February 2012
2 posts
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Creativity and initiative: priceless, but fragile
Spend some time talking to the leaders of just about any organisation about the future performance of their business, and at some point they’ll bring up how important it is that their workforce be able to marshal skills like creativity and initiative to identify better ways of working and improved outputs (products, information, outcomes - whatever they’re in the business of...
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I survived my Twitter/Tumblr/etc. fast - but did I...
Apologies to everyone that it has taken me so long to post again. Heading up to the period of my leave over Christmas, work was absolutely hectic and I was racing to get a few things finished before I went, so that meant long nights and weekends once more. I couldn’t work up the extra energy or brain power to post anything new.
When I mentioned to a few of my friends that I was...
October 2011
1 post
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Real life - where the rubber meets the road
I had what I thought was an odd discussion yesterday with a friend of mine who manages a couple of business units in a large corporate here in Australia. He was lamenting the fact that no matter how much time he allowed his staff to have away from their desks to participate in learning, their performance seemed to orbit around a mark that the business really needed to improve on. His question to...
September 2011
2 posts
Learning in an age of uncertainty
OK, I promised a short summary of my LearnX presentation for those who were interested, so here we go.
A simple premise: the nature of work changes, and the pace of that change has never been faster
I doubt anyone will argue with the straightforward premise. In the past few hundred years, work has moved from subsistence farming and craft professions, through industrialisation and on to knowledge...
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Workplace evolution requires learning evolution
Thank you to all of those who have sent such kind messages regarding my presentation at LearnX last week in Brisbane. A few people have asked for a copy of the presentation and notes so, in the spirit of sharing, I’ve uploaded a copy of the PowerPoint to Slideshare. You can find it at http://www.slideshare.net/GlennHansen/learnx-2011-presso
I’ve uploaded a copy of the supporting notes...
July 2011
2 posts
3 tags
The Importance of Opportunity Cost for L&D - CLO... →
Over the past few weeks, I’ve had the opportunity to address three of the groups from our Leadership Academy program (our main development track for future and current leaders) on people development. One of the important topics we covered was the concept of opportunity cost, but rather than bore you with my thoughts, David Vance has produced an excellent and timely article for Chief Learning...
Hand hacking? Now that's one way to learn the... →
Scientists in Japan have partnered with Sony researchers to develop a devicje that hijacks your arm - well, more or less.
June 2011
2 posts
4 tags
LCBQ for June - Breaking down organisational walls
Consider this a late entry for June’s Learning Circuits blog Big Question. I’ve deliberately left it late because I was very interested to see what others thought about breaking through these obstacles and how they defined them, and I recommend the other posts as worthwhile reading (just click on the Learning Circuits link above to see them).
Now, for my two cents. Let’s start...
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Sometimes the best training is no training at all
I’ve been sifting through various requests our team receives from the field - assistance with bringing people up to speed with one thing or another - which is nothing out of the ordinary (we are, after all, the L&D team). One thing generally stands out about requests that we receive, though, and I’m sure it’s been noticed by others at other organisations, too: just about...
May 2011
3 posts
3 tags
Reflections on #FearlessSocialSummit
I’ve spent the past two days at Fearless Media’s Social Media Summit here in Melbourne, and on the whole, it was time well spent. Speakers included Julie Posetti (one of Australia’s premier academics in the field of journalism), Gerry McCusker (PR guru and author of PR Disasters), Philip Jones of Schmooze and Gene Stark (marketing and branding expert and principle of Stark...
Meeting on demand learning and performance needs
The May Learning Circuits Big Question builds on last month’s topic of how to deal with stakeholders’ “I want it now!” (and I also want it to be high quality, cheap and effective) attitude. This month, we’re looking at the ways in which learning practitioners may need to alter the learning environment to ensure end-users have immediate (or so near to immediate as to...
Getting a return on your learning investment
For learning and development professionals, and especially those entrusted with managing an organisation’s learning and development, few things are as critical as the need to ensure that the money, time and effort invested in learning initiatives provides a solid and, in some way, measurable return. A recent article in ASTD’s weekly email newsletter, The Buzz, got me thinking about...
April 2011
2 posts
4 tags
Interactivity, engagement and learning
I was chatting to a colleague from the U.K. yesterday about learning in general and, at one point, the benefits of online learning (synchronous and asynchronous). When talking about the effectiveness of elearning, this person kept coming back to the mantra, “Yes, but it has to be engaging and interactive.” As we talked, it dawned on me that, although they used the terms separately,...
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#LCBQ Addressing “I want it now!” from...
I still feel bad about the lateness of my submission for last month’s Learning Circuits Big Question, so I’d better get the current one up nice and early in the month. You can find #LCBQ here: http://learningcircuits.blogspot.com/.
The prevalence of mobile data in smart phones, laptops, tablets and other mobile devices means that every day we become more accustomed to being able to...
