Posts Tagged ‘Learning’

Shall I eat here

Saturday, May 29th, 2010

I am in Istanbul, came to speak at the HR Summit (more later) found a place next to the hotel to eat. Googled it with Google translation, question is, Should I eat here?

“In the summer outdoors in the winter when there is so much beauty in all of them will be deprived of if you have already stated he thought we’d be wrong.

Güzelli?ide winter weather is creating a separate restaurant. While watching a movie on TV, “Oh I wish it out of the snow in the mountains or at home if I was at the beginning of the fireplace when it rains,” said the dead?

If your answer is yes, we realize that your dreams are trying to care for indoors. Spell the beginning of this as I mentioned in the entire mountain house in the air is considered out for the snow or rain when you, like glass on the edge of the beauty of watching if you want the fireplace next to his firing from the crackle of meat you eat and wine you can sip.

Another feature of the interior of the hall is a twin. While sitting in a hall or across the room I wonder how I wonder if we sit across the tarafam? because I do not think the two sides to the table decor in the same sequence.”

Reckon they must sell kebabs!

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Work life balance

Thursday, February 18th, 2010

Interested in some new research? read on….

My life has changed somewhat over the last year. The process of divorce, moving home and having a father who has dimentia has taken it’s toll on the stress levels.

It is very easy to bury yourself into your work, bury your head and hope it all goes away. To be honest it doesn’t.

However, I always said it would be good to get a work life balance. Like many however I never really understood what this meant or how to achieve it. Read the book, seen the video etc etc.

When you do finally find how, it is a revelation. So let me share some thought.

There comes a moment when you live on your own after having had a partner and kids in your house for 26 years, when you close the front door on returning home and realise you are alone, this is it.

I thought this would be a lonley place, turn on the laptop, work. However I set a rule when I moved in that work at home was only allowed during work hours. Force yourself to read books, listen to music, learn to cook better, blog loads of thoughts and Tweet, anything other than work.

Some time ago I met a person who has changed the way I think. They have made me consider what I have and what is missing. The time spent in the presence of this person is very challenging and has made me think inwardly. The challenges posed were not easy in the begining, I was pretty closed to new ideas or change. Over time I have seen the light. Seeing this person has become really fun.

Now this relationship has taken a very long time to flourish. I have always been a positive person viewing everything as a challenge in my work environment and with my clients. It is what my reputation is based on, however, how is this affected by what happens at home? Before the rumour machine gets going, this person is a theraputic professional.

At this time I am having a really good time at home, my social life is the best it has been for years, what I do outside of work is fulfilling and has become great fun. I do not have time to blog and Tweet as much as I would like. I do not have enough time to read all I want and the Sky box is filling quicker than I have time to watch it.

Sounds great no?

What I have realised is that this great time out of work has had a serious affect on how efficient and effective I am in the office. The better it gets at home, the more efficient I get at work.

So here is my challenge. I do not know yet how to research this so input from all is required.

My first thought is that we are training the wrong subjects in the workplace. Training people to be more effective in their work could be achieved better by training them how to have a good time out of work. Time management training could include how to stop at the end of the day.

The crazy first thoughts are that if we help our staff learn how to have a good time out of work, they will have a good time whilst at work and be more productive.

New course titles could include:

Cook your partner a great meal.
Understanding the difference between Merlot and Shiraz.
Making cleaning your house a fun experience.
and
Bringing your true self to work!

Do you carry a breifcase home every day? I do! Now I force myself not to open it at home out of work hours. But when I open it in the office, I get twice as much done.

What research is required here? Where do I begin? Interested in taking part?

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Finally fixed my blog…

Tuesday, February 16th, 2010

Oh boy, got hacked, lost a couple of posts and then everything redirected to a chinese website.

I am honoured that they thought my lille ol blog was worth hacking.

Back to blogging tomorrow….

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Times are a changing

Friday, December 26th, 2008

It seems sad to think that this month may be the last ‘opinion’ column I write for HCM, the paper-based magazine is coming to an end.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank Mike Randal the magazine editor in chief  and publisher for his tireless work to publish this magazine as he has done every other month for as long as I can remember.

A piece of history lost forever? No not really, just another of the many changes we are seeing in the world around the way we distribute the written word.

The last couple of years have seen more changes than have been seen in history, especially over the last 500 years. I am talking about the ‘word’, the physical written notations we use to communicate.

