by the audacious Thai temple, a full-size reconstruction made of 150,000 multicoloured everlasting flower heads in vibrant colours and countless plaited banana leaves. It had taken 60 people three months to make it in Thailand and a further eight people two days, working a solid 24 hours a day, to assemble it in Chelsea. A truly magnificent spectacle.

The Great Pavilion is the dazzling heart of the Show and is like a fantasy greenhouse for keen gardeners and an overwhelming sensory spectacle for those like me who are less blessed in the green-fingers department. The array of visitors is almost as interesting as the exhibition of plants. Uniformed Chelsea pensioners, resplendent in poppy red, mill around with well-deserved pride, floaty ladies of a certain age and smart-jacketed men in Panama hats mingle with young enthusiasts in muddy boots who look as if they’ve just stepped out of their own garden. Waves of frisson surging through the crowds signal the presence of a celebrity here and there. But mostly, and I found this warmly reassuring, the Chelsea Flower Show attendees are just like the customers you’d typically see in the aisles of your local garden centre on a Sunday afternoon. A day of beauty: my first visit to Chelsea, and I hope not my last.