Good To Great

JANUARY 4, 2012

Towards the end of last year, a couple of people inspired me in various ways and I started making a mental list of the things I wanted to do in 2012. I’m not the best at keeping to my new year resolutions – it took me about 20 years to finally tick ‘stop biting my nails’ off the list. So I thought if I shared them on here I might be more likely to stick to them this year.

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Personal Personalization Develop Photo 58

Good To Great

JANUARY 30, 2012

Last week I set out the benefits of QA. But what does ‘QA’ actually mean? To many people, it is synonymous with ‘proof-reading’, but that’s a very simplistic view. QA stands for quality assurance, and that means quality in every respect. If you were QA-ing a newspaper article, the review would of course cover spelling and grammar.

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Storyboard Voice Quality Tips 57

Good To Great

FEBRUARY 3, 2012

This week I was drawn to a webinar hosted by James McLuckie (of Eden Tree and the Learning and Development Group on LinkedIn) and presented by Patrick Bray (Pad) of Team Me. It was titled ‘transforming personal and professional performance with archetypes’ and this is what Pad does everyday. The idea of archetypes stretches back as far as Plato, with teachers and thinkers defining different numbers and names of archetypes over the millennia.

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Brain Performance Support Performance Association 53

Good To Great

FEBRUARY 10, 2012

I hope by now I’ve convinced you of the benefits of quality assurance – although I may not have convinced you that QA is a fun task! Either way, accepting that you need to do it is one thing; knowing how to do it effectively and efficiently is another. Here are my simple tips. Give it a fresh look. I’m sure we’ve all written things, reviewed them thoroughly, and then noticed a mistake once it’s too late.

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Quality Tips Effectiveness Attention 50

Good To Great

JANUARY 16, 2012

One of my resolutions for 2012 was to take a Find 15 approach to my personal development, and use my blog to record what I did with my 75 minutes each week. Last week, I mostly used my daily 15 minutes to organise myself so that I can use the 15 minute slots more efficiently in future. Up till now I’ve probably taken a fairly inefficient approach to managing my various online sources of inspiration and information.

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Evernote Write Blog Google Blogging 47

Good To Great

NOVEMBER 14, 2012

I’ve been learning foreign languages since primary school. I started with an after-school French club, added German and Spanish at GCSE and A-Level, studied French and Spanish at university and last year took up Greek. What’s perhaps unusual these days is that all my language learning has been done through traditional methods. Aside from a couple of Greek vocabulary flashcard-style apps, it’s been classrooms, textbooks and handwritten homework.

Change 40

Change Business Augmented Reality Exercise 40

Good To Great

APRIL 3, 2012

I just came across a real gem of a letter on Letters of Note (a blog that’s definitely worth a look), sent by C.S. Lewis to a young American fan in 1956. Isn’t it lovely and quite remarkable that he replied to his fan mail in such a thoughtful and personal way? Aside from that, though, this letter stood out to me because of a particular piece of advice shared in it, which I think all e-learning designers (indeed, all writers!

Tips 40

Tips Write Blog Compliance Training Compliance 40

Good To Great

FEBRUARY 23, 2012

I recently mentioned the importance of consistency , and then rediscovered this article about common consistency mistakes. As the article says, ‘the first line of defence against consistency errors is simply being aware of them’ So, if nothing else, be sure to check these 10 things before sending your next email or submitting your next document: Phrases in capitals.

Comparison 40

Comparison Study Site Images 40

Good To Great

FEBRUARY 10, 2012

I hope by now I’ve convinced you of the benefits of quality assurance – although I appreciate that I may not have convinced you that QA is a fun task! Either way, accepting that you need to do it is one thing; knowing how to do it effectively and efficiently is another. Here are my simple tips for doing just that. Give it a fresh look. I’m sure we’ve all written things, reviewed them thoroughly, and then noticed a mistake once it’s too late.

Quality 40

Quality Tips Effectiveness Attention 40

Good To Great

FEBRUARY 3, 2012

This week I was drawn to a webinar hosted by James McLuckie (of Eden Tree and the Learning and Development Group on LinkedIn) and presented by Patrick Bray (Pad) of Team Me. It was titled ‘transforming personal and professional performance with archetypes’ and this is what Pad does everyday. The idea of archetypes stretches back as far as Plato, with teachers and thinkers defining different numbers and names of archetypes over the millennia.

