On Message

Today, I'm following the tweets from the eLearning Network's annual conference, eLNConnect (here). I'm a member but, for various reasons, wasn't able to attend. So, as usual in these circumstances, I turn to and rely on good old Twitter and my personal learning network (PLN) to keep me informed as I get on with 'other stuff'.

I use TweetDeck to follow and contribute to Twitter conversations. I find its structure of using multiple columns to separate out different conversational streams to be invaluable, particularly when engaging in tweetchats such as the weekly #LDinsight chat, or to follow events like conferences. 

So today, I searched for the eLNConnect hashtag, and the first few hits came up with #eLNConnect19, which I duly separated into its own column and started following the discussion, as tweeted out by some of the PLN attending.

But then, in my 'Home' feed column, I started seeing some other people tweeting from the conference and using the hashtag #eLNConnect2019. Now I had a dilemma - was it #eLNConnect19 or #eLNConnect2019? Which was the 'official' conference hashtag? What was I going to miss if I focused on the 'wrong' tag? Did I need to create a second Tweetdeck column for the other tag?

So I tweeted out, using both hashtags, asking which hashtag to follow. 

And I got a bit cross.

And felt myself disengaging.

After about 20 minutes or so, the official eLNConnect account confirmed that the hashtag was, in fact, #eLNConnect2019, with an apology for the confusion. Situation saved, my TweetDeck column hashtag adjusted and my attention re-engaged. Happy days.

So, here's a suggestion to all and every event organisers everywhere - before your event, publicise your 'official' hashtag; ensure that it's in all your pre-event marketing materials and critically, announce it loud and clear in the room and across your social media channels at the start of and frequently throughout your event. Avoid hashtag ambiguity.

People like me, who have a genuine interest in your event and the speakers' stories, keen to learn, who want to engage, share and contribute, want to feel part of things but cannot be there, will thank you for it and will willingly amplify the discussions and the learning.

So as #eLNConnect2019 takes a coffee break, my thanks to @elearningnetwk and all the contributors, tweeters and sharers for what has been a fascinating morning already. I'm looking forward to more as the day goes on.

Socially Challenged

Yesterday, I had the privilege to speak at the Elearning Fusion 2019 Conference in Warsaw, Poland (#ELF19). This was my first 'international' speaking engagement, the invitation to which came 'out of the blue' when the creator and organiser, Marta Machalska, contacted me via LinkedIn some months ago and extended the invitation to speak. I was delighted to have been asked to speak at what was clearly a premium event.

I had a good look at previous years' Elearning Fusion Conferences on the Internet, and I was pleased to see several well- and some personally-known speakers at their earlier conferences. So I got my biography info and subject abstract in as quickly as I could

As a potential speaker, I found Marta and her team's communication to be prompt, unambiguous and effective. They confirmed all details, including flights and hotel arrangements promptly and I was reassured that I was in good hands.

And then suddenly, the time was upon us. In the week or so beforehand, I started promoting the conference and my session on social media - on Twitter and LinkedIn. I connected with my Session Chair and we messaged each other. I delivered my Presentation and story (about using social media to support social and collaborative learning) to the organisers via DropBox before the big day and, as I said several times beforehand, rehearsed, rehearsed and rehearsed.

And I'm glad I did.

Because I'd made one or two assumptions, based on looking at the previous years' events. I had planned a short practical exercise using Sticky or Post-It Notes, so that I could show a quick YouTube video and then reveal that it was a ploy on my part to demonstrate using social media for Social and collaborative Learning. This was dependent on the delegates sitting at desks or tables, as was the case at the previous ELF events.  I had also assumed that the previous session speaker would run to time. Neither proved to be the case on the day.

No tables! Delegates were sitting theatre-style, in rows. And my session, the one before lunch, got squeezed by over-runs by the other two (Two? Only supposed to be one!) speakers.

Thankfully, because I had rehearsed often enough, I was able to flex. I binned the practical, told them about it and showed the video anyway. I pressed on, trimmed some of my stories, still managed to ask a couple of questions, set my challenge to everyone and managed to finish only two minutes over time myself. No-one's hunger for lunch overcame their hunger to learn, and everyone stayed to the end of the session.

