Working towards a workshop: first workshop notes

The first workshop (briefing) was held on Friday and, while participants were broadly positive about it, there are a few major tweaks needed. I think the strongest part of the entire briefing was the range of knowledgeable and interested participants. It was scary to focus my marketing on key people as I was afraid that I wouldn’t get sufficient attendance but people appreciated the quality of the other participants.

The tweaks needed are:

• The three hour format of the briefing requires discussion between participants so I placed some questions in the presentation and also had some separate questions written down. There is a need, however, to wrap more examples around the questions so that participants have a better idea of what I am trying to communicate and the subsequent discussion is more fruitful. This is particularly important for Myth 1 as it is the most common myth and my dissection of this myth does not dismantle it but uses the myth as a point of discussion. Several good case studies to show how longer term, thematic investing can drive performance and enable investing for good should finish out that section (and enable an easier push to three hours).
• The SASB materiality map received good reception. It is commonly used in the US but less well-known here. I think it might be useful to excise a relevant few issues and industries that speak to the majority of the participants. This should help spur greater discussion during myth 2.
• There were two interesting examples from the participants relating to myth 3 and the use of the technological/consumer preferences/regulatory framework:
  • Meat and Livestock Australia with deforestation free beef is an example of the three factors driving investment and it was good to see participants diagnose a range of other investment opportunities through this framework
  • I proposed that the investability of Uber had reduced due to several factors, regulatory and technology, becoming more negative. A participant suggested that there was still consumer preference growth, particularly for the aging population who are less mobile.
• Finally, I over-catered but I did that because, at worst, people might say that the briefing was not great but the food was!

Most participants who I didn’t already have a consulting job with have subsequently begun discussions on how they can engage me. I also have another briefing on Monday Oct 29 for a major engineering and advisory firm.

An exec summary of the slides is here