Episode 9
· 41:16
Hello, everyone, and welcome back to NeuroSpicy at Work season 2. It's in truly neuroSpicy fashion that the last season ended a little bit without warning from all our points of view. We've decided to be agile and go with the flow and allow our team a lot more time off over the holidays than we initially planned. So the episode with Kristonia Hart was the last one of season 1. Welcome to season 2 where the next episodes are going to tackle even bigger topics around neurodivergence, the workplace, our role in society, and the way that each of us have arrived at being where we are in terms of acceptance and in terms of of needs that we're now recognizing as neurospice individuals at work.
Duena Blomstrom:A lot more surprises, including a potential big collaboration that I am excited to talk to you about. But above all, listen to the next episode that is featuring Craig Cockburn, who is a delightful guest that has spoken about his personal experience, his hyper focus on various academical topics, and the way he sees the world today. Enjoy. Craig Cockburn is someone whose name is quite reverberant in the agile community. He is a conference speaker, an agile strategist.
Duena Blomstrom:He has been a delivery specialist and really someone who has taught leadership and leads of transformation how to do things right for many, many years. Not only that, but but he is an award winning innovator and someone who has been through an incredibly colorful journey. Some of this journey is discussed here in this episode. You're going to hear about Craig's academic journey as well as the things that he's observing in the world today, a world that can use more adaptation and the world that isn't exactly built for those of us that are neurospicy. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to neurospicy at Zwark.
Duena Blomstrom:I have Craig Cockburn with us today. You've seen, and heard the little intro I've done before, so you know we're in for a treat. Thank you for accepting my invite, Craig.
Craig Cockburn:It's great to be here.
Duena Blomstrom:Yes. We were hoping that we can hear quite a bunch of things from yourself. I don't even know really where to start. I am a big fan of your work in the agile community. I've I've been following your your, your thoughts for for quite a while, and I was excited to hear that you'd be willing to speak about this side of things.
Duena Blomstrom:So first question, are you someone who would consider themselves neurodivergent? And if so, is there a diagnosis, and have you ever looked for 1?
Craig Cockburn:Well, I haven't ever really looked for 1. I've, and it's funny this really. When I look back, I go, yeah. It's obviously it's a spectrum, and there's some that are very much more more one end than the other. We don't really quite know where normal ends and where special adjustments come in.
Craig Cockburn:It's gonna be specific to the individual. Looking back, there's maybe some hints that was perhaps tending towards that neurodivergent sort of, thing, but it's never been so much of a a hindrance or or hampering me that I felt I needed some sort of, medical support, intervention, or diagnosis. I've just really carried on with my life. And, yeah, occasionally, there's some things that I find just excessively difficult, like, remembering people's names and, you know, when I was into singing, remembering song lyrics, I thought it was, like, really hard work. But, there's other things that have been a big advantage, and I was quite analytical.
Craig Cockburn:I did particularly well in school, and also, extra curricular hobbies I had at school, which I saw in Rubik's cube. And there was this tendency to just dive deeper and study things much more than perhaps would be expected even in primary school. And then, you know, I went on and got, you know, postgraduate degree class method distinction. And it's kinda like this intensity actually played to an advantage often. So it's just like, yeah, I was probably a little bit different, but but didn't really think about it in that area of, well, is this ADHD or is it autism or is it anything else to take that?
Craig Cockburn:It just didn't really come to mind. And it's only been in the last few years that I've been much more aware of this. You know, my wife being a a special needs teacher, works in special education. So she's very much working on children that have really a disability with their, you know, autism and and behavioral issues. So it's like yeah.
Craig Cockburn:It's just this huge spectrum of which perhaps most adults that we encounter are in in a limited section of it. And and really it's it's, through working with the neurodiverse community. Because I've worked with the British Computer Society, initially setting up helping to set up and stand in their committee for neurodiverse individuals and work with people diagnosis. And it's very interesting seeing some things that are similar and to some things that are different.
Duena Blomstrom:Very cool. But if you had to pick one and you said you would self diagnose, would you say, that there's a touch of ADHD? Would you say you're more classically autistic? Any of those, did you feel affiliation?
