Category: Learning

Unconferencing in 2013

It’s no secret I like helping to run and attend unconferences. Now that 2013 is well underway,  I want to share some plans with you:

Stop Doing Dumb Things

Stop Doing Dumb Things is back again, with a different twist. This time the unconference is taking place as part of the Professional Planning Forum’s annual conference in Warwick on April 29th and 30th. You can get full details of the event here and though I’m not playing a part in the event this time around, I’m sure Peter Massey and Jonathan Wilson will co-host something useful and fun. I’m keen to learn how this merger experiment works out – I hope Peter and Jonathan will share their thoughts after the event.

ConnectingHR

ConnectingHR will be running another unconference this year and I’m pleased to be a part of the planning committee. I’m an old hand, having helped out at several of the ConnectingHR unconferences and it’s great that we have some newer members stepping into the planning space. We need to keep things fresh so I’ve decided to make this the last ConnectingHR unconference I help to plan, in future I’ll take part as a delegate. The date for this event will be announced very soon.

LnDConnect

The 2013 LnDConnect unconference has just been and gone, so if you missed it – where were you?! I enjoyed the simple pleasure of taking part, some of my thoughts on the event are here if you’d like to know more. If L&D is your bag, then I suggest you follow LnDConnect on Twitter to catch what happens next time.

Jamming

I was privileged to be a part of the inaugural Facilitation Jam in January 2013. For me this was an invigorating and powerful session of shared learning. This is how we positioned the event:

The event will be quite free flowing with no one person responsible for leading the day. Instead we invite you to take turns to prepare and run a session during the event and receive immediate feedback on your ideas from your colleagues. You may be looking to improve on some existing methods you use – you may want to try something completely new. However you choose to play, it’s up to you.

For sure there were some unconference principles mixed in to the Jam and yet it was very different too. Smaller than your average unconference (we had eight people in the first session), and deliberately so, we wanted to ensure everyone in the group had time to contribute and get useful feedback. I think there’s room for more of this type of learning event and I anticipate investing more effort into further jam sessions throughout the coming year and maybe beyond.

So – that’s a quick heads up on where I am unconference wise. How about you? If you’ve got unconference stuff coming up or unconference experiences you’d like to share, please do.

When is a Conversation not a Conversation?

I had a really interesting, useful and fun afternoon at the second LnDConnect Learning and Development Unconference in London yesterday. Thanks to everyone who helped make it happen. Here are a few of my thoughts on the event, and unconferences in general, I hope they are useful to you.

The Venue Matters

The venue matters, but only in so far as it is clean, warm enough and accessible, and any tech needs you have are met. You can run a good event in a modest venue. Yesterday we were at Park Crescent Conference Centre which pretty much had it all, including decent break time coffee too. If I’m being really picky the Twitterfall was a bit hard to read as it was projected onto a screen quite high up on the wall, but yesterday was a good reminder that venue wise – good enough is perfectly good enough.

The People Matter More

It was lovely to catch up with some friends, and get to meet some people I’d only previously got to know on Twitter, and….drum roll please, meet some people who are not currently using social media to connect. I’m not sure how LnDConnect pulled it off – but kudos for attracting a diverse audience, more so than at your typical event.

The Technology is Becoming a Distraction

I think Twitter, blogs, and other tools are great ways to promote and market unconferences, and when the day of the event comes, I’m feeling more and more like I just want to immerse myself in the conversation and the learning possibilities. I find it too much of a distraction to engage in what other people are saying and tweet stuff at the same time. Sometimes what emerges on Twitter can be interesting and I’m hoping LnDConnect will share a Tweetreach report with the delegates. I wonder, if people are wiling, whether we need to ask folks to volunteer to curate a conversation? Sit at the edge of the chat and pick up on, and share the emerging threads.

When is a Conversation Not A Conversation?

In the wrap up before we hit the bar – opinions were sought about what worked well and what hadn’t been so good. Niall Gavin asked that in future, could we please do away with the tables. We were sat at round tables designed for about ten people – and on reflection it would have been easier to converse without these tables in the way. I think I would have preferred the intimacy over the slight inconvenience of having to rest on my knee to scribble those little insightful nuggets you want to capture. I’ll share a few of the ones I caught in a minute.

Beyond the table observation, it struck me that some of the tracks weren’t really conversational at all. Let me ask you a question – how many people does it take to make a conversation? I’d suggest between two….and maybe five at a push. Beyond that number what tends to happen is gobby gits like me, dominate the available air time and quieter folk tend to withdraw and….go quiet! I picked up on this in the bar afterwards when having a few conversations (heh heh) with people. Maybe in future – when a track gets really popular the facilitators might split it up a bit, to aid and maintain the conversation.

Nuggets

Here are a few things I heard that I’m enjoying reflecting on.

Stakeholders – the perception has evolved beyond just the purse string holders, to anyone who has an interest in your project/organisation/plan etc

Can we be more disruptive? Yes please!

Being bold – that came up a lot and it was fun listening to people define it. The dictionary says: Showing an ability to take risks, confident and courageous. Subtle and elegant were among the alternatives offered.

Be open to the possibilities – good learning is perhaps more about great connections that great content.

Pourable sunshine does exist. Whaddya know?!

It struck me that people aren’t big fans of happy sheets, who am I to disagree?

A lot of people said they were at the event for some ‘me time’. I’d like to see L&D pushing the case for more self determined learning in general. It’s powerful stuff.

Before the event I had wondered if together we could try and apply some theory and suggest things we might take away and experiment with. I’m not yet sure that we got there – and right now – I’m OK with that. Like I said, yesterday was interesting, useful and fun. That gets my vote.

Rewarding Through Development

Neil Morrison raised an interesting question this week on his blog, why is there so little talk about reward? He gave me the opportunity to rant (again?!) about pay secrecy and why I think it sucks, and Lee Haury chipped in too with a great point about balanced scorecards, performance management and the twisted way they link to pay and screw up team performance at the same time. Well worth a read.

I also checked in over at Paul Hebert‘s place and read a good piece on why even though a lot of managers rate cash as king when it comes to incentives, it isn’t the best award, experiences are. I agree with Paul that cash is a lousy motivator beyond having enough, and for sure the sense of entitlement it creates is a biiig problem. My recent trip to the US earned me enough money – but for sure it was all the experiences I soaked up along the way that motivate me and energise and engage me.

This stuff has got me thinking about if and how development could be a more important part of the reward picture. Personal and career development opportunities, and particularly the lack of them, often comes up as a problem in employee surveys, and I don’t see much evidence of the problem being addressed. Could the idea of being given complete flexibility and choice over your some or even all of your development budget be a great way of recognising/motivating people?

I think this should go over and above the oft quoted ‘Google 20% time‘, in so far as it could extend to whatever development the individual felt would be helpful. So if someone wants to learn bookbinding, let them. If someone wants to learn to paint, let them. If someone wants to learn to cook, coach, build spreadsheets (seriously??), develop products, study law, ride a bike, let them. Can we devise a simple scheme whereby the employer provides access and investment both financially and through making time available to people, as a means of rewarding performance?

I’d like to think creative, clever people would be attracted to an employer who offered that kind of latitude around personal development in the belief that happy people with chances to self determine would be more likely to deliver better business results. How about it? And if you already see it going on, how’s it working out?

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