Sharing my Learning from My FirstUnConference

I have just posted a blog on our internal HR Social/Collaboration site at work. I attended yesterday's L&DConnect UnConference in London, and had been asked by my boss to make sure that I shared whatever learning points had arisen for me, with the rest of my colleagues. This seemed to be the most impactive way of doing that.

Incidentally, much respect to the organisers, the contributors and the 'summarisers' of yesterday's event.

Here's the blog I posted at work...

I was recently invited by a contact on LinkedIn to attend an UnConference, to discuss with other Learning & Development professionals issues and ideas about what, why, how and could we do what we do.

So yesterday, a focussed half day, at the Brewery in Brick Lane, Algate East London, was attended by about 30 people, most of who I had never met before, but several of whom I was already following or being followed by on Twitter.  A very loose agenda was offered and we divided up into groups to discuss various kick-off topics, which we then post-it-noted into further discussion groups.  Refreshements were on tap all afternoon, so no need to take specific breaks where we all queued for the toilet at the same time.

No keynote speakers, no experts to tell us how c**p we are at what we do - just enthusastic professionals sharing knoweldge, opinions and ideas.

Rather than give you a blow-by-blow account of the proceedings, I'm adding links to this blog, to take you to some of the great reflective resources that other attendees created.  If you cannot access these links via the network at work, can I strongly urge you to try from home or elsewhere, as these are the kinds of tools that can open up our discussion and our own knowledge sharing potential.

Links:

http://pabial.wordpress.com/2012/04/24/i-give-to-you-ld-connect/ A blog from Sukh Pabial, one of the organisers.

http://storify.com/kingfishercoach/l-and-d-connect-unconference A Storify summary of the event in Tweets and pictures, curated by Ian Pettigrew, one of the attendees.

http://itsdevelopmental.com/2012/delegates-share-their-takeaway-from-the-ld-connect-unconference/ A video blog by Martin Couzins, where all the attendees were invited to speak directly to camera on our way out, stating what one big 'take-away' each of us was leaving with.

One final thought.  Wouldn't this be a great format for our next internal HR Conference - an HR UNConference?

End of the work blog.

I'll let you know what kind of interest and/or feedback I get from my HR colleagues...