Craig Cockburn:I suppose without without sort of trying to self diagnose, I would say, yeah, maybe have a, like, a short attention span. I have, complained about certain things that would perhaps annoy people with ADHD, like excessive noise in supermarkets Mhmm. And things that are just, you know, similar to that. Yeah. Now it was a few years ago, somebody thought I I I might have, Asperger's.
Craig Cockburn:I know that time isn't used anymore. But then I book bought a book and I went, I can see some similarities there. Right. But at the same time, it's probably causing me a problem. So why should I bother?
Craig Cockburn:You know? It's it's just like that. So
Duena Blomstrom:Makes sense. So that's why you never thought to to go look for it and for money, and I can completely understand why most of us don't don't go that route. And it feels like much more trouble than than the gains of it. So, yes, that's where there is indeed
Craig Cockburn:I feel like if you're if you're struggling with something or finding it difficult to cope, then I could understand that that sort of diagnosis would greatly be beneficial. So, of course, I'm not discouraging anybody from trying to get a diagnosis and and appreciate from from talking to people, especially women, how difficult that can be.
Duena Blomstrom:Right. And and this is a good point you've touched on. Asperger's is no longer accepted as a diagnosis and yet there is a plethora of people out there who have had that as a as a label at one point in their lives. So I I do expect that. And I know from talking to people on the spectrum that they have been kind of left hanging going, well, what what is it then and how do I fit in?
Duena Blomstrom:And that's probably something that ideally the community is gonna come around to to to find better places for. But I like that we we we started directly delving into how neurodivergence, whether it has a diagnosis or not, whether it has a label or not, is and can be a an an asset. So you we were speaking about hyperinterest and how how potentially being able to to, to be super interested in something for a length of time has has served you over your life. So do you wanna give us a couple of examples of that?
Craig Cockburn:Yeah. Well, I don't know. So so I suppose maybe even the primary school was a couple of things. I've been started reading books, getting into, like, what's going on, space travel, reading a little bit about, you know, atomic theory, which is a bit weird to being in prime school. Right?
Craig Cockburn:And and also, that the calculator just come out, and I was experimenting with that. They were a bit odd back then. Some of them worked in the first post rotation, so I mastered that. And then I started sort of learning numbers like pi to 25 decimal places and e, the value of e, 2.18-1818, and 3414159655, and so on. And just like my mind had an ability to just suck numbers in and store them.
Craig Cockburn:And so I didn't quite understand that I was actually different to other people other than just I had this interest, particularly in numbers and science and processing information and trying to just solve puzzles. And, you know, so that was in primary school. I was perhaps a little bit more self educated and taking a motivational interest in learning education. And, you know, also, you see my my my my watch is normally my right hand because I'm left handed. So and and the teachers at school were quite backwards.
Craig Cockburn:They didn't really like left handed people, and they taught me to try and write like a right handed person. That didn't work. So I had to teach myself how to write. These sorts of things. And and what sort of then happened when I went to high school was, wasn't a sort of particularly standout people.
Craig Cockburn:And it's like and it was very interesting how this played out. And that I remember it was at one point in probably about 5th year of high school. I got about 45% in an English exam and 95% in a maths exam. And the the English teacher just couldn't understand why I was so good at one subject and so terrible at another. But but but the funny thing was with the English is that she gave us a book to read, and I went, this book's amazing.
Craig Cockburn:And I finished it off and then bought the the sequel and the sequel. And she says, I wanna do that book anymore. I mean, but but it's brilliant. Right? So it's like so when I'm really motivated to do something, I really get into it and I do it and and great.
Craig Cockburn:And if I'm not motivated to to do it, it it's a big turn off. And it's just like it's very hard to maintain focus, concentration, or even just in a level of alertness. It's almost like the brain goes, this is boring to switch me off.
Duena Blomstrom:Right.
Craig Cockburn:And so what happened and this this then was perhaps the first example at school of saying, look, I'm just gonna set myself a goal and do it. And I went to, Dumpling High School. It was the same school, the Andy Murray and and is from Dumpling, but it's got and it's a very good state school. It consistently ranks as one of the top 10 in Scotland. And, the the never in their history they were they weren't that old when I joined, so this isn't a big history.
Craig Cockburn:But they never in their history had a pupil that got more than 85% in a higher exam. That's the exam that you do to get to university in Scotland back then. And so I thought, well, that's my goal then. I'm just gonna do that. And so in maths, I was never in the top sort of 5.
