Pithy humour of popular host
CELEBRATED Guardian columnist Guy Browning returns as conference host by popular demand after his previous appearance in May, 2008.
Guy now exports humour to Germany. He has three best-selling German humour books including How a Grapefruit Can Change Your Life – a book that he doesn’t remember writing in English.
Dubbed the David Attenborough of the business jungle, he combines a keen eye for commerce with a rapier-like wit and a wealth of entertaining anecdotes.
Guy is the brains behind the long-running Guardian Office Politics column and the presenter of Guy Browning’s Small Talk on Radio 4.
He is also the founder of Smokehouse, an innovation consultancy that helps organisations brainstorm new products and services, fresh ways of working and new ideas for communication. Previous high-profile Smokehouse clients have included Shell, Toyota and Mars.
Guy has never lacked creativity. He was the Creative Director of Added Value and before that a copywriter for D’Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles, the American-based advertising agency that created the original Santa icon for Coca-Cola and came up with the slogan ‘melts in your mouth, not in your hand’ for M&Ms.
Guy’s popular conference presentations demonstrate how to use basic intelligence, initiative and imagination to tackle core business issues.
The title of his best-selling book for budding business magnates says it all: Double Your Salary, Bonk Your Boss, Go Home Early. His speeches cut through the mass of business clichés to sort out what really matters from what really, really doesn’t.
So what are his tips for the top? Simple really: take the credit, pass the buck, dress up not down and never, ever, make the coffee.
Above all, he says employees looking to move up in an organisation should “learn to unleash the power of gratuitous flattery, and never forget that senior management are as surprised as you are that they’re senior management”.
Other popular titles he has written include Weak at the Top (the Uncensored Diary of the Last Cavemanager), Never Hit a Jellyfish with a Spade (How to Survive Life’s Smaller Challenges) and Office Politics (How Work Really Works).
2008 saw the publication of Maps of my Life, which he describes as “an autobiography, but without the bad bits”.