Consider the Corpus (the complete set of definitions of words used in our language, created by comparing and by reading thousands of texts and identifying the words of our language). You may or may not be aware but the Oxford English Dictionary is based upon an electronic Corpus, and this has been in electronic format since its inception in 1961. Previously to this everything had been on paper.

In its first iteration the Corpus had 1 million words and each year it has grown substantially. Today it holds an amazing 2 billion words and is growing at the astonishing rate of 350 million words a year. The English language ain’t what it used to be.

Why such an explosion?  The web of course! As the web grows and new words are brought into daily acceptance, the language explodes into new forms each commanding new methods of delivery. The ‘printed on paper’ word will probably never be extinct, but electronic delivery systems are far outpacing the need for the paper based word, and as such the casualties are magazines such as this. Webzines seem to be more powerful media; the link (tag) to other data has taken over. Today’s ‘indecision makers’ (the new generation) need something to click, someone to ask, someone to take the decision for them.

Of course this new ‘print’ has brought with it a new set of words for the language. The Blog for instance now has 340 derivatives. Words like ‘Blogstipation’ have replaced the old fashioned ‘writers block’. ‘Bloggocks’ is the new term for a blog containing a ‘load of rubbish’ and Blogarrati is the new term for the big-wig bloggers who write in the new Blogosphere.  Keeping up with the new language is a full time job, ensuring you don’t use a word that is passé is just as difficult.

You may also wish to consider how many of these 2 billion words we actually use. There is the top 100, a list of the most common words in our language. These make up almost 50% of what we use.  Of course what we write and what we say are very different, however many say that texts written in the way we speak are easier to read and understand. The ‘street speak’ in our language is obviously a great learning tool. All eLearning developers take note!

So what of the future?  It seems more and more we are turning to the electronic world for or reading material. Amazon and Sony are the leaders in the electronic hardware for e-book market, Audible and ITunes amongst many others plying their wares for the content.

As for the demise of the paper based magazine market, maybe it is just another new day for this changing world in which we find ourselves. 

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Rolex, Shirt and Sexy Massage – Shanghai Shopping

Friday, November 14th, 2008

Our trip to Shanghai to attend and keynote at Learning Enterprise China, contained many funny moments, to recall them all I could probably blog for the next month and we were only there for five days…

I was surprised at the lack of begging on the street, my memories from working in Shenzhen, Guangzhou and Guangdong many years ago is one of many children always pulling at your coat, begging for money. Never let one carry your bag as they always asked ‘hey mister, carry your bag, one dollar’, the stories you hear are that if you do, they will take off very fast and you will never catch them, or see your bag again.

What I did see in Shanghai were many people on street corners that as you approached them would pull a horrible old worn out mobile phone from their pocket and try to sell it to you. Why on earth they would think a ‘Rich Westerner’ (I think that is how they see western people) would want a second hand phone that looked like a group of Chinese had played football with it, I have no idea. They were polite though and when you said ‘no thanks’ they put it back in their pocket and often gave you a toothless grin.

I mentioned in an earlier blog some of the others who were at ‘Enterprise Learning China’, the reason for my trip, they included a very funny Roger Olsen from the USA and Tim Neill from TNA in the UK.

Tim went shopping on our second day, all by himself down to the metro and off to the ‘old’ part of the city to taste the ‘delights’ of China.

The story he told on his return he will dine out with for many years to come..

Walking the streets considering his presentation to the learning community Tim was approached by a very enterprising lady. (he did omit to tell us any more about this lady, so you have to make your picture in your mind) She had grabbed him by the right arm and asked him ‘you want to buy Rolex?’

Tim thanked her very much and politely said no, she persisted and Tim persisted in his polite manner. After the third of fourth attempt she gave up. Two minutes later she was back on his right arm. ‘ you want to buy shirt?’ Now she had a handful of shirts in many colours. No thank you declined Tim, still not losing patience. ‘Many colours and sizes?’ Tim now mildly agitated thanked her and politely said no and she went away.

Just a moment later she was back on his right arm, ‘ you want to buy tie’. Tim now at the end of his patience said a single ‘NO’ and she went away.

Relieved, Tim continued down the street a few paces until all of a sudden she was now on his left arm, no bags, no product, sidled up very close and asked Tim, ‘you want sexy massage?’

For those of you who know Tim Neill from TNA, you can only imagine his face. I for one would like to have had a camera and been a fly on the wall.

