Age - Appropriate

Age.  Funny old thing.  I read somewhere recently (probably on Twitter) that 'old age' gets older the older one gets.  I get that.  Last week, I turned 56, which is the same age that my father was when he passed away - a few days after his birthday - from liver failure brought on by cancer.  I was 27.

When he and I were younger, I thought of Dad as a much more mature - OK, older - man than I think of myself now at the same age.  His generation seemed to have had age imposed on them - he was a child during the Second World War - and from my earliest recollections, he and my mother seemed permanently middle-aged.

When he died, it was relatively quick. A previously dealt-with bowel cancer had returned and unbeknown to us, had migrated to and knackered his liver.  When he went in for investigative surgery, they took one look, closed him back up again and advised my mother that he only had a few weeks left.  Because the liver was shot, he never truly came back out of the anaesthesia and over a couple of weeks, gradually drifted away from us in a relatively pain-free, opium-fuelled dream state.  If I'd thought he was older before, he certainly was an old man when he eventually slipped away between visits, a few days after his 56th birthday.

Now that it's my own 56th birthday, I have been giving a lot of thought to my Dad. On reflection, it seems that when he died, whilst I was concerned for my Mum and my Brother, I was mostly preoccupied with  how unfair it was for me to be left fatherless at 27; that I wasn't yet ready to step up and be the man he was. I had lost my 'final arbiter', the one person I still had to impress. It was as if he had said to me "Right, you're on your own now Son; time to be a man."  Poor me!

What I failed to realise then - and why I am writing this piece - is how much life he should have had ahead of him, with my Mum, whilst my brother and I forged ahead in our lives, married our wives, raised our children - his Grandchildren - started to succeed in our respective careers, etc. And what times he and my Mum would have had to share for many more years together.  He had worked so hard to get to where he was, to  provide a home and support for Mum, my brother and me.  He deserved to get to his well-earned retirement and enjoy his family and Grandchildren, who I know would have given him so much pleasure.  But cancer took that away from him when he was still a young man.

I can say 'young man' now, because I'm now that age, and I consider myself to be a young man still, with all of that good stuff still ahead of me.  My children are now nearly 20 and 16 (even younger again than I was when Dad reached 56).

But I have also recognised that my clock is ticking and I have much still to do.  So, in my 57th year, and as we approach 2012, my New Year - and every new new year's - resolution is to have more fun, travel, learn more and look after myself - for me, for Mandy, for Tash and Sam and maybe one day, my own Grandchildren.  

Thanks Dad.  

Just in Time

I met up with a colleague while passing through Bristol Temple Meads station this afternoon, to discuss her request for some help with MS PowerPoint 2003. I totally understood one of her issues straight away, as I had had the same problem myself (running custom object animations in a presentation) when I created my WOLCE presentation.

But could I remember the command?  I had done it myself only a month ago but, try as I might, I could not now remember how to repeat it.  I spent 20 minutes of our time together trying to remember and/or find the relevant command on my laptop, but was completely stumped. To say I was embarrassed is to put it mildly.

Realising I was wasting my colleague's and my own time, I stepped back and acknowledged that I couldn't do this. I picked up my mobile phone and called  Debbie (@macabroad) in my team.  I explained the problem and she was able to point me to the appropriate Menu, Dialog Box and Check Box (Slide Show / Set Up Show / untick Show without animation - See below, if you're interested).  Sorted in two minutes. Thanks Debbie.

And that, right there, is the point of informal, just in-time learning.  And the value-add is that I have now consolidated that learning for myself by writing this blog AND I have now shared it with you.

It's good to talk.

A Qualified Success

I've been reflecting on a fun learning experience I had a few weeks ago.  I spent a weekend in a learning environment where most of the time I was up to my waist in murky water (see pic. I'm the guy with the male pattern baldness, back to the camera).  Yes, after 21 years living in Hove, I finally decided to have some windsurfing lessons, and spent a Saturday and a Sunday morning in a Beginners' group of six at the Hove Lagoon.

Now that we are experiencing 'proper' Autumnal weather, it seems remarkable that on that weekend we had temperatures of 24 degrees in Hove, and the water in the lagoon was actually tepid.  Downside of the fantastic heat was that there was hardly any wind, which kinda took the 'wind' out of 'windsurfing', but that didn't stop us learning, developing a new skill and having fun in the process.

What I loved about the experience was how immediate it was - how quickly we went from theory to practice - and practice - and practice again. Our instructor, Helen, had us in the water, our boards rigged, within 15 minutes and within an hour, I was able to stand up for more than 5 minutes at a time with the 'boom' in my hands and the sail and the board pointing in the right direction. After 3½ hours, I had mastered the basics and stopped falling in, although I frequently found myself steering inexorably into the far bank of the pond, rather than managing to turn round (or 'tack' as those of us in the know now call it) back from whence I had come.  

