Reflections of a #Voomer
Not the most flattering photo of me mid-Voom-pitch, that I could post but one that illustrates how I feel post Virgin Media Business Pitchathon. Hands up I came out thinking I gave it my best but reflecting on what I didn't say, as much as what I did, I'm not sure that was good enough.
So if my Voom story ends here what have I learnt? I'm not one to look back and say if only...I'm more of a forward looking person that asks what if...? But I do believe in the value of reflection. Being judged in just 8 minutes feels strangely to mirror the education system we are trying to disrupt. No matter how prepared you are when you walk into the exam hall you never know what questions are coming up, how your thinking will be clouded by the situation and how you may run out of time to get your points across.
When I was at school (back in the day!) it was O'levels that determined our next steps. Throughout my schooling I had been mostly an above average student. Always doing enough to stay the right side of the C grade but never engaged enough to push for straight As. For me school was a social space - I wasn't interested enough to push for excellence. But I did love Geography. I loved the way it helped me understand the natural world around me - how the power of water could carve out our landscape in different ways depending on whether it was liquid or frozen. I loved the way we could gain insight into the human world by learning about gold mining in Zambia which told many different stories depending on what angle you looked at it. So this was set to be the one O Level that I'd get my A grade - guaranteed as I was going to study it at A Level.
The time came to sit my exam and I opened the paper and it couldn't have been better; a question on glaciers and a question on Zambia's gold industry. I aced it. At least that is what I thought - until I got my results and the grade against Geography was an E! I couldn't believe it. It just didn't make sense. I had known my subject inside out and it was like the paper had been written for me.
I was determined to continue to study Geography and went to the Sixth Form and told them that the grade was wrong, I didn't know why I had failed it but I shouldn't have. I persuaded the college to give me one month to prove that I could 'cope' with the academic study at a higher level. They agreed and of course I continued through to the end of the A Level course and came out with a Grade A. Ironically I didn't go any further with studying Geography at a higher level, choosing instead to study Management Science at UMIST. But I had proved to myself that failure can be followed by success - it's what you do once you've failed that matters.
So going forward from here, it is not about what happened during those 8 minutes at Voom 2016 (I can't change that) but what happens from this point on. Three years ago I set out to change the educational landscape and if, at the Pitchathon, I failed to communicate our vision and the scale of our potential business I'll find success via a different route. That is after all the ethos of Explorium - to be whatever you can and imagine a land of opportunity.
What if...nothing is impossible?!