So, to the challenge I set my participants. I asked how many of them blogged. Several hands went up. I asked how many of those made blogging part of their learning practice and encouraged others in their own learning communities to blog and share. Fewer hands. How many video blogged (or 'Vlogged'). Not many at all.

I suggested that we could build our own skills whilst showing leadership and 'walking the talk', by blogging, vlogging, tweeting or posting updates about our experiences at Elearning Fusion 19; what we had learned, what we were taking away and what we would be introducing into our practice.

I had previously invited people in my Personal Learning Network (PLN) to share their 'social media for social & collaborative learning' stories. My challenge to the rooms was to do the same. I suggested using the conference hashtag #ELF19 and the hashtag for my challenge, #ELFusionSoMe.

This blog is my first effort at that. I'll be very interested to see who and what else shows up!

Re-Ignition

Tomorrow (Wednesday 10th May 2017) is Day #1 of the CIPD Learning and Development Show at Olympia in London, one of the premier L&D events in my annual calendar, alongside the LPI's LearningLive in September and the L&SG's Learning Technologies Conference in February and June. These are my three 'go-to' events, sometimes as a speaker or session chair, and sometimes just as an attendee.

Each show has its different high points and at this year's CIPD L&D Show, mine is going to be being one of the speakers in the Ignite Lab at 16:45 in the Digital Learning area of the Exhibition. In numerical terms, there are 9 speakers, each with 5 minutes to talk, supported by 20 slides, auto-timed for 15 seconds each. As if that is not a challenge in itself, to make things just a little more challenging, I'm first up!

This will be only my third ever Ignite presentation, having delivered my first at the CIPD Annual Conference in Manchester some three years ago. I was on stage with some big hitters - Andy Lancaster, Perry Timms and Paul Taylor - and anyone who was there may remember my 'paper blizzard' as I referred to my prompt notes and discarded them willy-nilly on the floor after each slide. In truth, that represented my under-rehearsed approach and an element of panic on my part. But at least it gave my fellow presenters and others in the room a good laugh. I think the topic was well received as well, if slightly overshadowed by flying postcards.

I recently delivered another ignite session at the Sussex CIPD Branch meeting in March, and had taken the time to rehearse and tweak (and repeat several times) beforehand. I blogged about that, and what I learned, here.

Yesterday, there was a flurry of tweets and conversation on Twitter amongst some of my fellow Ignite Presenters for tomorrow's session, when the list - and running order - was shared with us. The main theme was nervousness about the format and our individual concerns around being able to keep up with the auto-timed slides (there is no 'Pause' button once you've started!). The fear of it not quite working out in front of an audience. I share that nervousness, and it got me thinking about the pressure that we put ourselves under when we accept and undertake things like this.

Public speaking remains one of the biggest fears for many people, irrespective of their professional domain. We beat ourselves up thinking such thoughts as "Who wants to listen to what I've got to say anyway?", "The others will be so much better than me", "What if I dry up?", and, especially in the case of doing an Ignite session, "What do I do if I can't fit it all in and I run out of time?". I suspect there may be a restless night ahead for some of my colleagues, and indeed, myself.

However, in this Mental Health Awareness Week, it strikes me that this is as nothing to what many with mental health problems must experience daily, as 'panic attacks' or self-loathing 'voices' which disturb or disable their everyday functioning.

We will deliver our sessions and feel great that we've done it. We will (hopefully) receive some positive feedback and we will no doubt indulge in some self-congratulation and mutual back-slapping. But then, we are a little community, we have shared our anxieties, our fears, our feelings in advance, during and after our sessions. We will have been witnessed. No-one will die and we will all get on with our lives.

Those with Mental Health issues may not have those luxuries, that community, those shared discussions, that recognition. They may well not be presenting any outward signs of distress, may even be seen as high-functioning, particularly in a professional or work-related context. Remember that everyone is fighting their own battles that you know nothing about. Be kind.

And that applies to yourself as much as you should apply it to others. And not just tomorrow either.

Enjoy the show!

Chaired

I had the privilege of Chairing two sessions on the afternoon of the first day of this year's Learning Technologies Conference at Olympia in London last week. I chaired a single LT conference session last year, but this year's felt like a bigger challenge with more responsibility.