On day 2, I managed to sail across the wind, upwind, downwind, tack, jibe, avoid other lagoon-users in dinghies, paddle-boards and other sail-boards and self-rescue if I had to.  More theory, knowledge-checking and voila, I had my Royal Yachting Association 'Start Windsurfing' Certificate - my first new qualification for several years!

And what else did I learn, apart from basic windsurfing?  Well, I hadn't realised how much sailing language has come to be embedded in our day-to-day language and conversation - "Changing tack", "Sailing close to the wind", "Niall, what ARE you doing?", etc.  As an L&D Manager and Trainer, I also got the following: hook your learners in early and let them experience quick results; make it fun; allow them to make mistakes; praise and reward them; incentivise them to come back for more...

Oh, and don't rub sunblock and salt water into your eye if you want to be able to see for the rest of the day!

Er... I've spoken!

Well, 'tis done.  Yesterday, at the World of Learning Conference (#WoL11), I had the great pleasure of sharing the stage in Conference Room 1 with Clive Shepherd and Nicholas Owen (BBC News Journalist and Conference Chair). 

I blogged previously on my thoughts and feelings as I prepared for what would be my first conference speaking engagement in several years. Yesterday was the day when I had to step up and deliver my presentation.  Clive and I had met over lunch in Brighton a couple of months ago, to agree and scope out what we would each cover in our respective parts of the session and, apart from a couple of email exchanges since then, we had not managed to confer again.  So I was delighted when we sat down on the sofas for a chat during our technical set-up to discover how closely aligned we were.

Under the collective banner of "Integrating the Formal, Informal and Social in Learning", Clive was speaking on the new Learning Architect, and how learning professionals now have to consider all aspects of blended learning when in consultation with their customers, internal or external.  I had elected to take the audience on a learning journey, analogous with a train journey, discussing examples of how we have developed and delivered learning solutions more creatively, by leveraging existing tools and resources, whilst developing our skills and toolsets 'under the radar' of our current corporate technical and other constraints.  I included points for the audience to vote as to how closely aligned each particular approach had been in relation to Clive's LA model.

We both recognised that our respective inputs would probably be longer than our originally planned 15 minutes each, but we expected to be able to flex around that and still have time for a Q&A session at the end.

So, how did it go?  What would I do again and what would I do differently? What did I learn from the experience?  

I was very pleased with my slides!  Very subtle corporate branding, no bullet points - indeed, no text - and relevant graphics only (some photos and some screen grabs from our learning solutions).  

No chance of reading off the screen, so I had my notes on the podium.  Next time, I'll have my notes better written and be more familiar with them (see "Practice" below)..  Clive did his presentation without notes, as did several speakers at the Learning and Performance Institute Conference I attended a couple of weeks ago. I should have taken the hint then!  That said, I didn't get lost and the presentation flowed as I hoped.

I had a couple of radio microphone issues, with the clip slipping back inside my shirt, which necessitated the tech guy coming up onto stage during the session to re-clip it.  Of course it would have helped if I hadn't kept hitting it with my hand every time I thumped myself on the chest (not something I was hitherto aware I did!)

And the biggest lesson - practice!  We started the session late and both Clive and I over-ran in our respective slots, meaning, as 'tail-end-Charlie', I was the one who kept people late for their break and didn't allow time for the Q&A session.  If I had practised my session more, I would have been well aware of the timings and trimmed accordingly.  I hope that everyone who wanted to comment or converse with us afterwards will find us online and continue the discussion.  

I'm collating the audience voting results, so that I will have an overview of their opinions as to how well the various learning interventions we have developed/are developing and have delivered/are delivering map against Clive's Learning Architect model.  This will help to inform our strategy planning for L&D, IT Training and Learning Technologies, and I'm more than happy to share those results.

Some thanks: to all my colleagues at work and on Twitter, for their encouragement and support (great to meet so many of you at the event too); to Clive Shepherd, for the pleasure of working together, for the opportunity to dig deep into his Learning Architect model and co-present our session; to Nicholas Owen for excellent, non-starry Chairmanship and interesting 'train' chats (he's a bit of a railways anorak, like me - who'd have thought?); to the guys at TurningTechUK for their help in enabling the TurningPoint voting handsets and results onto my voting slides before and during the presentation; to Laura Overton at Towards Maturity, for suggesting I speak in the first place; to Tracy Shah at Venture for excellent organisation of the event; and finally to Mandy, for her patience and support in the midst of her own challenges.