March 2011
2 posts
4 tags
Cramming not working for you? It's not you, it's...
I had an interesting conversation recently with one of our people who is participating in the Certificate IV in Employment Services program here at TSAEP. They were afraid there was something wrong with their ability to process, store and recall information, because they were struggling to complete assessment activities following their facilitated workshop sessions. When I asked them about their...
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LCBQ for March - Measuring the effectiveness of...
This month’s Learning Circuits Big Question is, “How do you assess whether your informal learning, social learning, continuous learning, performance support initiatives have the desired impact or achieve the desired results?”
I apologise for the delay in offering my two cents’ worth. Putting the finishing touches on our new electronic performance appraisal system and preparing our...
February 2011
6 posts
1 tag
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How TSAEP uses learning technology - Part 2 Online...
Sorry for the delay between posts - things have been hideously busy lately - but here we go. Last time, we looked at TSAEP’s internal use of web conferencing to support learning and its applicability to a wide array of topics and methods (e.g. accredited learning, such as Diploma programs, short and sharp operational training sessions, remedial sessions, etc.). Today, we’ll look at...
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How TSAEP uses learning technology - Part 1 Web...
Since I started posting about the direction I see learning and development headed (see the posts below), a number of people have asked me how my own organisation in taking advantage of new opportunities in the learning environment. It’s certainly a fair enough question. What’s the point of me pontificating about required change if I have no intention of following my own advice? So, I...
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Predictions for learning in 2011
#LCBQ – Predictions and challenges for 2011
In response to the latest edition of The Big Question on the Learning Circuits blog, I’ve eviscerated my old GI Joe doll, poured through the entrails, and read the signs in the Twitterverse. Here are some of my thoughts on what’s to come in learning this year.
2011, the year of collaboration
It may be the Year of Rabbit according to the...
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The changing face of learning and development
Following on from my previous post regarding some of Jay Cross’ general work, I’d like to introduce you (or perhaps re-introduce some of you) to some of Cross’ more specific thinking regarding the progression of organisational learning and what the future could hold (or can hold, if we are brave enough to let it come into being - more on that later).
Here is a graphical...
January 2011
16 posts
2 tags
Australian govt encourages the use of open source →
Good to see the Australian government recognising the value of open source software. For years, government departments and agencies have been heavily discouraged (and some have actually been banned) from taking advantage of open source. I’m happy to see the view is changing (finally…).
Social learning and the power of inertia
Anyone who knows me professionally knows I’m a big fan of Jay Cross, one of the great thought leaders when it comes to collaborative (read, social) learning. I met Jay at LearnX here in Australia a few years ago, and then had the pleasure of attending one of his presentations out here, in which he introduced me to a new gadget called the Flip. Of course, the Flip and cameras like it have now...
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Death (from embarassment) by tweet
There are so many stories about people who have caused themselves endless trouble through one (or, sometimes, several) indiscrete tweets that I hardly need recite them for you. If you’re a Twitter user, or even if you just keep up with that odd area of news where tech meets celebrity, you’ve already heard a heap of them. If you’re one of the very few who haven’t heard...
Old Spice Guy is back! (mashable.com) →
My favourite ad campaign looks like it’s back!
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I just love this alternative to PowerPoint - Prezi →
If you’re a trainer who uses PowerPoint or something similar, I really do urge you to take a look at Prezi.
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Why organisations need social learning - Laurent...
The following article is reproduced from ASTD’s website. It provides some interesting thoughts and suggestions for why social learning (mediated by electronic tools) is useful for organisations and how it can be used. At The Salvation Army Employment Plus, we use social learning software to support our more tradition forms of training and development activities. Although I...
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Road train technology trials get rolling - BBC... →
Researchers of traffic flows have been saying for years now that if people could be forced to drive together at a safe and consistent speed, traffic flow would be greatly enhanced. Looks like controlled trials have started on the technology that could make this a reality. My only question: What do I do when I want to get off the highway and I’m the middle car in a 30-vehicle column?
PC games on the nose? →
No matter how immersive games have become, none are able to produce smells to match the on-screen environment - until now. Developer Scent Sciences have demonstrated Scent Scape, a machine that plus in to PCs via a USB port and, with the relevant code written into a game’s software, produces smells appropriate to the environment and action. Price is yet to be announced, but apparently the...
Royal Pingdom's Internet 2010 in numbers →
Some very interesting figures regarding the growth of the Internet, email, social networking and more. I haven’t looked at any of their sources, so I can’t absolutely vouch for the accuracy of all the info, but I found the post intriguing - especially the proportion of email that is spam: 89.1% of all email send last year, or 262 billion spam emails per day.
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Enjoy some nice photos
While I sort out what I should post for my first real blog post, please enjoy some photos from my trip to the UK. We arrived in between two of the biggest snow storms southern England has seen (at least, in the memory of the people we spoke to while there), but that didn’t detract from the beauty of the place.
