Should you part ways to pathways?

The simple answer is... it depends.

Depends on what?

Before I start to bore you, for those reading, please note that this post is a followup to a speech project from the Technical Presentations Advanced Manual delivered on Thursday March 1st 2018 at the Talk Tsu Toastmasters (#00788773) club in Trinidad and Tobago.

I'll upload my slide deck sometime soon, however, you don't necessarily need to see the presentation but it may help.

In any case, let's get back to the matter at hand which is deciding when to part ways from the traditional Toastmasters Educational program to the Pathways Learning Experience.
(I know that you love the play on words with the "part ways") The answer really depends on a number of factors mainly:

1. Has the Pathways reached your region?
2. How long again does your Region have before the transition period ends?
3. How far along are you in the Traditional program?
4. How far do you intend to reach in the Traditional program?
5. How fast do you intend to reach to your goal in the Traditional program and how possibly is it?

As leaders, we need to set SMART goals and have an adaptive, realistic plan. By adaptive, I mean you need to have some elements of AGILE and be able to respond to changes over stubbornly sticking to a plan which may not be relevant given new circumstances.


Personally, at this time Pathways has not reached my region however it will be here within 2 months. I however personally aim to achieve DTM before the transition period is over and at the time of writing and I am two speeches away from ACB. I usually do two speeches a month and if I push can extend that to 4 so I believe that I can attain it.

Also, as a Pathway Guide, I aim to get District Officer credit and I'm actively looking at club coaching and/or mentoring opportunities. So for me, I will start Pathways but I won't push it until I am closer to my DTM.

I will however aim to complete some levels so that my club can get its DCP points especially during the transition period where clubs can aim for points using either the traditional or pathways program as shown below.

Finally, my advice is, if you're new to Toastmasters, haven't progressed so far in the traditional program and you want more avenues to develop, then get going immediately on Pathways (as soon as it's possible of course!).

If however, you are like me and have goals in the traditional program that you can achieve with the transition period, then why not continue. Worst case scenario, you achieve some and when Pathways comes on stream you would start it. However, do try to help out the club DCP by at least doing some Pathways projects when you can. ☺

Thanks again for visiting. If you were at the presentation or have something to say about this post feel free to leave comments, questions and suggestions.


More Pathways information can be found using these links:

Toastmasters Magazine article
https://www.toastmasters.org/~/media/D68AD58C08A4439F9D55A2ABD6CBE5EE.ashx


District 57 Pathways material
https://d57tm.org/pathways/

My "part ways" online quiz (More on this in another post)
https://goo.gl/forms/afcvs8AWPAa311Ip1

What exactly is this Pathways?

Hey everyone,

Firstly, thanks for taking the time to check out my blog. It's just like me, a work in progress, and I have taken an "AGILE" approach towards developing it #ProgressiveElaboration.

Anyways, you din't come here to rad my rambles (or did you?). You cam here to find out the answer to the question "What is Pathways?" and more importantly "How does it affect me?".

Well...

" Pathways is a modernized learning experience suited to our changing global society. It offers you more benefits and more opportunities to learn, grow and meet personal and professional goals. You now have the opportunity to develop additional skills you can use not just in your club, but at your job or in your community as well." (Toastmasters International)

Wow, that's a lot of text and it's taken from the Pathways FAQ. 

Simply put, Pathways is an upgrade to the Traditional Toastmasters Educational program. I use the term upgrade because it really expands the current program by offering so much more information, knowledge and opportunities for growth through application of the knowledge.

Whereas the traditional program had two main tracks, Pathways has ten (10) paths.

So, the main reason why it's important to you is that very soon (and I mean soon) Pathways will be the only Educational program within the Toastmasters system.

In case I wasn't clear

Don't worry, Toastmasters International understands that change takes time, so there is a transition period where clubs and members may choose to finish off some designations before moving over to Pathways.

No, you can't carry progress across, so if you're on your fifth (5th) CC speech when Pathways fully takes over, you can't carry that across.

Fear not, Toastmasters, as usual (round of applause for TI) has pulled together a super dream team to help clubs and members with the transition.

Fortunately for you, I am one of those guides.

So be sure to check in regularly, leave questions and comments and I'll try as best as I could to respond.

That's all for now folks.

Elgyasi has spoken!

Mobile opportunities in Trinidad and Tobago

Trinidad and Tobago (especially Tobago) is ripe for the sowing of mobile apps and the harvesting of serious profits. Mobile penetration in T&T is at one of the world's highest levels and maybe only Jamaica has more mobile subscribers per population than T&T (well they are bigger of course and have been exposed to mobile market liberalization longer).

What makes T&T ripe however is the people. Trinis love to try anything that seems hip, new and something the world is currently doing (don't we love to follow world trends). And guess what, mobile applications are the new trend just as PC games and software were in the olden days.

Let's face it though, it is sort of convenient to do stuff on your phone other than call or sms and mobile applications aim to exploit this convenience. I am sure that many of you Trinibagonians have wanted to do stuff using your phones years now (I'm not talking about taking nude pics or movies!!!) but you have been limited due to Nokia's reluctance to offer a "real" smartphone over the years (we all know Nokia was the official trinbagonian phone). However with devices such as the (RIM) BlackBerry, Iphone and Android devices all becoming mainstream, mobile applicaitons are growing and seem here to stay.

But, as usual we here are slow to react to such market news. Our businessmen and investors are too short-sighted and risk averse to capitalise on this potential piggy bank. Our people are unique and very creative and I am sure that a T&T designed mobile application can become a big hit worldwide. All we need is to encourage our talent (we do have plenty) and let the ideas flow. I for one can think of quite a few useful apps such as a toursim app (Tobago), supermarket apps, bank apps (not mobile websites or SMS messaging ), store apps, T&T games, etc.

Of course there are a lot more apps that can be made and I am sure you can think of many. So I'm asking, Trinis what mobile applications do you think would be helpful to your daily life?