On taking my Daughter to University

Having received some valuable feedback recently about my blogs, including the suggestion that perhaps I tend to over-think things and could say 'more with less', I am going to try a different approach with this blog and just try to riff with the thoughts and see how it comes out. I'd be very interested in your feedback about this approach.

So, yesterday, I took our first child, my daughter Natasha, to Nottingham, to move into her Halls of Residence as she starts her first year at University next week.  A significant moment in any child's - and parents' - life.  She's 19, having done a Foundation Diploma between her A Levels and starting University; and, whilst we are used to her being away for several days, indeed weeks sometimes, at a time, this is that big moment when she really starts to separate from us and starts her independent adult life.

Mandy and I are not the first parents to experience this separation anxiety, nor will we be the last.  Indeed, judging by the faces of many of the parents I saw leaving the complex yesterday, it's yet another heart-tugging part of the ever-developing role of parents everywhere.  So, here's what I want to reflect on in this blog - what I consder to have been, and continues to be, my greatest learning journey, being a Dad.

Like many parents nowadays, we were late starters, having our first child, Natasha when we were in our late thirties and our son Samuel (henceforth Tash and Sam) on Mandy's 40th Birthday!  I still treasure the obstetrician's description of Mandy as an "elederly prem", tho' I'm not sure she does.  We have been blessed with two beautiful children who are growing up, or in Tash's case, have grown up, into personable, articulate, emotionally intelligent and creative adults.  How did that happen?

Niall's first rule of parenthood - there are no rules!  It's the ultimate seat-of-your-pants, non-formal, on-demand, experiential learning opportunity.  Just as you've managed to reflect and re-apply what you've just learned, the goalposts move and off you go again.  What works for child 1 does not necessarily work for or apply to Child 2.  They are their own people, from day 1, and I learned that I had to go with the flow, adapt and flex, whilst we tried to maintain a safe, loving and nurturing environment (OK, Home) for them - and us - in which to grow.

So, one down, and one to go.  Sam has just started 6th Form College, as did Tash three years before him.  And guess what - it's a completely different experience for and with him than it was for Tash!  Good, but different.  So, we're flexing here!  Again!  Sam's still living with us while Tash is now living away, and we all have much to learn from each other before he sets off on his adult journey - I'm relishing the thought.

Many different books have been written about parenting.  There's probably a book just in Mandy's and my experience of being and learning to be parents.  But it's our story - a never-ending story - and we're too busy and engaged in living it to write it down and share it.  Except this blog, of course.

To conclude, I'll just quote you from the text message I sent Mandy as I left Tash to drive back to Brighton yesterday evening - "7:20 Just leaving now. Choked. Nx"

Er... I'm speaking!

It's just over two weeks to go until Clive Shepherd and I deliver our session at the World of Learning Conference in Birmingham on the 27th of September.  We're discussing Integrating the formal, informal and social in learning, using Clive's book, "The New Learning Architect" as the yardstick against which I'll be sharing our experiences at FirstGroup, and then inviting thoughts, comments and questions from the audience.

It's been a few years since I last spoke at a large learning conference and a lot has changed in those years.  The focus has changed, the terminology has changed, the tools have changed and the discussion has changed. Just in the last week or so, the Institute of IT Training, of which I have been a member (and long-time Fellow) since its inception, has changed its focus and name to that of the Learning and Performance Institute.  And I've had a role/name change too!  When I was invited to speak at WOLCE and all the marketing materials went to press, I was the Group IT Training Manager.  I will stand up in front of the audience in our session and introduce myself as the Head of HR & Learning Technologies!  That's how quickly the learning agenda is changing.

As I write this blog, I am in the process of finalising the content and format of my short presentation for the session, the draft of which I have to hand over to the organisers on Monday. And here's where all those changes have come home to roost! In the last five years we have seen an explosion in the availability and use of Social Media site, tools and devices such as Prezi, Twitter, Facebook, Wordle, Smartphones, iPads, QR codes and the like.  Back then, I thought I was racy using MindManager 6 to capture feedback in a seminar session, and I'd never, ever, considered writing a 'blog', whatever that was...

Recently I've been to less conferences in person than I have virtually via the Twitter backchannel and I fully expect a high proportion of the audience who will be attending my WOLCE session to be the same.  But not all.

So, even 'tho I'm going to be talking about some SoMe tools at the Conference, I'm going back to basics and concentrating instead on the story - our challenges, our successes, our high and lows - and where we still want to go. I'm stepping back from worrying about which whizzy social media and presentation tools to use; indeed, as I write, it's entirely likely that the finished product will be on PowerPoint 2003, using our corporate slide template! (It will however, be 'graphic-heavy and text light'.) We will probably use Twitter to bring in the outside learning community involvement and we might even use the audience polling system.