I was first approached by Don Taylor, Chairman of the Learning & Performance Institute and the Learning & Skills Group, back in September last year, with an email simply asking if I would be prepared to take on the challenge of Chairing two sessions. He pointed out that he wanted to mix things up a bit at this year's conference and that there would of necessity be a larger commitment of time and effort required.  Always up for a new learning opportunity, I agreed.  Now, with the conference behind us, I have been reflecting on the experience.

There are now 128 emails in my 'LT15uk' folder since that initial request some four months ago. These represent the history of the to and fro exchanges between myself and Don and his team, as well as with the speakers in both of the sessions I was to Chair - five terrific professionals from different sectors, sharing their case studies and experiences in two discussions streams being run in two different conference rooms back-to-back on the same afternoon!  We're all busy people, with busy day jobs and full-time responsibilities, so we all had to balance our time and commitments accordingly.

If you want a masterclass on how to Chair conference sessions, I recommend you volunteer to Don to do so if and when he extends the invitation in the future. His requirements were clear; his timeline and gateways explicit, but the how and when to do these things he left up to me.  After advising the session speakers that I was their Chair, Don left us to get on with it.  Which we did.

I shan't bore you with the details of the several conference calls and email exchanges we had between then and Wednesday last week when we assembled at the agreed hour/s, got set up and ran our sessions. Suffice to say that juggling our time and effort had not been wasted and they went well.

Having spoken at several conferences before now, I have recognised the importance of a good Chair - someone who soothes speaker nerves (we all have them, no matter how experienced), keeps things in order and to time, sets the audience expectations and 'session norms' (not 'rules', you'll note), makes the necessary introductions - and then gets the h*ll out of the way until any Q&A discussion at the end, then makes sure as many people as possible get to makes their point or ask their question. I tried to live up to those standards last week and hope that that's what my speakers and attendees experienced. My

only 'innovation' if you can call it that, was to tweet several times before Wednesday, and on the day itself, inviting people to tweet me any questions they might have for my speakers in advance, so I could pose them for them 'in the room'. No-one did beforehand, but two people in the audience did tweet me their question during one of the sessions and I was able to pass it on to the panel during the Q&As (thanks to @happyhenry and @danroddy for those!)

So everything went well and I was congratulating myself on not having dropped the ball, when  Sukhvinder Pabial, another first-time Chair (and valued member of my #PLN - Personal Learning Network), tweeted the following...  

 

Sukh's tweets, together with an overheard comment from someone at the conference drinks later, that the conference sessions still seemed to be 'audiences sitting in a theatre being talked at by 'experts'', got me thinking; what could I have done differently to have made the sessions I chaired more interactive and even more engaging? 

I realised I had quite happily gone along with - indeed, set - the agenda and format of my two sessions in a traditional 'Intro / Speaker / Q&A / Sum Up' way and I had not, in fact, encouraged my speakers to think differently, to encourage audience involvement, challenge, conversation or debate during their presentations. I did throw a couple of unplanned questions at them during the Q&As, but that was about it. That said, all my speakers delivered interesting, insightful case studies in their presentations and the Q&A sessions were lively, added even more information and content and, as a result, were fully attended to the end.

So, if I am ever asked to Chair any future conference sessions, my challenge will be to think - and to get my speakers to think - outside of the traditional conference presentation format box and to see what innovations we can bring to the learning exchange that we are all there to benefit from.

What would you like to see done differently? Have you ever been to or participated in an Un-Conference? Would that format work within the context of a larger, multi-stream, multi-day, multi-venue event? What about running 'Ignite' presentations (20 slides, 15 seconds per slide, auto-timed)? I'd love to hear your thoughts or ideas.

I just want to finish by thanking my speakers for their cooperation and trust in the run-up to, and their contributions during, our sessions on Wednesday 28th January at the Learning Technologies Conference 2015 - Velda Barnes (@velbarnes) from Addaction, Jason Simeon from Selex ES, Jane Daly from Marks & Spencer, Edward Gallier (@EdwardGallier) from Jurys Inn and Kandy Woodfield (@jess1ecat) from NatCen Social research. Thanks also to Don Taylor (@DonaldHTaylor) for the giving me the opportunity to Chair these two sessions, and to Sukh Pabial (@sukhpabial) for making me reflect - always learning!