Craig Cockburn:It was in the top 10%. And so I was just gonna set myself a goal to do that, and I did it. And I'm not just got over 85%. I got over 90%. So it's the first over 90% mark in the history of the school in any subject in one of the top schools in Scotland.
Craig Cockburn:And that's a sign of, I'm just relentlessly gonna focus on doing this thing, set myself to go and do it, which which was interesting because it set up a whole load of subsequent then events. The school then wanted me to go into Oxford and Cambridge, and I ended up going to Edinburgh. But then at Edinburgh, I was like, it was the opposite. It was this was far too theoretical, and I'm actually quite practical. And so I hated the subjects that I had been investing even though it was still maths.
Craig Cockburn:The maths became too theoretical and I was massively turned off by it. Although I did artificial intelligence and then got a merit in that, but I really, really, really struggled with that degree because my mind just could not appreciate and understand it and like it enough. It it delved way off into the theory and so we struggled. Then, then I went to, I I started my first job. I was in there for a few years.
Craig Cockburn:Got made redundant and then went back to university again to further my career prospects. And this time I was very careful about choosing something I was really interested in. And again, I went from really struggling with my undergraduate degree to then doing my postgraduate degree and getting the class medal in distinction. So you can see this massive swing between, I'm really interested motivated in this, and I'll break all break all the records on this. You know?
Craig Cockburn:People were still referring to my thesis 10 years later. And, at the same time when it's not something genuinely interested in, I really struggled to maintain that level of alertness and the weakness and interest and energy levels to keep me going. And and that's that's, I suppose, the sort of balance that I I struggle the most with. You know?
Duena Blomstrom:Right.
Craig Cockburn:And, again, later on, finish when I was finishing, I I really appeared to really ill health. I started a postgraduate diploma that was 6 months, and it was a 120 of us on that. And, again, I got another classmate in another distinction. So it's like when I'm really into it and almost when there's a bit of competitive that's going on as well. Right?
Craig Cockburn:You know? Yeah. Great marks. And when I'm not, it's just like I've I've just got to really force myself to to kinda get going.
Duena Blomstrom:I think this is a really important point that I'd like to make that very clear because we hear a lot in the community the, criticism from the neurotypical side of things where the objection is, obviously, if you're not motivated, you're not gonna be doing something willingly. We all have that problem. And I'd like to make this very clear for people listening. There is a marked difference between not being able to focus on a subject due to a lack of chemical in your brain and being unwilling to do so because it's not quite fun. The the difference is that of of course, you can still force yourself and excel in something if you must and if you're under duress or if you set yourself a goal, but it doesn't make it half as accessible as it would be to someone who has enough of the required chemical in their brain to keep that attention span for for something that they're not interested in.
Duena Blomstrom:So, yes, it's in common with across the the universal human spectrum, whether or not you're neurodivergent or neurotypical. But the lack of motivation for someone who has ADHD or is neurodivergent is debilitating, and it isn't something that can be overcome for many people. It is why some people are on medication. It is why some people have to have adaptation of different sorts. So kind of reducing it.
Duena Blomstrom:Yes. We all have motivation issues, and we all like some things more than others is genuinely not kind and not useful to anyone. So I really like that you've Yeah. You had really good examples of the fact that once we do become hyper interested in something, that capability of holding focus for enough time to to to to, to to gather knowledge is is crucial.
Craig Cockburn:Yeah. The the other thing that was actually different is that having been in industry, I've learned the skills of structure, which is absolutely critical. Now the big leap, of course, when I went from high school to university, it's a totally different, much more self directed learning environment, as well as, of course, having to live by yourself and organize the house and pay bills and travel and all that stuff. I just didn't have those skills. Whereas when I've been in the industry and come back, I definitely had those skills.
Craig Cockburn:And what I noticed a big difference was, I would set myself a timetable from postgrad. I would say, right. I'm gonna go to the university for 8 hours, do an 8 hour days if it's a full time job, do my study, maybe do extra hours as well, do all these extra things. Whereas before, in an undergraduate, it's like, so the journey to to university on a bike is about 20 minutes, and I'd leave the door at, like, 20 minutes too. And it's like, my timekeeping was just not great.
