Learning through social media

Well I have to thank Lars Feldmann on Linked in for sharing this link to Jane Harts Blog. Having pondered earlier in the week what makes me click through on links I am sent, Jane's blog makes me add an additional thought - to learn more.

Jane shows a really catchy and inspirational way to help people learn through social media. I just love the thought. Thanks to Jane and thanks to Lars for helping me learn through social media!

Una

What makes you click?

My late Mum used to be a personal secretary, in the 'old days', as my children would say. She said she kept herself motivated by not focusing on her in tray, but looking at the growing content in her out tray. In those days her in and out tray were physical plastic trays and her technology was an electric typewriter. I am not sure what Mum would have made of today's business environment.

Today I reflected that I have 8 email accounts to monitor, three voice mail accounts two twitter accounts, two text message accounts and umpteen discussion forums I am part of. With all this 'noise', I pondered the question, "when someone sends me a link, what is it that makes me click on it?".

When time is so precious and information so overwhelming, why am I tempted to spend that extra few seconds on one link rather than another?

For me there are several 'grabs':

• Humour
• A (short) quirky comment.
• An eye grabbing picture.
• A puzzle.
• A topic of immediate interest.
• A person I know

What does it for you?

Una

Trust Your Gut

I have this game with my cat Milly. Each mealtime I hold up two different flavoured pouches of kitty food and let her decide which one she wants. She chooses (decisively if I might say so), by rubbing her whiskers across the selected pouch. If only all choices were so easy!!

From Government choices on increase spending vs imposed austerity to Milly and her food pouch, we are all faced with choices. So how do we know we have made the right choice?

Experience tells me that it is often not down to the facts, figures and feedback although they surely help. However, often these don't materialise till after the event, so how do you know in the moment? Sometimes it is just down to 'gut feel'.

So what is 'gut feel'? 
For me, a gut feel that something is wrong is summed up by uneasiness  a cold feeling coming over me, a lump in my throat, a niggle that won't stay quiet in my brain, a hesitation or a sleepless night.
A gut feel that something is right materialises as a lightness as though something has dropped off my shoulders, a surge of energy, a sense of achievement, a pride and a willingness or desire to tell someone.

Do you listen to your gut often enough?

Una

We all have them..........

.....Strengths that is. How much time do we waste worrying about the things we are not good at. The things you cannot do are what nature created all those other lovely people for!!

Caroline and I each have our own strengths which we bring to our partnership at #ConnectingDots. If we both focused on addressing our weaknesses all the time how mediocre and boring would that be. As each of us play to our strengths we not only amaze each other with what we can achieve but also (and this is important), we motivate each other to do even more. Be bold today and play to your strengths.

Una

Feed on the Fuel of Joy!!

As the clock passed midnight last night I sat huddled over my laptop, 4th cup of tea turning cold on the table and the murmurs of Meryl Streep on the TV in the background (how old is Silkwood?). Suddenly, I did a double take.Everything clicked into place. The problem I had been poring over in mind and on screen for over a week gave way to my 'eureka!!!' moment. I had found the answer.

I won't go into the boring and seedy depths of the problem but it involved variables, layered operands and multiple scenario's! When I realised I had 'cracked' it I jumped up and felt a surge of joy shoot right through me, which instantly energised me. So much so that it then took me another hour to get to sleep.

So when Milly cat became vocal at 6:30am demanding her breakfast, closely followed by her bro' Alfie, I could have been forgiven for chucking my pillow at the pair of them. But no, still energised on 'joy' I jumped out of bed and saw to their whims and furry demands. Then looking out the window I noticed the rain teeming down but did that put me off my jog? No, still riding on the crest of joy I donned my woolly hat,  jacket, mini ipod and jogged off.

The interesting thing is that each thing I did brought me more joy and energised me more. Is joy the fuel that keeps on giving? So my friend, what will bring you joy today? Can you start a tsunami of joy and feed off that energy to achieve even more fantastic things? Why not give it a go!

Una

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