No. 58: If you are doing the opening speech at a conference….

Today I had the honour of giving the opening speech at the Water Industry Supplier Conference in Birmingham, England. Here are a few things I wish I had known beforehand. Hindsight is a wonderful thing:

1. Timing: If you are giving the opening speech then, here’s a thought, actually be there for the opening. Turning up 45 minutes late is wrong on so many levels. On the plus side having the opening speech as the third talk of the day made for a quirky change. The organisers (WWT) were very gracious. My claim that I was late due to bad weather (it’s England, it’s late November, why was I surprised?) and congested traffic was suitably pathetic. I really should have known better.
   
   
2. Dress Code: How you dress says a lot about you. A few weeks ago I bought some new shoes. They came with (trendy, eye catching) purple laces, which I have been meaning to change. On various occasions I have noted people clocking my purple laces, purple shirt and purple ties and (incorrectly) concluding that I am the sort of man who carefully coordinates his clothing ensemble every morning. I don’t. And I am just a little offended that people think I might be. However this pales into insignificance when compared with the looks I got today from people who spotted my purple laces and how they clashed dramatically with the bright pink shirt I happened to be wearing. Today people were thinking that I am the sort of man who carefully plans his clothing ensemble…and gets it drastically wrong. It was not a good feeling.
   
   
3. Content: My talk was titled ‘Survival of the Fittest: Lessons learnt from the history of the water industry’. Even if I say so myself, it was a great topic. I had enormous fun researching it and was keen to share my findings. I had about 120 fascinating facts and anecdotes. 25 minutes was not nearly long enough to do them justice. As we neared my cut off point I had to be brutal with which stories I could tell and which I needed to abandon. Fortunately I shared a few of my favourites: for example, the fact that in Joseph Browne’s 1707 book he stated that cold baths could ‘cure scrofula, rickets, weakness of Erection and general disorder of the Codpiece Economy’. (I am not even sure what the ‘codpiece economy’ is, but its cold baths for me from now on!). Or the fact that the monks at Canterbury managed to evade the Black Death in 1348. It was initially thought they achieved this because of the power of prayer, which may well have been the case. The 5 primitive settling points and sand filters installed at the monastery probably also helped.

Despite the above, it was a great conference. Networking with likeminded, capable, passionate people is always good fun. Next year I might even turn up on time…