Brain 40

Brain Performance Support Performance Association 40

Good To Great

NOVEMBER 12, 2012

When I attended Learning 2012 last month, I was lucky enough to be there as part of 30 Under Thirty : a group of 30 ‘future leaders’ in learning and development. Actually, there were 32 of us in the end: Elliott explained that he usually expects a few to drop out so overfills the spaces; that didn’t happen this year but contrary to his on-stage threats at the opening session, the audience didn’t vote on which two of us to evict and we all survived the week!

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Conference Mentoring Conversation Learning 61

Good To Great

OCTOBER 30, 2012

Learning 2012, held in late October in Florida, was my first experience of a non-UK conference (in fact my first trip to the USA!), and it was quite an experience. The sheer scale of Learning 2012 – 1600 people, attending 200 sessions, over four days – was very different from conferences I’ve attended in the UK, and just being there was a learning opportunity in itself, even before considering the content of the sessions.

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Conference Twitter Poll Format 55

Good To Great

OCTOBER 30, 2012

Learning 2012, held in late October in Florida, was my first experience of a non-UK conference (in fact my first trip to the USA!), and it was quite an experience. The sheer scale of Learning 2012 – 1600 people, attending 200 sessions, over four days – was very different from conferences I’ve attended in the UK, and just being there was a learning opportunity in itself, even before considering the content of the sessions.

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Conference Twitter Poll Format 53

Good To Great

NOVEMBER 1, 2012

Since I joined Twitter in 2010, I’ve attended and tweeted from quite a few conferences and events, from half-day single-session events to multi-track conferences over a few days. But, if I’m honest, I don’t think I ever gave how and why much thought until attending Learning 2012 last week. The different environment, a number of conversations from the conference itself, and feedback from Twitter followers in the UK all combined to make me really examine why I tweet from conferen

Conference 58

Conference Twitter Streaming PENS 58

Good To Great

NOVEMBER 1, 2012

Since I joined Twitter in 2010, I’ve attended and tweeted from quite a few conferences and events, from half-day single-session events to multi-track conferences over a few days. But, if I’m honest, I don’t think I ever gave how and why much thought until attending Learning 2012 last week. The different environment, a number of conversations from the conference itself, and feedback from Twitter followers in the UK all combined to make me really examine why I tweet from conferen

Conference 50

Conference Twitter Streaming PENS 50

Good To Great

NOVEMBER 12, 2012

When I attended Learning 2012 last month, I was lucky enough to be there as part of 30 Under Thirty : a group of 30 ‘future leaders’ in learning and development. Actually, there were 32 of us in the end: Elliott explained that he usually expects a few to drop out so overfills the spaces; that didn’t happen this year but contrary to his on-stage threats at the opening session, the audience didn’t vote on which two of us to evict and we all survived the week!

Conference 40

Conference Mentoring Conversation Learning 40

Good To Great

DECEMBER 10, 2012

At the end of November, I flew over to Houston for a two-day internal conference organised by Nick Shackleton-Jones called ‘Future of Learning’ I tweeted a lot throughout the event, using the #BPFOL12 hashtag, and I’ll be writing up some of the key sessions and takeaways in subsequent posts. In the meantime, though, I wanted to try and pull together some of the really useful links and resources from the backchannel: even though we were a relatively small group tweeting, there w

Resources 55

Resources Social Media Twitter Write Blog 55

Good To Great

DECEMBER 10, 2012

At the end of November, I flew over to Houston for a two-day internal conference organised by Nick Shackleton-Jones called ‘Future of Learning’ I tweeted a lot throughout the event, using the #BPFOL12 hashtag, and I’ll be writing up some of the key sessions and takeaways in subsequent posts. In the meantime, though, I wanted to try and pull together some of the really useful links and resources from the backchannel: even though we were a relatively small group tweeting, there w

Resources 40

Resources Social Media Twitter Write Blog 40