Love the Job You’re In

There is a wonderful light but punchy item in January’s edition of Management Today. If you are going through one of those phases when you are not enjoying your work then maybe you need change your perspective – do something differently. Here are nine cracking ideas to help re-frame and change the situation.

1. Be proactive
2. Find fun
3. Join a new gang
4. Discover your drivers
5. Be selfish
6. Switch your vocabulary
7. Get moving
8. Find flow
9. Remember your purpose

 My favourites for today are ‘Join a new gang’ and ‘Be selfish’.

 Read the full article… it is only short!

How the financial crisis became the ethics recession

On Monday night I attended a talk on this subject led by Dr Rushworth Kidder. My interest in this area is still in its infancy so for me the event was very good. Dr Kidder was clear and concise and managed to convey a small number of key points giving me plenty to think about. One of the key issues I’m grappling with at present is the link between ethical behaviour, ethics was defined as ‘the application of values to decision making’, and commercial reality.  I subscribe to the view that business is generally a force for good. Without profitable businesses and a vibrant commercial sector there would be no taxes and the Government would be unable to provide all the social welfare services that we as citizen now expect. So, my question is how can we temper the desire for commercial reward with the promotion of ethical behaviour – without the need for excessive regulation?  My interest is partly academic, I’m interested in economics and commerce, but also professional since we are thinking of designing a business simulation to highlight some of the key issues in the debate and how they affect an organisations image and success.

Top 10 reasons for using games in your learning activities

I am frequently asked ‘why would I use games and simulations as a learning activity?’ My response varies depending on my current area of interest and the issue faced by the person I am conversing with, but will invariably include a mixture of my top 10.

1. Improve engagement
2. Develop understanding
3. Assess competency
4. Increase retention
5. Reveal the ‘true self’
6. Multimodal experience
7. Ownership of the experience
8. Risk-free environment
9. Get instant feedback
10. Get new generation learners on board

 The full article is available on the Training Journal website.  Please have a look and post your ideas back here.

Balancing life

I came across this quote from Ricardo Semler CEO of Semco SA “Every one can send emails on Sunday night, but how many of us know how to go to the movies on Monday afternoon? If you don’t know how to, you’ve taken on something that unbalances life, but haven’t rebalanced it with something else.”

It’s blindingly obvious when you hear the work/life balance put in those terms but taking action is a bit more tricky. As individuals we all have some choice about how much we allow our working life to encroach on other areas but I feel it’s much more difficult to ‘take time’ out of the core working day.

Acronyn for Webinar – suggestions

As part of the Insynch group on Facebook I have been participating in a debate about a new word to replace webinar to incorporate the richness of virtual online learning. In the last fortnight the suggestions have included “immersion instruction” and “synchronous learning event”. My instinct favours the second option but if we use the word synchronous are we making an assumption that people know what synchronous is? I’m not whether outside the online learning community whether the word has a common meaning/understanding.

 The third option mooted was that we create a word or maybe an acronym? My first thought using Virtual, Live, Online was “Love” – standing for Live Online Virtual Experience. Ok, I don’t think this one would work but if the community created something and enough people used it then it would gain currency and express what we believe are the essentials of the experience rather than borrowing words which don’t really fit the bill.

Another thought my acronym above focuses on the technology used. Maybe we should focus on the benefits of the technology? So, if you are interested in contributing to this debate post one word which you think is the key benefit for the online synchronous events and I’ll see if I can create something?

New word for Webinar? Any ideas?

Last week I took part in a reunion for graduates of Insynch’s professional development programmes. An online synchronous reunion of course.  Key topics were what is happening in the Industry, some tips for teaching in a multicultural synchronous classroom and a debate about which is the best virtual classroom product – the answer it depends on your objectives.  During the session I noted down two dilemmas:

• The word Webinar is awful but to say you are having a WebEx conference is potentially inaccurate (you might be using an alternative technology), also has some unhelpful connotations and is juts not descriptive of the rich environment that can now be created online.  The best description I heard during the conference was a Learning meeting.  As someone who has just sent out a communication which says the learning will be supported by WebEx I’m interested in other people’s views. What words do other people use?
• As the demand for online facilitation and learning mushrooms a lot of people are developing their skill set on a need to know basis. How do those who have made some attempt to benchmark themselves against peers and learn from best practice differentiate themselves in the marketplace? Once again any ideas?