Craig Cockburn:I just assumed I'd get there. And of course, I'd arrive and I'd be out of breath, but I never really reflect and improve. I go, that wasn't a good experience, was it? Why didn't you give yourself 10 minutes more the next day? But somehow my brain just couldn't get into that level of being prepared and organized such that everything is orderly and laid out.
Craig Cockburn:It all just felt like I couldn't kind of motivate myself to act in the moment at the right time to prevent that sort of issue. Now it was never really late, but being the idea of being super early was just not a thing. It was like so it's funny how maybe even just experience of industry and skills learning actually helped me to to cope and deal with that.
Duena Blomstrom:Right. And this is a good point. As we, as we as we, went through life and as our experiences have accumulated, of course, that has helped us create adaptation networks that will best fit, the way that our executive function works, the way that our that our deeper thought process works. And, of course, that makes it easier. But that still doesn't take away that it sometimes takes a lot more effort for us to get into certain patterns than it would for people who would come natural to.
Duena Blomstrom:So what customer
Craig Cockburn:That that thing about more effort is perfectly valid. It's like, yes. I can do it. It's just my learning curve is different, and it takes much longer. It needs to be conscious and it might even need to be in a in a different way that I'm taught that particular thing.
Craig Cockburn:I've often thought and and my wife being a teacher, she shows me how the methods are for teaching children go well, Fine. You've got to impose this one way of teaching on people. But actually, it's often better for the person to find it for themselves what way works the best. As I find at school, me teaching myself actually worked hugely successfully for me. And and that's been my sort of story in life.
Craig Cockburn:It's just trying to work out what works for me rather than just assuming that the default way is the universal way.
Duena Blomstrom:This is actually a really good point that I very rarely touch on on this podcast and I should. The way that neurodivergent people approach learning is very diverse. Obviously it's very different for everyone. And indeed, that is a really good point that you've brought up. If we want people to have more access to education, we have to find a lot more customized ways of presenting information to them.
Duena Blomstrom:And if only schools and and and systems around the world would be slightly more intelligent in in and had more resources. A lot of it is not necessarily lack of knowledge, but an inability of having customized, educational tracks and programs for everyone that needs it differently. I see this firsthand in many ways. I've had autistic children myself, and I'm I'm I'm now, half homeschooling, my my my little one. And the difference between me explaining something to him related to the amount of attention that he can give me with my spidey senses as a mom, whether or not he's engaged versus him pretending he's engaged and masking to someone else in school is night and day.
Duena Blomstrom:So if only we had that type of support at all times, it would be better. Yeah.
Craig Cockburn:And it it's about finding the way that works. Because when you get that, it's fabulous. When I find that when I'm sitting down to write a conference talk, I can't just sit down and and just focus, focus, focus. It's more and and I said, Rob, I've talked about focus already. But something like that, I'm like do I was like, I'm holding so many ideas in my head at the same time.
Craig Cockburn:I've got to write them down, and then I do a little bit. And then after about 20 minutes, I'll just get tired. And then I've got to put it away, and then I'm going to do something else. And then I come back to it. So when I did my most recent conference talk in September, it really took me a good month of these little bits because too much was just timing out and I was getting bored and then coming back with fresh thoughts and fresh ideas.
Craig Cockburn:And that more incremental approach, which takes longer but actually, I think produces a better product. And and the other, thing about educational learning is that, I I I just wish that sometimes we'll just look around and learn what actually works. I mean, one of the things that I observed is, I used to go to conferences. You know, I went more before COVID and so go to them. But my observation about con conferences is that terrific content and terrific speakers, you you learn, you network, and everything else.
Craig Cockburn:But it was a bit like that analogy of, when it was a at my university, it was it was a struggle. The people had PhDs, the people were brilliant, the peep it was one of the leading centers of computing in Britain, if not the world. There just weren't very good teachers. Right? And there's a difference between knowing your stuff and teaching it.
Craig Cockburn:And when I went to, a conference, particularly if it was like maybe 3 days, after each day I'd go, how much did I really learn? And the difficulty is that, first of all, these people are not actually trained speakers. They're they're great at their subject matter, but they're not trained in the way of a TED speaker might be or a professional teacher might be. And then you're going to talk after talk after talk after talk. And although the conference went tremendous lens to cater for neurodiversity by having, say, a quiet room and a networking room and different types of environment where you could go to chill out and to whoever suited you.
