StarMaker HK

12/05/2022

Walking along a riverbank in the Sacramento, California area this weekend, I came upon this message: One day you'll wake up and there won't be any more time to do the things you've always wanted to do. DO IT NOW.

End of February in Hong Kong, during my morning reflections the message came through: "Have the courage to change the things you can."

I booked a roundtrip flight to San Francisco with a return to Hong Kong in early July. I had no clue where I would go once I landed, beyond my first stop at a dear friend's home and my determination to see my daughter and brother.

I now find myself on a trip that is taking me to Chicago, New York, London, Spain, Portugal and France before heading back to San Francisco and home to Hong Kong.

Grateful for the freedom to have choices when so many around the planet are in dire conditions they are unable to escape.

Also so thankful to old friends who are welcoming me into their homes during this unplanned, un-plotted trip, and for the chance to see and work with a some of our overseas clients, face-to-face, while I'm on the road.

Is there something you need the courage to change? Could you "Do It Now"?

08/04/2022

A few years back Caitlin McClure (she/her) and Theresa Robbins Dudeck, PhD approached StarMaker's Founder, Teresa Norton to write a chapter on how she apply improv theater tools and techniques to coaching for a book they were planning.

Teresa was invited to join a posse of contributors that included friends she'd met through her involvement with (AIN) over the years.

"Applied Improvisation: Leading Collaborating and Creating Beyond the Theatre", contains page after page of fascinating, practical case studies, worksheets and activity descriptions for everything from brand development to the mediation of legal disputes, supporting autistic youth to oncology nursing, making science accessible to leadership development.

And now it's been released in Japanese! Brava, Theresa and Caitlin!

Whether you work in L&D, academia, healthcare or just want to learn how to take the tools that improv theater performers use to collaborate and co-create in real time, you'll want a copy of Caitlin and Theresa's curated collection.

So thrilled to be holding a copy of Applied Improvisation: Leading, Collaborating and Creating Beyond the Theatre translated into Japanese!... 24 comments on LinkedIn

31/03/2022

Sam Bobertz 包本山 and I are proud to be Howspace Business Partners. This superlative tech tool for facilitating highly interactive virtual and hybrid events, brainstorms and training sessions, has supercharged our StarMaker sessions for clients including Lane Crawford, Catapult by CapitaLand, HR Magazine and LinkedIn.

Check out the video below and take a free test drive here
to learn how simple it is to move from "What, again?" to "What's next?!"

Howspace is an AI-powered online platform that brings digital collaboration and social learning to the forefront of your process & development initiatives.

20/03/2022

So what's your story? Whether you are interviewing for a new role, pitching for business or presenting to persuade your audience, storytelling is key to getting your message across in ways that get remembered.

It was a pleasure to work again with members of The Women's Foundation's Mentoring Programme on the power of story - sharing tools for structuring presentations, addressing audience needs, and presenting with confidence.

Here's tip to keep in mind when presenting your solution to an existing problem.

If your audience is familiar with the issue, spend just 20% of the time recapping the problem, and 80% of the time on how you propose to solve it.

If your audience is not aware of the issue, 80% of your presentation needs to help them understand what caused the problem and the effect it is having, and 20% on what steps need to be taken to solve it.

Want to learn more about "strategic" storytelling? Sam Bobertz 包本山 and I are always happy to help.

16/03/2022

When the employee experience is exceptional, the customer experience is exceptional and "exceptional" rolls downhill. It starts with leaders who develop self and social awareness and as a result begin making better choices when interacting with their teams.

I'm in California at the moment and got a chance to talk with Los Angeles-based CEXpert Maxine Shapiro about my theater-based approach to leadership coaching along with some of the tools that Sam Bobertz 包本山 and I have used with our clients.

Maxine opens and closes the podcast with a great Customer Experience story. Have a listen and let me know what you think makes for great Customer and Employee Experience.

#005 How do components of the theatre make for a powerful leader whom employees want to follow? Colleague and friend, Teresa Norton, Founder of StarMakerHK, shares her decades of work with top-level executives. She goes into depth explaining her ...

04/03/2022

I had a wonderful time last week with the women who joined me for our "Strategic Storytelling" workshop, as part of The Women's Foundation Mentorship Program 2022.

A big thank you to Fiona Nott for inviting me back again this year to run a session on the power of storytelling as an influencing tool for women.

With close to 100 TWF members signed up for the workshop, I'm so grateful to the TWF team headed by Alexandra Hong who made sure the technical side of things ran smoothly.

In just an hour and 45 minutes we explored and experimented with:

- Building a narrative story structure

- Sharing ideas with clarity and brevity

- Strategic storytelling as a tool for influencing

- Identifying what your audience needs to feel to act on your message

- Status as both a mindset and a set of specific behaviors

- Improv approaches to creating a more collaborative environment

And we all had such fun together! A much needed confidence boost and mood elevator for us all.

21/01/2022

Some strategies for navigating disagreements in this excerpt from the panel discussion Sam and Teresa were invited to join as part of the Global Mental Wellbeing Summit 2021.

By way of introduction, Teressa asked us to talk about how we work around the challenges of being mother/son business partners.

The last suggestion in this clip is the one that feels most important to Teresa but it takes reflection, ownership and a willingness to swallow ones pride.

03/01/2022

Relationships that are healthy and built to last - that's what I value most and what I wish for you as we head into the . Here's some of what I've learned about how to sustain them.

https://bit.ly/starmaker-investinpeople

LinkedIn always asks "What do you want to talk about?" I want to talk about lasting, abiding relationships. When I was a Girl Scout we'd sing "Make new...

30/12/2021

A new year is ahead of us, offering an opportunity for us to "burn brightly", lighting the way for those who will follow us. What examples of living life fully, leading courageously, and contributing generously come to mind when you think of the "splendid torch" you have been passed?

24/12/2021

Reflecting, as we come to the end of 2021, on the year's highlights for us at STARMAKER HK. In October we were delighted to be panelists as part of Teressa Siu and Veronica Tan's "Global Mental Wellbeing Summit 2021".

The panel discussion was around the importance of men paying attention to their mental and emotional health.

When Sam Bobertz 包本山 began working with me, he brought with him his interest in psychology and a fresh perspective on what might look like. A couple of things I've learned from my son and business partner:

1) The danger of "unhealthy harmony" - healthy conflict shouldn't be avoided, it can be a catalyst for mutual understanding.

I prefer to move around, over, beyond uncomfortable conversations to avoid conflict. Sam is better at carving out time to talk about the difficult stuff.

2) The importance of "double clicking" - if you aren't sure what the other person means, ask them to clarify.

As family members, we can fall victim to closeness-communication bias - not listening because we assume we know what the other person is saying and making assumptions about what they want or need.

Teressa Siu began the panel discussion by asking Sam and I to share what we do and how we began working together eight years ago...

23/12/2021

Season’s Greetings from StarMaker - https://mailchi.mp/starmaker/christmas21

22/12/2021

The or of an individual or a group describes their mental and physical . For any organic system to grow and thrive sustainably it needs to first be "well enough".

It means a lot to us at Starmaker to be included in this years HR Magazine 2021 Awards! There are some companies in the running that do such important work and it was just a delight to be counted amongst them.

Too often it takes a traumatic experience for us to really appreciate what we have. The impacts of has brought the need for wellness into mainstream conversations.

Each and everyone of us has an opportunity to steer the course of history by actively engaging as 'agents of culture' and making sure we are placing wellbeing a the central prism through which we make our decisions.

Thank you everyone who has supported us over the last several years, we couldn't have done it without you!