What I do know is that I have a professional and organisational story to share, which is not yet finished.  I hope that the participants on the day - and afterwards - will empathise with my story, will learn something from it in and will want to contribute to it.  I don't have all the answers, and I want to learn from the collective wisdom in the room and in the wider L&D community, just like everyone else.

So what do you think? Am I taking the right approach? Are you put off by the thought of PowerPoint and corporate templates? Any hints and tips for me?  Any burning questions that you'd like Clive and I to deal with on the day?  All comments and questions welcome. See you in Birmingham.

A 'Novel' Learning Experience

I have just finished reading an intriguing and deeply moving novel called "The Warsaw Anagrams" by Richard Zimmler, which tells a story of life for the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto during the second world war.  That description completely underplays the magic, mystery and impact of the book, but it allows me to open up what I really wanted to talk about in today's blog.

Half way through the book, I suddenly realised that this was the fourth book I have read in the last year or so, which has been either directly or indirectly about Germany, the Nazis and the German people before and during the Second World War, and about the treatment of the Jewish people at that time.  This was not a conscious intent on my part - in fact, I was taken aback at this realisation, as if my subconscious had been leading me unaware down a literary path for which there must be some kind of reason.

In order of reading then, these four books are:

"Alone in Berlin" - Hans Fallada. A novel, based on an actual case, about an elderly German couple's passive resistance to Hitler, following the death of their son at the Front, by dropping anonymous anti-Nazi postcards across Berlin, and the authority's hunt to track them down.  Written during the War, it brought to my attention the oppression and hardships of the German people themselves under Nazism, something about which I was unaware.  I bought this book on impulse in a book shop.

"The Hare with the Amber Eyes: a Hidden Inheritance" - Edmund de Waal. This was one of my first e-book purchases for my Kindle e-reader, and I purchased it because I was aware of its coverage in the media, as Winner of  the 2010 Costa Book Biography Award and the 2011 Ondaatje Prize.  I loved this book and have recommended and gifted it in paperback to friends and family.  It tells the story of a Jewish family banking dynasty, through de Wall's investigation of the history of a collection of Japanese Netsuke (small, intricately carved ivory pieces), which he inherited.  Again, in a fascinating family tale starting in Odessa, through the Paris of the Impressionists, Austria and the eventual diaspora (dispersal) of the family, the most revelatory section of the story for me was how the Jews were systematically brutalised and disinherited during the Austrian Anschluss of 1938. At times difficult, this is a deeply moving and satisfying read.

"Fatherland" - Robert Harris.  Another e-book, I was drawn to this story by the 'alternate history' angle.  It is 1964.  Hitler won the War.  In a Greater German Reich, a Detective follows a murder and conspiracy trail, which ultimately leads him to the exposure of atrocities about which we know in reality, but which, in the novel, were suppressed from the victorious German people.  My Science, Detective and Historical Fiction 'buttons' all got pressed effectively when reading this well-crafted novel.

"The Warsaw Anagrams" - Richard Zimmler.  As I said at the start, this novel is set in the Warsaw Ghetto of 1940, as the Nazis seal 400,000 Jews inside a small area of the Polish capital. Children are murdered and an elderly Jewish psychiatrist investigates. A mystical, horrifying, moving, sometimes humourous and cleverly plotted sorta-detective story, I was gripped throughout.

I should just mention here that I did not read these books 'back-to-back'.  I read them over a period of about a year, interspersed with lots of other books, periodicals and blogs.  I'm a commuter, as I have mentioned before ("Under the Commute" 1st May 2011), so I've always got a book on the go.  Hence me not initially noticing that there might be an underlying theme going on in my reading choices.

So, why am I sharing this with you? What's the point?  The least I can say is "Here are some interesting books I've read and been moved by; you might want to check them out yourself."  This is not a piece of literary criticism nor is it a a set of book reviews. It's not an advert for the Amazon Kindle either.  I have written this blog more for my own reflection than anything else - but I have learned something along the way... 

I also mentioned in a previous blog ("Man on the Moon" 17th May 2011) that I am not a book-learner.  But I think that the four novels listed above have taught me something about looking deeper into 'received wisdom', about not just going along with the 'accepted view'.  And also maybe, about listening out for what my subconscious whispers to me.  Some of my views have shifted, and I am much richer for the learning I gleaned from having read these books than had I not.

What do you get from reading fiction, as opposed to factual books?  Do you read both? What other written materials feature in your reading lists?  And how do you access them - good old paper books, e-reader, tablet, smartphone, laptop? Where do you get your books from - online, bookshop, library?  I'd be interested in your experiences.