Craig Cockburn:The at the end, it was like, there's probably a talks all presented in a different format. And after 3 days of that, I'd go, I'm I'm exhausted. Right? And and and and whether you had a diagnosis or not, I think a lot of actual people, whether a diagnosis or not in the spectrum, actually felt the same and go, surely there's a better way than this. So that we take 3 days out of our work, spend that time learning, and figure out a way of maximizing how much content we can actually remember afterwards and then go off and implement.
Craig Cockburn:Otherwise, it's a bit of a waste of money other than the great networking and social activities. Right? So it's like, so this then led me, after I've done my first talk today, how can I structure this talk in a better or different or more visual format, which then led me into more research around neurodiversity, which then led me to then change the talk and then give a talk on effectively how to give a talk? And when I was doing the research for that, I looked at things like TED. I mean, they've got books in this.
Craig Cockburn:Mhmm. It's just so think they talk about things that have a structure, have a format, take people on the story, lead off with this, and and have that structure. And also you've got to respect quite strict time box. Even if you just made that format visible, it would prevent people like me sitting at the top going, well, we're like 10, 15 minutes in, I don't even know where we're at or where we're going or what parts of the talk we're supposed to be in. If you had to book, you'd see which chapters you were in.
Craig Cockburn:Right? So it's like what I did was then present a sort of visual format for a speaker or somebody attending to at least make this real to say, we're here. We're going to go there. This is roughly how the talk's laid out, not just in terms of content, but in terms of time boxes. And when we've covered each time box and section, we'll do a short visual recap to remind you and put it up there.
Craig Cockburn:And then at the end of the talk, I put all that information up. So you've got the talk in summary format, and you can have that available when you're then asking questions. So that you don't have to then think back to what was said then. You've actually got it in front of you. So again, I'm facilitating that cognitive load to reduce the cognitive load.
Craig Cockburn:Never people don't like it then get so tired. I just went it just to me felt like an obvious thing because one of the things that I feel like I'm good at is saying, this is a problem. Let's figure out the solution. And I know, you know, my life have come up with great ideas to to solutions, but it's incredibly frustrating trying to launch a startup when no one else gets it or it's too early for the market to to figure out, which is why I'm, you know, listed in Wikipedia as having invented an early browser. The people at Brandyme just didn't get it, you know, or invented a job board and got in the newspapers in 1989.
Craig Cockburn:People didn't get what that was. It was 5 years before one launch. Mhmm. And it's it's very frustrating and creative to find the answers to genuine problems that affect 1,000,000, and then trying to articulate it in a way and get the support and people have ringed you that can then take that forward into a proper product or solution. That's been one of my biggest frustrations in life.
Craig Cockburn:Right?
Duena Blomstrom:I love that. I think we should we should keep out of that, taking your advice, the fact that having a visual roadmap and the reminder of where you are in your in the course of of what you're presenting as information is not only a kind adaptation for neurodiverse people, but across across the board useful for anyone in terms of listening cognitive load. Yeah. And I don't think it necessarily only applies to conferences. I'm a I'm a keynote speaker myself, and I like to do that because I know the power of it.
Duena Blomstrom:That's why I was a big, fan of Prezi back in the day. If you remember, it was able to get us in and out of the visuals of where the presentation was going. But I think we should take that outside of just the the the the realm of of giving long pieces of information and and bring it into the workplace. And we know as facilitators, and we have to find ways that everyone in the room gets what we're trying to say. So, of course, we'll do that.
Duena Blomstrom:But I think people who are not very adept at doing it might be missing it in meetings, for instance. It's only very recently really that the tech world has gotten around to giving an agenda before and a synopsis after, and AI is greatly helping with that. But if anyone listening to this is not doing it, absolutely go go check out what what Craig's, summary of the method was and apply that to your own meetings because you see a a market improvement in in talking to your to your, to your teammates, I think. Would you say
Craig Cockburn:that you're supporting in facilitating talk and the knowledge so so that talk is called the knowledge canvas. And apart from helping the people who are attending, it also helps the speaker. Right? Because I I became aware from researching this, the the mind maps of the advent teachers think particularly new diverse community. I get it, and they're useful, and this sort of writing things down and visualizing, it sort of helps to foster the connections in the brain from memory.