This was China, very enterprising with many products in stock!

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What did you have for lunch? On Jan 5th 2004?

Tuesday, November 4th, 2008

As a specialist in Instructional Design, every so often something happens in the learning world that makes me sit up and think about the process of learning I have employed.

My thanks are due to Jessica Marshall, a science writer based in Saint Paul Minnesota, who in a recently published article highlighted me to some research into a fairly new condition known as ‘hyperthymestic syndrome’.  This syndrome is where people have an affliction of remembering everything.

Yes: an affliction? Trainers would love everyone to remember everything they say, but these poor people remember every detail of their life in extraordinary detail.

The most well know case is of a woman who is only known as AJ, mention any date back to the 1980’s and she can picture where she was, what she was doing, and what was in the news on that day. The problem she has, is one we never really consider, she does not know how to forget.

Research is being carried out on a number of subjects in California all suffering from the same issues. Initial tests have found that she was able to correctly identify the days and dates of every Easter for the last 24 years and exactly what she was doing on those dates. Results were verified against diaries she keeps.  Even worse for her she can also identify the day of the week for any date since 1980 and the correct dates for most unforgettable events such as the date of the ‘Who shot JR?’ episode of the TV soap Dallas.

The root of the issue appears to be in the way people with hyperthymestic syndrome encode the data they see and hear carrying out the tasks of encoding memory at a much higher level and in much more detail than most of us.

There are many items most of us just forget as we do not need them any longer, such as the phone number of the house you lived in 10 years ago, what you had for breakfast last Thursday etc.

What is interesting is the lifestyle and other comparisons these sufferers have, a number of the test group also have some form of obsessive disorder. More than one has a collection of TV guides going back many years and they also keep extraordinarily detailed diaries going back 30+years. So the questions being asked now is not if these people know how to encode the data more effectively than most but if they are just much better at recalling information.

Michael Anderson at the University of St Andrews has the opinion that AJ may actually have some disorder in unconscious control mechanisms that normally block the recovery of memory. This is a fascinating study that when they know more may open up so many channels for us to understand how people can control what they will or will not commit to long term memory…  or is everything is in long term memory and we just don’t know how to control the non-exclusion of this information.

We have spent much time working to improve our minds, the invention recently of the ‘Brain Game’ to keep our minds active is playing a big part in helping many improve performance and speed of using the brain.

Just remember that next time you can’t remember where you are supposed to be today, or what time your next appointment is, your brain may actually doing you a favour.

In the meantime for this group undergoing research it’s not learning how to remember, but learning how to forget.

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Dr. Woods and his wailing machine

Thursday, October 30th, 2008

Some years ago I attended a specialist medical practitioner’s office in London. His speciality was identifying allergies and he did this with the most interesting item of test equipment I had ever seen.

He evaluated my sensitivity by connecting a stainless steel tube to my big toe and another similar tube to my thumb, both connected with a wiring harness to a machine with flashing lights and a big dial. Then he placed a small quantity of the material he believed I might be sensitive to in a glass vial and dropped it into a small receptacle in the machine. Pushing buttons and turning knobs, the machine began to wail and the needle on the dial danced madly up and down the scale. I could not tell the difference in the wailing between water and whisky.

 

We laughed all the way home and have dined out many times on the story of the allergy clinic. While I found out I was sensitive to an excess of alcohol, I would have paid twice the amount to see someone else’s report to compare the findings, or see if it was generic.

 

I often wonder about Dr Wood’s machine ( I now know it was an early version of the Vega test machine) could be used, in today’s turbulent world, to measure other things – like performance, for instance? How great would it be to hook a delegate to some machine, place the intervention (either in note form, maybe a video or on a disk) into a machine and measure the outcome before spending any money trying to deliver it. The more the machine wails the better the result…

Evaluation of performance has become one of those subjects that every conference discusses. Both HR and L&D people have differing views on the importance of performance and methodology of the evaluation. In many of the conferences I have attended in the last six months, the discussion ends up trying to define what performance is and how you recognise it. Some even try to assess the best way to deliver it, as if it was a commodity.

I believe that performance is best improved through the training department, using every available technique we have in the box: coaching, mentoring, training and learning.

The rapid development of e-learning has become one of the latest ‘fads’ to try to deliver learning (not training) in a quicker manner, where speed to the end user and price per moment of learning has pushed aside the importance of quality and instructional design.

