Inspired by @ lightbulbJo's earlier blog (here), summarising this morning's #PSKevents #fishbowl session on 'the modern learner', here are my very quick reflections, starting with why I wasn't in the room in the first place.
I had booked and paid for this session several weeks ago, on the basis of the quality of the 'panel', each one being an L&D/OD/HR thinker and practitioner who I respect and with whom I often interact. Having only participated in conversations using the fishbowl format a couple of times before, I was keen to see how the 'big beasts' would use the format to engage and interact with an audience who had made the effort to be there for 08:00 on a work day in London.
So, why didn't I attend in person?
Regular readers will be aware of my heart surgery, recovery & redundancy a couple of years ago. Until that point, I was a London commuter from the Sussex coast, something I had been doing for ten years. One of the legacies of those times and my surgery/recovery is that I have become anxious when I have to travel during rush hour. I won't go into the symptoms but suffice to say it's not something I enjoy, and when I do have to to be in London or non-local environments nowadays, I try to structure my time such that I can avoid 'peak time'.
Last night, I started planning my travel to the West End of London for an 08:00 start, and my heart (literally) sank! I'd have needed to get up at 04:45 change trains twice and arrive at Victoria earlier than I needed to, to then get the tube (two more changes) to get me to the venue. In the old days, I would not have given this a second thought. Indeed, I might even have relished the challenge and been looking forward to a well-earned survivor's coffee before the event.
But I've learned to listen to my body and my feelings now in a way I never used to. I started to get anxious and uncomfortable about the travelling and that began to outweigh the benefits of being present in the room. So I decided not to attend.
But I did! After a good night's sleep, untroubled by commuter worry, I was up at 07:30 and online on Twitter at 08:00, tea in hand, following the #hashtag for the event. Jo's summary neatly encapsulates the richness of the conversation, both within the venue and from the speakers, but also on the backchannel with those who, like me, weren't able to attend but who wanted to listen, comment, engage and generally be part of the discussion. We had a grand time, and I avoided the stress of getting there in the first place - almost like 'a modern learner', you might say...!
So, with some sterling tweet work and a couple of #Pericopes from Ger Driesen (@GerDriesen), Kim Edwards (@ KimSEdwards_) and Christine Locher (@ ChristineLocher) and indeed, Jo herself, stuck on a train and unable to get to the event as a result (@ LightbulbJob), I was fully engaged and able to participate in what proved to be a rich conversational and learning seam. Thanks to all.
A final point. The organisers and participants seemed to forget about the backchannel after a while and as the event came to a conclusion, which I assume it did, with (hopefully) some wise words summarising the conversation in the room, some takeaways and some thanks, it was left to us 'onliners' to draw our own conclusions.
This was a missed opportunity by the organisers, I'd suggest, and maybe something to think about when arranging future such events. For an event which was tackling 'the modern learner', better backchannel facilitation and inclusion would have been really 'walking the talk'.