Craig Cockburn:Fabulous. Right? I'm not taking away from that at all. But I just figured that for a linear thing like a talk Mhmm. A thing that wasn't linear, my mind didn't really fit.
Craig Cockburn:So which is why I made it linear. And then by making it linear and maybe even color code it, you can start by saying, well, this is a talk, and this is roughly how long I want to spend on each part of the story. And then at the top, you then write the key takeaways or the key topics. So you're highlighting the summary of each section. And then when you've got the summary, you've kinda got the backbone of the talk.
Craig Cockburn:So with that backbone in place, you could then, let's say, in order to get that summary, what's the supporting points and arguments you want to make? So then you're filling out the rest of the canvas in line with that backbone, and it fills itself out. And so you're not overloading with too much stuff, which is one of the problems I face when I'm writing the talk is there's so much I could write about, but I've only got 40 minutes. So it it helps you kind of constrain what you think is genuinely important because the box is only so big for only so much stuff.
Duena Blomstrom:Good. I I love that. And thank you for for actually clarifying it because people can take a lot of practical advice out of that. And as I said, you can go and find out more about the actual you have it published. Right?
Duena Blomstrom:They can find it on YouTube, is it?
Craig Cockburn:Yeah. Yeah. So it's on my YouTube, and it's one of my conference talks. And and what I did was having then done the talk on that as a subject, I then applied that method to my previous talk to then use the format in the talk. So when I was doing this, it was my my well, that was then my first conference talk in 2019.
Craig Cockburn:I was aware I was covering a lot of ground in 40 minutes. It was like complexity theory and politics and, all all sorts of things and probably roadmaps. And there's a ton of stuff in there and I was find somehow found a way to blend it all together and we could connect. But I realized that this was quite a a cognitive load in people to kind of take all that in in such a short space of time. So then I went and applied the structure format to it.
Craig Cockburn:And then at each point in that talk, I then introduced the graphic format. And people said, this is really cool. And I saw a lot of people commenting on it to go, I've never seen anybody do this before. It's really useful. I mean, fabulous.
Craig Cockburn:I mean, the first time I did the talk in the visual format, people went off and implemented it the very next day. I mean, that's unheard of, you know, to have such clear, actionable, original content that people find it immediately useful.
Duena Blomstrom:Very cool. Very, very cool. And I think I don't know how clear this is for anyone listening to us and maybe people are not quite on LinkedIn as much as as listening to this on on a podcast, but Craig is in an industry where unless we we make the very complex and very, volatile clear, we have no chance of moving ahead. We we we talk about this concept of agility, which, you know, in technology and in business, just means you do things in a very different way than the sequential thinking that other people have. So unless we have a chance of really appealing to people with the big complex topics we're we're presenting, then there's no way that they're going to come along on a very complicated journey.
Duena Blomstrom:So I appreciate you doing that.
Craig Cockburn:Yeah. The the kind of a feature is to make complex simple, basically, so that people can understand it without talking down to them. But, you know, there's a a cyber professor that just down there at the university, and he's, like, super geeky and ultra clever. But he's such a brilliant teacher that people like me who don't have a background in cyber could just look at his lectures and his talks and go, yeah, I can follow this. It's really well told and well explained.
Craig Cockburn:There's like minimal jargon. It's going at the right pace And you introduce the concept in a sensible way.
Duena Blomstrom:Sounds sounds so simple, but it is exactly why it's, why it's elusive to people. Well, thank you. That is really, really useful. So in terms of, a a a silly question that I tend to ask anyone who is in technology, who is a guest on this podcast. Would you say that, there is well, the the way I formulate this might be leading and I wouldn't want to, but would you say that there's a higher prevalence of neurodiverse people in the technology field than other fields?
Craig Cockburn:Well, I think so. I mean, it's difficult not having a lot of comparative data. But in the community I'm in, I see a lot of people talking about neurodiversity. And when I really I suppose after about 2018 was doing coaching as a full time rather than just now and again, I noticed that it it was coming up more and more to the 4th that people were talking about it, which is why I became more interested in it. That people had a diagnosis or they talked about it or they've related their experiences of it.
Craig Cockburn:And so I'm just much more aware now of people in the university around me and the experiences that they've had, which is something that's been quite an issue and a problem. And particularly for women, it's harder to get a diagnosis. There's obviously a lot of men that, that were were more straightforward and open about it and perhaps a bit of wear. And I don't know how that really compares too and to other industries. But when I'm working in agile coaching, it's it's it's not quite so tech in the call as, say, working in cyber or in programming, although some of them have come from a more programming background.