Speed

The age of speed has been with us for some time. We have far less patience than the generation that preceded us.  Look at the differences between generations X and Y. Look at their expectations, tolerance levels and patience towards speed of technologically delivered services and you will see how fast we expect results in everything and how much it has speeded up as the generations evolve.

Price

There are two guaranteed sales in the world today: the cheapest on the market, and the most expensive. Everything in the middle has to make excuses for why it is cheaper than the competition but still worth buying, or, why it is more expensive than the competition and the reasons why it is worth paying more.

The bottom end of the market is the one that will have most long-term affect on training. To make it ‘cheap’ and ‘quick’ you have to cut out something. The old love triangle still is in play:

 

You can only have two of the points of the triangle.

 

·      If you want it quick and cheap, you can’t expect high quality.

·      If you want it fast and in high quality, it will cost more.

·      If you want quality but want it cheap, don’t expect it quickly.

 

Rapid Development tools are trying to break this triangle that has been accepted for so many years: offering cheap, quick e-learning and purporting to be high quality. How would these courses score on the ‘Dr Wood wail test’?

We want to reduce the time to market and we want to maintain the high quality and efficiency of the courseware we are delivering and, of course, we claim to have no budget. 

If you, like me, are not sure if there are answers, you could always buy one of the machines I may be offering early next year that wails when you have a good intervention – or maybe the more the delegate wails, the better the result!

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Water water everywhere…

Tuesday, October 28th, 2008

I may have found the perfect learning tool  WATER

 

Some facts about water:

 

Up to 60 percent of the human body is water, the brain is composed of 70 percent water, and the lungs are nearly 90 percent water.  About 83 percent of our blood is water

 

To remain healthy, an adult must drink 8ozs of pure water  for every two waking hours.

Although a person can live without food for more than a month, a person can only live without water for approximately one week.

 

A 2% drop in body water can trigger short-term memory loss.

75% of the earth is covered with water. There are 326 million cubic miles of water on earth.

The average person uses 80 to 100 gallons of water each day. During medieval times a person used only 5 gallons per day. It takes 2 gallons to brush your teeth, up to 7 gallons to flush a toilet, and about 25 gallons to take a shower.

 

Dr. Masaru Emoto has opened up an exciting scientific frontier about the effect our words can have on our life. His latest explores how the vibration and resonance of our words can change our life by transmitting the positive energy where it is needed inside us. Dr. Emoto’s latest book filled with trademark water crystal photographs, The Miracle of Water,  looks at how sensitive and receptive water can be in the presence of positive and negative thoughts. During his research, he noticed that the most beautiful and symmetric crystals formed when the water was exposed to the words love and gratitude while deformed or lopsided patterns appeared following the phrases you idiot and you can’t do it.

 

Receptive water? 

 

As  60% of the fat free mass of the human body is made of water, could we prepare this water before we drink it to contain not just positive thoughts but actual knowledge?

 

At this stage I would not blame for thinking I have already had too much to drink or gone completely mad.  I write this well before Christmas. Actually I am typing this at 8am on a Sunday morning, so no drink at all, not even the morning coffee yet!

 

Have a look at the website http://www.h2omwater.com. 

 

Om?  Om is a sacred syllable that is considered to be the greatest of all the mantras, or sacred formulas. Used in meditation the syllable Om is composed of the three sounds a-u-m.

H2Om water with intention’ is the world’s first interactive natural spring water. Infused with the power of positive energy through words, music, colours, symbols and you.

 

What is Water with Intention?

 

Designed to inspire you, they claim each bottle of H2Om promotes positive thinking, and positive energy for people and the planet. 

 

Their  trademark slogan “Think it while you Drink it”® is designed to inspire us to use the positive words on the label as the driving force in creating our intention.

 

Their vision for H2Om is to spread positive energy, inspire people to visualise amazing possibilities in their lives, and carry those vibrations throughout the world. Of course while drinking their water!

But that’s not all, they don’t just print positive words on the label, they play music and positive speech to the water while they bottle it. They call it VIBRATION HYDRATION™.

 

They claim, “The final energetic frequency is the power of thought. Your ability to connect to the water, create your own intention, and literally, Drink the vibration inspired and supported by the words on the label. As you drink, take a moment to use the words, colours, music, and vibrations as the driving force behind your own intention! Set your world in motion, then watch as the law of attraction goes to work for you.

