Research says that whatever I say next will be a whopping lie

March 11, 2015

Over 15 years of working in L&D (and a dose of studying philosophy of science at university) makes me very alert to the phrase “research says”. It is usually followed by an unsubstantiated claim. After all, if you are making a claim that is backed by scientific research it is not hard to include a […]

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e-learning professionals “the cobbler’s children with no shoes”

December 24, 2014

At a recent Professional Services e-learning Forum, L&D teams were likened to “cobbler’s children with no shoes”. This allegory describes the phenomenon where professionals are so busy with work for their clients and their teams that they neglect using their professional skills to help themselves or those closest to them. A beautiful metaphor, but is […]

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How well do you really know your learners?

November 4, 2014

It is a truth universally acknowledged in any presentation skills or business writing course that you need to get to know your audience – that way, whatever your message, you can gauge useful things like what they already know, think and feel before you jump into the delicate basis of encouraging them to unlearn some […]

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Are confidentiality concerns holding back the e-learning industry?

October 14, 2014

If e-learning has a creation myth, it is that the e-learning industry was born out of the dotcom crash at the turn of the century – swarms of freshly unemployed web designers and developers started applying their skills to changing learner behaviour rather than consumer behaviour. The exchange of ideas between e-learning and web design […]

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Five ingredients for compliance e-learning excellence

September 29, 2014

Last week I had the privilege of judging the e-learning awards (obviously my lips are sealed as to who the winners are until the awards dinner). Naturally some of the entries had other ingredients that made them sparkle in other ways, but here I can share five themes that many of the short-listed entries had […]

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Beautiful data, frightening conclusions

September 15, 2014

As someone who enjoys reducing information overload and making complex topics more meaningful and accessible, I’ve enjoyed browsing my way through two coffee table books which show the power of infographics: David McCandless’ Information is beautiful and Simon Rogers’ Facts are sacred. The way that data has been put together and presented is genuinely inspiring. […]

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Talent management myths and facts

September 9, 2014

Last Friday I went to an excellent session of the Trainers and Developers Network  led by Catherine Shepherd. In many organisations talent management is siloed away from L&D, but it’s usually helpful to understand more about what your colleagues in HR are doing (and how it interacts with your LMS). Here are my three main takeaways […]

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Ice bucket learning

September 1, 2014

If you’ve managed to avoid the ice bucket challenge, I can only commend you for managing to stay unplugged from social media on your holidays, you have surpassed me. For the rest of us, this is a cultural phenomenon, which naturally I look through the lens of L&D geekiness to see what we can learn.

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Is this compliance story too close to home?

August 4, 2014

Learners are used to compliance e-learning. Anyone in a big company is used to having several mandatory modules a year to complete so the game becomes “how can I do this as quickly as I can and get my tick in the box?”. Left unchallenged, this leads to a mentality of “this stuff does not […]

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Professional services e-learning forum achieves ten

July 4, 2014

7th July sees the 10th meeting of the Professional services e-learning forum, an informal networking and benchmarking group for L&D professionals working for the UK’s top 15 accountancy and top 15 law firms. Meetings involve a structured round table discussion under Chatham House rules followed by informal networking.

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