Workshop

What Even Is a Private Joke ® Workshop?

What Even Is a Private Joke ® Workshop?

(Spoiler: It depends who’s in the room.)

If you’re looking for a neat little box with bullet points and predictable outcomes... this isn’t it.

Private Joke ® workshops are shape-shifting beasts. 😈

  • Sometimes they look like a stand up comedy show in Year 9's French class.
  • Sometimes they look like a circle of game developers inventing words for workplace chaos creating an in-joke dictionary only their team would understand.
  • And sometimes they look like a room full of 2,500 teenage students crying with laughter over the fake German word Wörgenblern.

Over the past few months, I’ve been deep in the whirlwind of Private Joke ® school workshops, cramming in as much linguistic mischief, wordplay, and classroom giggling as humanly possible before the end-of-term bell rings and students are unleashed into the summer wilds for 6 chaotic weeks.

Recent Highlights Include:

  • 🎓 The King's School Canterbury (Year 9). I spoke about my journey from "the bottom of my French class" to reaching C1 (fluent) and becoming a Franch-British Young Leader, working in Shanghai, Dubai and Paris, as well as the unseen benefits of learning a language. We played a number of Private Joke ® games and the students came prepared with a host of brilliantly insightful questions during the Q&A. 
  • 🇫🇷 St George’s Prep School French Day. For Years 4, 5, 6, 7 & 8, I ran individual classroom workshops in French which saw students playtest an early edition of the first single-language Private Joke ® game. The students discovered untranslatable words, invented their own new words, and pitched these to their classes, which saw fits of giggles erupting around the room and many a new word retained for future holidays to France! 
  • 🎮 Festival of Play (UKIE / Digital Schoolhouse). This saw me travel up to Dundee and London, reaching hundreds of students and dozens of teachers through 4 high-energy, cross-curricular Private Joke ® experiences.

... And Now We Enter the Corporate Arena

While my efforts continue to focus on school engagement with Private Joke ® to drive MFL adoption and engagement, this summer I am branching out into the world of corporate. 

So many adults tell me, "Ahhh, it must be amazing to speak another language. I really regret not having studied when I was younger."

Honestly, it breaks my heart.

There's absolutely no reason a 30yo can't learn a language to fluency. Sometimes, you just need to remove the barrier to entry: fear. 

But my corporate offering is a little different. While the focus is less on motivating and inspiring people to learn a language, it's more about using creativity and language as a tool to enhance team cohesion, think outside of the box, and just think differently about language and communication. 

The Private Joke ® Corporate Workshop.

Private Joke® is a 60–90 minute (or half/full day) creative workshop that uses language, laughter, and made-up words to help teams think differently about themselves, their clients, or one other.

Here’s what we actually do:

  • 🧠 Spark creativity through absurd, linguistic play.
  • 💬 Reframe communication - what words does your team actually use, and what new ones could you invent together?
  • 🤝 Foster team culture by building an Office Dictionary of your in-jokes, rituals, and shared chaos.
  • 👀 Step into your clients' shoes by co-creating vocabulary that captures their unspoken needs, habits, frustrations, and dreams

Use it for:

  • Team-building with a twist
  • Creative icebreakers for onboarding or offsites
  • Strategy sessions & brand development
  • User empathy & customer insight
  • Culture resets that don’t feel like HR interventions

Whether you’re hosting a Lunch & Learn, running a strategy offsite, or looking to shake your team out of autopilot, this is a workshop they’ll actually talk about afterwards.

It’s weird. It’s smart. It’s wildly fun.
And no two sessions are ever the same.

So there we have it! If you are curious and/or have any questions, please feel free to get in touch via email, LinkedIn, or by calling my mobile directly. 

Catch you on the flippity flop. ❤️,🫒.

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