Virtual learning success

April’s issue of People Management contained an article “Make a big impression”. It’s one of those articles I skipped through and thought I need to read this again when I have got my brain in gear. Re-reading it now there are a number of ideas that grabbed my attention.

As a recent convert to the virtual world I endorse the challenge the L&D team at Xerox set themselves “anything we can do in the classroom, can we do it virtually?”  The answer may be no but it’s a great question to kick off the debate and potentially challenge some historic assumptions.

Where it is possible to do things using new technology the first step has to be investing in the skills of the L&D team so they have the knowledge and confidence to deliver. In my own experience there is still a degree of uncertainty associated with virtual learning and the confidence and enthusiasm of the delivery team is critical in overcoming this.

Moving away from the virtual learning issues raised in the article one of the other ‘truths’ is the quote about change and people’s acceptance of it. “It is important to recognise that some people – the change agents – would get it straight away, some people would get it after the normal learning curve, and a small percentage wouldn’t get it at all and would not want to be part of it.” When I’m fulfilling the role of facilitator/trainer my objective is to get 100% understanding by everyone.  Rationally I know this is probably not realistic given the huge diversity within the human race however I’m always disappointed when I fall short.

People Management Article : Make a big impression

Christine’s experience in the online synchronous classroom

Last week was my final on line synchronous session for the course I have been taking – just the assessment to do over the next few weeks.  This is the first course I have taken in this format, by course I mean more than one session, in this case 5 sessions. I found the process significantly more engaging, as a learner, than I had anticipated.  Ignoring for a moment the fact that all the participants had a strong motivation for attending and engaging I think it shows a significant shift in both what we as learners will engage with and also the technology that is available. It was not without hiccups: I arrived late for the last session, change in time in the USA for summer time, and at a stage when the technology had frozen so everyone had to log out of one conference into another. Notwithstanding this and some other technical issues during the course my impression remains favourable. One nugget that really stuck in my brain is that in this environment you need to engage the audience every 3 to 5 minutes. How many people do that in the face to face environment? The thing I liked least was probably working in break out rooms, it felt a fit false and the time delay on the audio made a three way conversation very difficult. I was happier with the chat function and shared whiteboard facilities.

 So, what next? Once I’ve got the assignment out of the way we’ll be launching one of our simulations The Way Forward on the web with facilitation through the virtual medium. So watch this space.

E-Learning – self managed learning

One of my key areas of interest at the moment is the use of Web 2.0 technologies in the learning environment so my eye was caught by two articles in the March edition of Training Journal.

In one the question was “Does the fact that people are more comfortable with technology mean that e-learning now has a better chance of succeeding than before?” My view, a definite yes. The same article talks about the advent of e-learning in three phases. I don’t remember the first one, too young, but I do remember the second in the 1990’s when the idea that you could learn on-line really took off and we designed a business simulation for on-line use. It was hampered by poor technology (hence my yes to the above question) and most critically audience perception. Most participants were just not comfortable with the on-line environment and most training departments did not provide sufficient support.  

This brings me onto the second article “winning the self-managed learning war”.  How do we help to change people’s attitudes to self-managed learning? The article suggests some really good strategies and I wholeheartedly agree with the notion that those of use responsible for providing learning opportunities really need to sell the benefits of the new methods. Self managed and on-line learning have lot’s of benefits and as the article states “in reality, the trend is going in the self managed learning direction “. So if we sit back and say ‘it won’t work’ we are not helping our learners. We need to make it work.

Links http://www.trainingjournal.com/tj/2781.html# and http://www.trainingjournal.com/tj/2787.html

Christine is taking a course for online synchronous facilitation to better support remote learning