PPhunnybonus
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at Work
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Thought
PPhurther Education
Dip.App.Gelotology
PPhunnybonus
Contact

Hugh Gibbons' good-humoured goodies for Pharmaceutical Physicians,
colleagues, counterparts, and acquaintances

 

 

About PPhunnybonus

 

Hugh's new
good-hughmoured in-house workout on good business communication skills
(and in a good cause)
       

 

PPhunnybonus is an offbeat website started in 2012 - fun with it sleeves rolled up and complementing more straight-faced information around you. But useful, nevertheless.

You'll find here four good-humoured forms of helping hands for readers of Pharmaceutical Physician, colleagues, counterparts and friends. Others beyond BrAPP may warm to it as well - and you're very welcome to explore and enjoy things, and chip in if you feel like it.

PPhunnybonus grew out of the kind invitation by the Editor of Pharmaceutical Physician to contribute a column in each issue - which I've called PPhunnybones.

1. In return, I suggested that it would helpful for readers to have on-line background information for each article. And you'll find these in PPhunnybone References & Reading.

2. Rummaging around, I remembered that for fun-filled lectures - such as those for the MSc in Pharmaceutical Medicine - I'd made use of slideshows and paper versions of Textually Transmitted Diseases and How to Write Gooder.  So you'll find info on these and other learnings-with-a-laugh below with PPhunnies at Work.

3. To let PPs and others have a sort of offbeat voice, I dusted down something from Ahaa! meetings and suggested you'd enjoy PPhood for Thought. It's a simple conduit for you to put in your pennyworth on such questions as: what don't medical directors want managing directors to ask - and vice-versa? The contributions should make useful topics for informal departmental discussion or over lunch if that's still available.

4. Finally, I thought that a couple of medical or managing directors might warm to the idea of an unusual sort of in-house sandwich course.  The Just1 Diploma in Applied Gelotology offers suitable companies a season of laughter-filled late-morning tutorials on unsung skills, plus clinics in literacy - funding a very good cause.

Incidentally, thought Phunnybonus and Just1 are completely independent, everything appearing here will have been seen by the Editor of Pharmaceutical Physician and the Manager of BrAPP before going public. It's so I can be happy that I'm not treading on any toes or sensitivities.

Yes?


 


1. About PPhunnybones References & Reading
These pages carry references and links to further information with Hugh's PPhunnybones column in Pharmaceutical Physician.

Click here to find out more about...

  • January 2012: The Best Medicine: Miss Sweetie Poo?

  • March 2012: Two Jolly Good Physicians

  • May 2012: Look Away Now

  • July 2012: Never a Cross Word

  • September 2012: Auditing Audiences

  • November 2012: Just a Moment

  • January 2013: Without Whom?

  • January 2013: To Er is Human

  • May 2013: Nominogenetics

  • July 2013: Mettle Detecting  

  • September 2013: Turn Left at the Med

  • November 2013: Think of a Number

 


2. About PPhunnies at Work
These are simple skills development items for you to download and use as you want - on your own or for group training.  Click here to find out more.

They currently include:

  • Textually Transmitted Diseases in slideshow and paper form

  • How to Kill a Good Idea in slideshow form

  • How to Write Gooder What'ever Job Your In - slideshow and paper
     

 


3. About PPhood for Thought
A meetingpoint of advice and experience on such idiosyncratic topics as...

  • What questions don't Medical Directors want Managing Directors to ask - (and vice versa)?

  • Signs of a civilised organisation

  • Warning Signs with CROs - and Medical Advisors

For more information, click here
 

 

 

 

 




4. About the Just1 Diploma in Applied Gelotology
The DipAppGelot was created with readers of PP in mind - together with their colleagues inside their companies, and guests from outside. It's a sort of informal, in-company sandwich course for any mix and number of people - running roughly once a month.  In the late morning, a thoughtful workshop/tutorial on such unsung skill areas as Likeability, Curiosity, Consiliency, Audiency, Interrogancy, Evaluancy and Advocacy. In the full afternoon, a clinic on Business Literacy.