Craig Cockburn:Other coaching is much more rounded, which is working with people and and getting, you know, effectiveness and efficiency and the best of teams and such like. And I was more attracted to that because I feel like it was a rounder, more holistic experience. But the but but the the act of being an agile coach is wanting to get the best out of your team, and that includes people who are new and diverse, which was another motivating reason for being interested in it so it can support my team better and facilitate sessions in the right way to include people who might feel overloaded or want to contribute differently or don't feel comfortable over over interrupting and so on. So that process of just being in that space made me much more aware of it. I don't know how that compares to other industries, but it would be really interesting to see if neurodiverse people are actually particularly drawn to a particular profession in in some way.
Duena Blomstrom:That's an interesting one. And I I wouldn't wanna go into the weeds of it because we would need a few hours of debating it whether or not, you know, the the individual contributor versus the need for for for teaming and for pair programming and for communication that's in built in agility is something that, that is a clear awareness across the board. It's it's a really vast topic, and I know both you and I write about it a lot. So I encourage anyone that's listening to this to actually get on your LinkedIn and and read some of the things you're saying. But, fun fact and one of the one of the latest, fights you've taken, as an advocate for neurodiversity, do you wanna talk us through, the supermarket debacle a little bit?
Craig Cockburn:Oh, yes. So so this oh, this was earlier in the year, and I went to my local supermarket. And and I was just aware they were playing for the loud music. To me, it seemed loud anyway. I thought I'd I'd rather than just letting it lie, of course.
Craig Cockburn:It's like could grab it with both hands. I thought it was doing like in in school and then high school's going, I'm gonna do this something about this. So I just stood there in the supermarket and filmed. I was careful not to film anyone else, but I just, like, filmed the food on the shelf. And because I was doing this video, you could then hear the music above it.
Craig Cockburn:I mean, obviously, if I pointed the phone straight to the speaker, that would be a bit biased. But at the end of the day, hang on a second. And and commented on a couple of Facebook groups, and a reporter picked up on it. And I just felt it was just too loud. And once you start getting into a subject, a whole bit of new information then just emerges, of course, of, you know it was a few it was several years prior to this that I was working up north.
Craig Cockburn:And the, Sainsbury's up there, this is in 2017, had a, like, a neurodiverse hour or something on, where it was a bit darker and there was no noise. I wasn't so aware of all that then, so it it sort of passed me by. But then I thought back and said, oh, I sort of get it now. And it made me aware that the supermarket was then complaining about it. I had this music, and then I had suggested then I decided to say, well, in order to be inclusive, we're going to have I think it was, like, Thursday morning at 9 o'clock, we'll be quiet.
Craig Cockburn:And Saturday morning at 9 o'clock, we'll be quiet to go, well, hang a second. You're just sort of admitting it's uninclusive for the rest of the time, and you're only choosing to be inclusive for 2 hours a week. That's not acceptable. So to me, that's like saying, imagine a supermarket with steps out the front and then saying, we'll put a ramp out for people in wheelchairs 2 hours a week. If people were to do that, it'd be a scandal.
Craig Cockburn:Right? But but somehow, for neurodiversity, it seems to be acceptable in the eyes of the supermarket because they're more interested in marketing and live messages. And it's not just about neurodiversity, although that's a really important part of it. It's about the fact that, you know, if I'm talking with elderly relatives and they're hard of hearing, they they find it difficult to differentiate over loud noise. Or if, parents are going with children, as my wife pointed out, the music can excite them and get them all up and going and then wanting to dance around and be a nuisance.
Craig Cockburn:That makes it harder for the parents to control the children. And even more, inappropriately, this this particular supermarket was the closest supermarket to special needs school where there's, you know, autistic and ADHD children very much needing special education because of their diversity and their disabilities. And they were then going to the supermarket afterwards with their parents who were wanting to do shopping after school with their kids. And so it was like really a a an inappropriate place and an inappropriate thing. And I just went, why why are we having to put up with this?