Weekend Reflections on CIPD HRD13

I had the pleasure of being a Speaker at the CIPD HRD Conference on Wednesday.  I had also been invited to be an official Conference Blogger (two passes!).  Unfortunately, I could only attend on the first day, due to pre-booked work priorities in Southampton.  But no matter, I thought, I'll make it work.

I kinda did.  I  managed to get a blog out soon after I arrived, on a topic which had been bubbling with me for a while and which was empahsised in the twitterstream during my journey up from Brighton that morning - the use of humour in the face-to-face and the online worlds.  I was pleased to meet up with several of my twitter buddies who were also blogging the conference, particularly Mike Morrison (@rapidBI), Doug Shaw (@dougshaw1), Sukhvinder Pabial (@sukhpabial), Martin Couzins (@martincouzins) and Megan Pippin (OD_optimist). The Conference Press Room, hosted very ably by Katy Askew (@katyaskew) and Natalia Thomson (@N_Thomson) was also a great hub and bolt hole - and I knew how to operate the coffee machine!

With a limited amount of time before I had to start preparing for my own session, I had a quick scamper through the show guide and decided to drop by the "Technology for Learning" theatre in the Exhibition Hall to catch Pauline Willis (@paulinewillis) from Lauriate Ltd, speaking on and demonstrating the use of Sociomapping tools as an enabler for working successfully with remote and virtual teams. I greatly enjoyed her session and I tweeted out my key learning points throughout.

 

Then I had to run to the Speakers Lounge to meet my co-speaker, Tom Bryant from Colt Technologies, and our CIPD chair and host, to prepare for our shared session on "Simplifying L&D with Efficient Use of Technology".

It went well (despite being the 'graveyard shift' over and after lunch).  I managed to drag some responses out of the large, yet quiet, crowd and got some great feedback from attendees and fellow bloggers afterwards.  Thanks particularly to Doug and Sukh for very kind reviews.

I had arranged to meet Laura Overton (@lauraoverton) from Towards Maturity, to catch up on where my organisation has got to with following up our recent discoveries and suggested actions from completing their Benchmark Report late last year (answer: not a lot - much still to do!), and again, the Press Room was a gift to get us away from the hubble-bubble and have a good, focussed and enjoyable exchange - even if we were being spied upon by Martin Couzins... Deep In Conversation

I managed to walk the Exhibition Floor for a while before heading off to the Cumberland Arms pub in North End Road for the CIPD Tweetup, hosted again by Martin Couzins (that man gets everywhere!), which was a great, interactive and relaxing way to end what had been a full but inspiring day.

Like I said, I didn't attend Day 2, but I tried to follow the twitter backstream as much as possible within the working day.

So now, it's Friday evening and I've been following the backchannel again today - even tho' the conference finished on Thursday evening.  And that's the thing - the Conference might be over, but the debate, the discussions and the sharing is still going on.  New professional and personal contacts have been made, reflective blogs have been written, shared and commented on and links to supporting materials distributed.  The event lives on, even 'though everyone has gone home or back to work - social media and collaboration tools ensure it.

So what have I taken away from the event, from my participation as a speaker and as a blogger, and from monitoring the backchannel on Thursday and Friday?

1. I wish I had managed to attend for the whole two days - for my own development and to have been able to blog and tweet more fully. 
2. It's OK to have a script, but it's way much better to deliver a session 'off the page'. I felt comfortable with the flow - and just went with it on the day.
3. I should learn to blog more quickly, more succinctly and more often.  Doug Shaw and Sukh Pabial are really good role models here, pushing blogs out very quickly - punchy and pithy - after the sessions they attended each day.  Their - and others' - tweets and blogs were fantastic for keeping me in touch when I was working on Day 2 and following up on Friday.
4. Suit and tie = Delegate. No tie plus/minus suit = Speaker. This is a very good thing. Prick the pomposity!
5. It ain't necessarily over when it's over!
6. Reflect, reflect and did I mention, reflect?  And then go do!  That's next.

So that was CIPD HRD 13. For me, a great, but mixed, experience, cramming much into the one day I had available. Thanks to the organisers, the administrators,  the contributors, the attendees and the 'Press Pack'.  Thanks for having me.