 

Fees go direct to good causes - for example, from the company to benefit a remarkable UK charity supporting education for vocations among disadvantaged children in India, and to a small charity caring for orphans in Zimbabwe.

 

For initial information, click here.

 


A Crash Course in Applied Gelotology...
is also available for as a 1-hour slide-driven lecture
to animate, educate or resuscitate company and other
conferences and symposia...

 

 

 

 

 




About Hugh Gibbons

Hugh with Sifi Rahman, a survivor of the 2004 tsunami met while visiting CAFOD-funded livelihood projects in Banda Aceh, Indonesia.  CAFOD gave Sifi a helping hand with equipment used in coconut paste production.
Sifi: Some nuts have more hair than others.
Hugh: I should coco.

=============================

Hugh Romain Honoré Gibbons - known to schoolchildren as Huge - was first educated at Moseley CofE Primary and King Edward's School, Birmingham, whose old school song asked pupils to "die of service, not of rust." From Trinity College Dublin he gained an MA, and went off to be a teacher of English and Economics before becoming an advertising copywriter.

He then had a career in the pharmaceutical industry that took a scenic route: leading creative services, product marketing and business information teams.

Hugh later became associate editor of The Pharmaceutical Times in its early years - inter alia writing, reporting, researching, training and conferencing.


Going independent, Hugh launched Brighter Writer business literacy courses and coaching for medical and other departments in a wide range of industries and agencies.  (For a number of years Hugh was an invited lecturer on Medical Writing Disorders for the MSc in Pharmaceutical Medicine.)

At the same time, he created PsyPhaa - later Ahaa! - a sort of psychology association for anyone in any job interested in the human side of organisations. Many of the 100+ open-to-all meetings and training courses were hosted by pharmaceutical companies - together with RAF stations, New Scotland Yard, NHS Trusts, hotels, the National Theatre, and a Benedictine Abbey. These settings encouraged a unique and eclectic audience and speaker mix.  He also helped the world-leading Professor Adrian Furnham with social psychology research, becoming an Associate of the Business Psychology Unit at UCL.

Ahaa! was also unusual in that in time all meetings fees were replaced by donations to humanitarian agencies such as CAFOD, Action Aid, British Red Cross and the Disasters Emergency Committee.

As a spin-off, Hugh is now a popular public speaker. (He's seen here enthralling the Chair of the forerunner to PIPA during an after-dinner talk using RAF flying helmet as prop. Don't ask.) He's been invited to Sandhurst Royal Military Academy to lecture the War Studies Group on medical services in the, ahem, Roman Army. A Royal Navy frigate, the RAF, Rotary and similar clubs, church groups, colleges and schools, archaeological associations, medical societies, U3As and NADFAS have been among his audiences. But he turned down a request to lecture on P&O cruise ships. His eclectic topics include the Flighty Women of White Waltham, Art & The Spanish Civil War, Flying Tales of the Unexpected, Silk & Spices for the Caesars, and Protecting Portillo's Privates (on body language, for goodness' sake). See www.ahaa.org.uk/flyingcrooked for information.

He is currently learning the trombone.


A long-time volunteer for the aid agency CAFOD, in 2005 Hugh created Just1 in support of Make Poverty History.  This independent one-person not-for-profit organisation puts to use Hugh's range of skills and experience - as well as his old school song.

One outcome has been a major UK contribution to the annual Stand Up Against Poverty around the world.  Since 2009, tens of thousands of schoolchildren have shared Hugh's Promises to the Poor.

Here, 200+ children at St Margaret Clitherow Catholic Primary in Bracknell sing Hugh's Count On Us Song - alongside over 20,000 pupils, teachers and others (including the Editor of PP and her labradors) on 17 October 2011, the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty.

Hugh has now also initiated Schools Speak Out for Fairtrade and Spirit of Romero Day - both of which can be found at www.just1.org.uk/schools

www.just1.org.uk is the site of more information.

 

For more information at any time, contact Hugh Gibbons

E-mail: hughgibbons@just1.org.uk
Tel: (0)1344 451847

Write: 75 Qualitas, Roman Hill, Bracknell.
Berks RG12 7QG , United Kingdom