 

There is obviously much research needed in this area, if as they claim we can hear and feel the vibrations added to the receptive water, while it was bottled, as we drink it. If we could charge the receptive water with the correct words and information, all we would need to do to learn would be to drink. Simple technology of the future. Could you imagine the bottle of Microsoft Word water, drink and know how to type a letter.

  My thoughts did turn to whether this may be long or short term memory and if the size of your bladder had any bearing on how much memory retention of what was contained in the water. I decided not to go there.

Although water with VIBRATION HYDRATION™ is not free, (About US$1.50 a bottle) it may be a very cheap source of high tech learning for the future.  

 

Maybe the Holy Grail of finding something for free should turn its efforts to finding something relatively cheap instead. Maybe we stop looking for the Goblet, but rather what goes in it.

By the way, it comes with free shipping in California! Where else?

 

For the totally sceptical amongst  you, you can sleep without worry tonight as vendors like myself still remain in the marketplace willing to offer you other technological solutions that come in either a download or on a disc, also with free shipping from £20.

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Dancing in the moment

Monday, October 27th, 2008

I always remember meeting a man named Doug Malouf. It was at an ASTD conference back in the ’90s. At that time, I thought I was a great trainer and presenter. He changed my life by opening my eyes to what I was really doing as a trainer, instead of what I wanted to be – a training facilitator.

From the moment he walked on stage he had my attention. When he left I was satisfied, but wanted more. He was funny, he was entertaining he had my full attention. I sat after he finished and asked myself one simple question.. “How did he do that?” I had a head full of new ideas and a book full of writing I had scrawled so fast, I had trouble reading it.

Ask yourself a question before you begin every course: If this group of students go home today and say they had a bloody great time, what would have happened and how will you have achieved this?

“Listen up,” I shouted at a conference. The room fell silent as I began a presentation five minutes early and whilst still backstage using a microphone. People were still trying to take their seats and choose the best view. I said “Don’t sit down, stay standing, and if you are sitting comfortably then please stand up for a moment.” It was a room of professional e-learning developers. I asked two questions: “If you have never facilitated a classroom-based training course using a controlled set of pre-designed interventions, or have no idea what I am talking about please sit down.” And then…”If you have never sat and completed any e-learning course that you or your company has not designed, please sit down.”

At that point, of the 175 people in the room all bar a handful were sitting down. I was astonished and have repeated this around the world with the same result.

Being a trainer in today’s world is being a facilitator, able to move with the crowd and change the material on the fly to meet the need. The training psychotherapist in my family (my wife) calls it “dancing in the moment.” The rules of the chalk-and-talk educator of the past have changed. The more we move to new media the more we have to change our training ways and views.

To dance in the moment is to know your subject so well that you can design your course not as training but as explorative learning. Imagine this: You stand up and begin to present your session. Everyone looks eager and awake, eyes are shining. Everyone is ready for your very first word. You start to talk, all seems great. You like the sound of your own voice, so why shouldn’t everyone attending? Five minutes in and a few eyes are glazed, the light fixtures and the sweets in the dish on the table have become more interesting than you. You’re in trouble, but you have not noticed yet. So on you go, talk…talk…talk…

At seven minutes there is a change in the group. The “manager type” in the front row is smiling at you politely. The blonde lady in the business suit has a twinkle in her eye, and the techie in the second row is completely relaxed and fully consumed in pleasure. You think, “Hey I’m getting through.
They love me, no?” No! In fact after seven minutes, it is well documented your audience will be thinking of something else, something that is fun or is more easily palatable. What you have is not the positive feedback you so desire. It’s a message to stop talking and move on.

Dancing in the moment?

Dancing in the moment?

To dance in the moment is to present for only a few minutes, and present something so thought provoking in relevant subject matter that the group are filled with questions and the need for more. Then offer the group the opportunity to use your expertise, to ask questions and explore the areas they wish to know rather than your normal, pre-designed route for teaching. Delivery in e-learning using this process is still achievable. Design a library of small scenarios and allow the user to get involved in as many as they wish.

Dancing in the moment, requires not much new, just a change in how you do it…. If they had a bloody good time, then you were dancing…..

As for Doug Malouf, he was one of those “ah ha” moments for me all those years ago, something that stuck and that I will always consider. If I saw him on the bill at any conference, I would be at the front of the queue.

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