Week Minded

Highdown Hill, West Sussex - Photo NJG

It's Friday, one of my non-work days. With some time to myself, I've been reflecting on how it's gone.

What's been happening? How did I show up? Did I learn anything? Did I apply any of that learning? 

Well, yes and no.

Being present in social media channels means that one gets exposed to a lot of noise. Sometimes I contribute to that noise; sometimes, I hope, helpfully.

The week started off really well, with my weekly walk and talk with my Counsellor followed by my continuing to walk further, exploring local pathways not previously walked, but trusting my sense of direction and following the waymarks. In total, some 10k in uncharteristically glorious weather, the benefits of which for my mental and physical wellbeing lasted well into Tuesday. Joyous.

This week also saw two "[insert cause/subject here] Week" campaigns which are both areas of personal interest to me - "Learning at Work Week" (#LAWW21) and "Dementia Action Week" (#DAWW21). 

One of my professional bodies (for whom I work part-time) is an active sponsor of LAWW and we have discussed and acted on this both internally as a team and in our support for the HR, L&D and OD profession externally.

This blog is my activity recognising that, enabling me to reflect on and share what I've learned this week.

It's also Dementia Action Week, a cause close to my heart, for family reasons. I'm a research volunteer for the Join Dementia Research (@BeatDementia) programme, and have been contributing to their online studies since 2014. A few weeks ago, they asked their volunteer community of study participants if they would be prepared to be interviewed to share their story of how and why they got involved. I was selected, interviewed and my story was published this week, as part of their DAW campaign, here: "Making a difference through online research studies".

My hope is that people reading it may be prompted to get involved themselves and thereby add to the data which will hopefully speed understanding about and prevention or cure of this cruel disease.

Then on Wednesday morning, I learned from a friend on facebook that another friend from my college days back in 73-76 had died suddenly of an aneurism. A year younger than me, a wife, grandmother, photographer, generous sharer and all-round lovely person, her death hit me quite hard. 

I've spent a lot of time in the last few months discussing and sorting out my and Mandy's end-of-life admin - Lasting Powers of Attorney, Wills, Funeral Plans - and, having survived heart surgery myself six years ago, death has been much on my mind. Sheila's death and her family's loss really brought this to the fore.

Wednesday was probably the low point of my week. Thursday, however, was satisfyingly clear-minded, focussed and productive.

And here we are, it's Friday already, and today I chose not to join in the weekly 08:00 am #LDinsight tweetchat with my #PLN (Personal Learning Network), and had a long lie and leisurely breakfast instead.

So, what, if anything, did I learn this week?

It's good to to talk | Sometimes you don't need to have a clear destination in mind and you can just enjoy the journey for itself and for whatever physical and mental nourishment it provides | It's OK to have a down day; don't beat yourself up about it | You don't always have to show up; the world will keep turning.

Have a great weekend, folks.

The Best Conference I've Never Attended

It was the CIPD's 100th Anniversary Conference and Exhibition in Manchester this week.  I couldn't attend - had too much to do at work and travel planned accordingly.  But I did manage to multi-task (men can do it too!) and follow the live backchannel on Twitter. Many of my Twitter PLN (Personal Learning Network) were either attending, presenting, facilitating, blogging or just simply commentating via social media during the two days and, whilst I couldn't keep up with the constant flurry of tweets and blog links being shared, I did what I usually do in these circumstances, which is to 'favourite' the tweets of particular interest, so that I could revisit them in my Twitter 'faves' column later and work my way through them in slow time.  This also allows me time to absorb and reflect, 'cos my brain can't take it all in at the same speed as the 'flying fingers' of my PLN can push it out.

So now it's Saturday and I'm starting to work my way through the list, only to find that most of the individual tweets and links I had saved had already been curated and replayed on the CIPD Tumblr site http://cipd.tumblr.com/ by Doug Shaw ( @dougshaw1 ), along with many other tweets and links that I had missed. Top Man, Doug!  Now I can use the Tumblr site as a reference book and take my time reading, absorbing, thinking and maybe even commenting on the wisdom and commentary therein.

The CIPD is changing. I now understand the new focus and direction of the organisation and have heard its new voice, not only from the conference floor, but from the breakouts and the coffee shops and the pubs and restaurants around the event itself, where everyone meets and discusses the news of the day.

And that's why I love Twitter and the community of people I have grown to know and respect through it, active in my professional field. Much time, effort and wisdom is shared freely and enthusiastically by way too many people to mention, but suffice it to say that I cannot think of a better explanation of why social media should be considered as a vital part of our individual and collective professional development.  I wasn't at the conference, but I am as well informed and engaged, sitting here at my breakfast bar at home, as if I had been, and it's thanks to those people that I am able to say so.

Now, back to catching up on the rest of those Conference Blogs....