2018 Springboard Roadshow kicks off in Tamale
The 2018 Springboard Roadshow, which is a nationwide tour that provides personal development, coaching and mentoring, kicked off last Saturday in Tamale in the Northern Region.
The programme, which also aims at human capital development and social transformation, is a month-long event which will be held in four zones; Northern belt in Tamale, Middle belt in Kumasi, Western belt in Cape Coast and Global convocation in Accra.
The programme is an initiative of the Springboard Roadshow Foundation, in partnership with Legacy@Legacy and supported by MTN, Ecobank, FirstBanC, Enterprise Life, Persol Systems and Databank. The theme for this year’s event is: “Leveraging Strategy and Technology.”
Speakers at the event included the Senior Manager, Corporate Communications of MTN Ghana, Mrs Georgina Asare Fiagbenu; the Group Chief Marketing Officer of Databank Group, Mrs Gillian Hammah; the Executive Director of the Springboard Roadshow Foundation, Mrs Comfort Ocran, and the Co-Founder of Springboard Roadshow Foundation, Rev. Albert Ocran, who was the keynote speaker.
Thousands of people participated online, with some sending in their questions and having them answered by the panellists.
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Mr Gordon Dery, Head of Marketing, FirstBanC, presenting a cheque with seed money for an investment account to a student of UDS
Defining moments
In his keynote address, Rev. Ocran urged the participants to seize their defining moments in life to turn their lives around.
He described a defining moment as a period in life where one makes a decision that has the power to influence the rest of the individual’s life.
Using the story of a Canadian musician, Dave Caroll, Rev. Ocran took the participants through how the musician’s defining moment catapulted him to greatness.
“If you will make significant progress in life, then you will have to seize important moments that are unique and different. There are days in life that you come across opportunities that, when taken, can turn your life around,” he stated.
“One day can make a difference,” he added.
Mrs. Salomey Bruku of MTN Ghana presenting souvenirs to a participant during the WOW Moment
Dave Carroll’s story
In the year 2008, Dave Carroll was travelling from Halifax, Nova Scotia, to Omaha, Nebraska, with a layover at Chicago’s O’Hare airport.
As he was getting ready to get off the plane, he heard another passenger say, “My God! They’re throwing guitars out there!”
As Dave and the other band members looked out onto the tarmac where the luggage were being unloaded, they recognised the guitars. Later he discovered that his US$3,500 Taylor guitar’s neck had been broken.
Dave tried for nine months to get a claim processed with United Airline but the response was a firm and consistent “no.” They claimed he had waited longer than 24 hours to process a claim, so he was out of luck.
On July 6, 2009, he decided to write a song and produce a video. The song was titled: “United Breaks Guitars.” He put it up on YouTube and it went viral.
His dream was that if a million people watched his song on YouTube in a year, he would be very successful at amplifying his complaints.
By the close of day, the song had garnered 150,000 views and as of now, the song has been viewed by 17.8 million people across the world.
As the song became an internet phenomenon, the news media picked up the story and soon, newspapers and news broadcast media across North America were doing stories about the song.
Dave became a sought-after guest on many radio and TV shows where, of course, he retold the story of “United Breaks Guitars”. He did over 200 interviews in the first few months. He has also been invited all over the world to speak about customer service.
Some of the participants at the event
Observation
Sharing his observations from the story, Rev. Ocran said: “From a musician who was about to give up on his music and had already applied for a job as a firefighter, it took just one incident and experience and he became not just a great musician but an author, speaker and a customer service advocate.”
“Amazingly, he spent very little on the video. He got a few volunteers to help him and the budget for the whole video was a US$150, yet his career was turned around completely,” he noted.
He said the story of the musician was a clear example of combining strategy and technology to create wealth.
Mrs Comfort Ocran sharing tips on social media and technology as enablers for personal development
Lessons
Touching on the lessons that could be learnt from the story, he said for an individual to succeed in life, there should be a clear strategic intent.
“The most successful people in life are those that have a clear idea about what they want to do. You will not succeed in life by accident,” he pointed out.
He also noted that using the relevant technology brings results.
“You will not need every technology in the world so find out what you actually need to carry out your strategy,” he said.
Solid recommendations
Ms Georgina Fiagbenu, also speaking at the roadshow, pointed out that a solid recommendation was far more important than an inflated curriculum vitae (CV).
“Over and over again we see quite a number of people who have gone through school but sometimes may not have that much experience but before you know they are calling themselves consultants and experts in their fields,” She stated.
“Sometimes when you look at people’s CVs, it is as if they are chief executive officers of big international companies but when you give them work to do, most of them are not up to the task,” she added.
She said it was, therefore, good to get someone with a very good recommendation because such people always turned out to be good.
“Recommendations give you lot of credibility in the job market,” she stated.
Various participants won prizes from the sponsors in the WOW Moments, which have become an integral part of the annual roadshow.