Craig Cockburn:And it's not obviously universal that every supermarket has live music. So it's not essential for buying stuff. It just seemed to be a thing that they were doing. So so I ended up in the papers talking about neurodiversity and inclusion, and they published this article on it. Now nothing much has changed.
Craig Cockburn:I was wondering if that's anything changed. No? No. However, what I've now done is to say, look, every time I go in there, rather than repeatedly taking time out of my shop to go to customer service and talk about it, which becomes frankly annoying, whenever I'm at the checkout and just finishing up, I just say, the music was really loud today. Can you just turn it down the next time?
Craig Cockburn:So every time I go, I get the same message. And and finally what happened is that this was a few weeks ago. The, one of the tellers said to me I could have said, yeah, loads of people are complaining about that.
Duena Blomstrom:That's interesting.
Craig Cockburn:As as a teller, she found it difficult herself. So whether she was near averse or not, but as a work a place of work, your workplace must be inclusive too. So let's consider it from the point of view if somebody is there all day being tired out and having to talk over live music as well. It's just inconsiderate. And she said that she she was thinking of leaving to go and work in in a totally different field of work.
Craig Cockburn:I think it was like a law office or somewhere, but obviously there wouldn't be live music. So it's not only uninclusive for the customer, it's uninclusive for the employees too. Right. But but nothing has changed, and I just go it it does get a bit tiresome making the same point over and over. But then I went and turned another couple of shops and they were just exactly the same.
Craig Cockburn:It's just like, obviously, the head of marketing has decided to plug Supermarket Radio Limited and just shove the message out. But but you look at the shop and go, nobody's actually listening to this, are they? There's no data. I think.
Duena Blomstrom:I I
Craig Cockburn:don't want to thank you though. There was loads of data. You must have the data to show that this works. Show it to us or have a feedback section back to the supermarket exit where customers can give you feedback on their experience in the shop, and then you will learn what works and doesn't. Because me commenting to 20,000 people on social media is probably not what you want to be happening.
Duena Blomstrom:Right. Exactly that. And, you know, this is a really good example. To some, it might sound like a small thing and it might sound like it's anecdotal, but it is an example of when real life lack of adaptation is always there. And we just assume it should be the norm and we don't stop to think what is best and whether or not that's useful for the business and whether or not that that places the brand of the business any better.
Duena Blomstrom:And, yes, indeed, they they would do well to start taking that data. But thank you for taking that fight. I think it's it's useful to The effect in me
Craig Cockburn:is not huge, but I can understand that the effect in other people will be quite considerable. The effect in me is if I'm trying to hold things in my head and remember them, it's shocked. You see, it's harder to remember them because there's this distraction going on, because I'm too focused on the distraction, which is what happens. Right? And also even just when I'm trying to concentrate doing something that's self checkout or maybe do it the wrong way.
Craig Cockburn:Because because, again, I don't have that power of concentration because there's this thing disturbing my concentration.
Duena Blomstrom:Right. Right. So, again, it doesn't really mean that it it it's across the board for everyone, but there are small parts of life, and I would encourage anyone listening to this to try and keep their eye out for other examples like that because there are many around where we just got used to living a certain way that is designed for a very neurotypical world where those things would not be bothersome. And the more we can bring them up, then the more we can change around us. So I really appreciate that.
Duena Blomstrom:And thank you so much for giving us some of your of your story. We are running out of time a little bit. Like I said, I know that people don't have the attention span to to hold on to this podcast for more than 30 something minutes. But I would like to have you back at some point and hopefully talk about what is it like in in the industries that you've seen over your very rich career and what are some of the pluses and the minuses of of being on the side, of of life and of thinking that we are at. But thank you so much for today.
Craig Cockburn:I've certainly been relating neurodiversity to remote working because that's been a huge area that people are talking about. And it's clearly got big advantages for neurodiversity too. So maybe that's a topic for another day. Right? It's a whole field of Yes.
Duena Blomstrom:It's a big one, but thank you for bringing it up because indeed remembering that neurodiversity is an asset in many ways is what we're trying to to land with this podcast. And and just having people here, successful individuals who are themselves neurodiverse, talking about their experience like you have done today with us, thank you, is is what we're aiming for. So thanks again, and hopefully, we'll get you back, at some some point soon.
Craig Cockburn:That'd be great. Thanks very much then.
Duena Blomstrom:Bye.
Craig Cockburn:Bye.
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