What do Chinese doctors, Python and brain capacity have in common?

COVID-19. The term of the year 2020 of course, yet a close second might be innovation. At ORMIT this is a word that has really come to life in the past couple of months. Take the renowned summer event for example, where all Dutch and Belgian trainees are brought together for a full-day training and of course socializing, that could not take place in its usual format. However both staff and trainees stepped up to the challenge and organized a fully digital summer snack festival. During the week of the festival, one hour sessions (or snacks) were organized every morning and noon. Staff members and trainees who had a strong interest or experience in a certain topic shared their findings in a bit-size format so that we all could get a flavor of the topic and immediately start using their takeaways.

“A summer snack festival? What to think of that? I prefer my snacks in real life, not digital”, I thought when first hearing about this new concept. Past experiences with web lectures at university had made me somewhat skeptical and biased towards digital training, coursework, etc. Sessions that consist of way too long monologues accompanied with some boring slides and zero interaction. No, thank you. And how to fit these trainings into my day-to-day work schedule? Usually training takes a different kind of mindset and rhythm than an ordinary working day. However, knowing that ORMIT trainings always center around interaction and practice rather than theory, I bought my festival ticket (aka accepted the Zoom invite) and joined with an open mind. How did it go?

There were some things I particularly liked about this new style of training:

• Really everyone of ORMIT was involved and working together, staff and trainees, Belgium and The Netherlands. This broadened the views within the audience and made interaction more interesting
• All presenters were very passionate about their topic as they were sharing their own learnings
• A great variety in topics: from start to code to understanding the infinite game and even how to make spring rolls
• No ‘keuzestress’ or FOMO as you could watch the recordings of missed or overlapping sessions anytime, anywhere afterwards
• The short snacks mixed into my regular working day did increase my workload for that day, but the variation of training vs daily activities gave me an energy boost that improved my productivity, so overall there was a positive effect

For me personally, this revised way of training and knowledge sharing is definitely one to keep in mind for future initiatives. It proves that physical presence is not necessarily a hard requirement to share your knowledge and interests with other people. Next to that it showed me that leveraging the passions and (non-)work related experience of the people in your team can lead to surprising insights on the richness and diversity of your organization. By sharing all these diverse topics internally, new ideas and innovation can flourish – which is a strength that will keep your organization in the infinite game (a world view which was explained during one of the snacks).

Oh, and if you’re still wondering what Chinese doctors, Python and brain capacity have in common? This is what I learned this week:

• Chinese doctors get paid when you stay healthy, not when you’re ill. It’s all a matter of perspective and incentive. So keep an open mind and practice opposite thinking from time to time, especially when stuck in a routine
• I should really think about my broader purpose in life or in other words ‘just cause’, both in a professional and private settings. This will help me keep my north in many decisions to come
• Python is a really powerful tool in the data-driven world of today. Learning how to use it might be a very useful ‘superpower’ to future-proof your career
• Your brain capacity is one of my most valuable resources and multi-tasking not switch-tasking is the way to go to still have some ‘headspace’ in the evening

Emma