Learning Technologies and Skills 2013

It was the Learning Technologies and Learning and Skills exhibition  at London's Olympia 2 this week. Sadly I was only able to make the last 2.5 hrs. As I fled through the doors, coat tails flying and ipod dislodging from my ears, I grabbed my conference mag, scanned my bar code and headed for the nearest source of caffeine. There I sussed out the floor layout and tried to identify who to see.

I had more than a slight niggle as there was no useful matrix to show me which suppliers did what. I wanted to look at providers of LMS's but had to resort to whizzing around the whole conference to see if I could spot what people did by looking at their stand material. Not good when you only have 2.5 hrs!!

I did have a couple of really great conversations and was able to pick the brains of someone who attended both days (thanks Owen at Goodpractice), which helped me focus some of my thoughts. I came away with 2 possible leads to follow up on LMS's, a free access to an LMS from a great little company called Udutu, a steer on how to resolve an e-learning design problem (thanks Tom at Articulate) and a good source of some research. All good.

What I did notice was that the Learning and Skills element which used to be far bigger than the Technologies bit is now far smaller. What does that tell us about where learning is going!!

A great use of an afternoon for me but ooooohh tooo short!

Una

Can CIPD engage with SME's?

I attended a really interesting talk last night by Peter Cheese the Chief Executive for CIPD. It was arranged by CIPD's North London branch - thanks folks! Now the little amusing aside was that ITV were doing a recording with pop bands 911, Bewitched and Five in the hotel bar. I did offer to do my Madness Dance to add a bit of 'light entertainment' to their documentary but strangely enough they declined my offer. 

Back to Peter. He gave an interesting perspective on why there had 'never been a more important or interesting time' to be in HR. For example, organisations such as banks are taking the need for culture change deadly seriously and HR is the profession that should understand this stuff.

He concluded this country has lost sight of the value of vocational education with the push to put 50% of young people through Universities which wasn't meeting their needs or those of employers. He outlined CIPD's strength in evidence based research and it's connection with the business community.However, as he pointed out, two thirds of employment in this country comes from small and medium sized businesses.

I put the challenge to him that having moved from a large organisation of thousands of people to being a small business with employees we can count on one hand, the relevance of CIPD has significantly reduced.  He acknowledged this and that CIPD needed to do more. The question though is what will CIPD do. Peter talked the talk around being committed to making changes to support SME's, let's watch and see what happens! But Mr Cheese if you need someone to act as a Jiminy Cricket you have a volunteer here. Albeit I may do the odd Madness dance!!

Una

Make Someone Smile Today

Ok so it's mid January, your new year resolutions (especially the personal one's) may be flagging a bit by now. Giving up alcohol or chocolate, and going to the gym or jogging more, may all have seemed great ideas during the early hours of 2013 but how do they seem now?

I am sure we all could do with a bit of cheerfulness injected into our mid January psyche.

So your challenge is to make one person smile or laugh between now and midnight. Can you do it?

So to get you in the mood  from the Yahoo Kids Site :

Q: What colour is a Burp
A:  Burple

(I am now ducking as the barrage of virtual coke cans, shoes and white board erasers come flying towards my head). Enjoy January!!