Today’s guest blogger is Jonna Abelsson,a 32 year-old, born and raised in Trollhättan, Sweden. She now lives in Gothenburg, is a little sister, a child of divorce, an indie kid, an HIV-preventor, she talks on the radio on P3 Christer and she’s also an anglophile. She thinks that Ben Gibbard is a genius. She read Nina Björk's "Under det rosa täcket" at the age of 23 and got quite an awakening. She gets upset thinking about narrow-mindedness, SUVs in the inner city, global injustice, sexism and people’s lack of humility. Likes: Commitment, love, good food, champagne & juice, good music, rock biographies and Paul Auster.
In English, the phrase "Show & Tell" is associated with teaching schoolchildren how to talk in front of a crowd of people by holding some sort of presentation on a topic chosen in advance, or about something they’ve brought with them from home. My friend Annika told me a while back that she and some friends from Umeå had brought the concept to Norrland and had made a version of their own..
They had also moved the activity, from some kind of strained classroom situation and people with whom you were forced together, to a living room comprising only close friends. And they had simply discovered a brilliant way to spend time with their best buddies, and a way that they could also learn interesting facts about something completely random as well as teaching their friends brand new stuff. As a little added bonus, people that had previously been a bit scared to talk in front of people got a chance to talk about something they in which were interested in front of people they liked and knew.
So. Show & Tell means that you meet up with a bunch of friends on any day / evening. You can get snacks / food / drinks, which adds to the atmosphere, but if you’re broke and skip the frills then that’s okay too.
You decide in advance who’s going to Show & Tell that day. Next time it’s someone else's turn. The only rule we have is that you can’t show & tell something that is directly related to one's job because it’s too boring and predictable. The idea is that you learn something about your friends that you might not already know. I learned that a close friend competed in diving as a young teenager at an elite level, that another was shark expert, that another knew basically everything about dachshunds, and how one was an expert on crocheting who put several people to work during the presentation. Not to mention how many people have a wonderful obsession with Star Wars, for example. Of course, I know a lot about Star Trek Voyager and have surprised friends with my geeky knowledge of Starfleet, the Klingon language, the Delta Quadrant, the Borg and the USS Voyager NCC-74656. So apart from you learning a lot, you also get the chance to show a whole new side of yourself to your loved ones. You can make your own PowerPoint presentations, gadgets, demonstrations, pamphlets, films or just talk passionately about something that you like and are good at, without a lot of props.
It’s highly recommended. I get happy just thinking about it.
Required time:
1 day or less
Cons:
Nervousness if you dislike speaking in public, otherwise none.
Pros:
You learn something new, on unknown subjects and perhaps about your friends. You also get to practice speaking in public and get a chance to socialize in a new way with friends.
