Why Don’t Trainers Blog – Revisited

Following my contribution to training zone’s blog I was asked today for my views on how trainers could benefit from blogging and reasons why they don’t.

I believe that trainers have an enormous amount to gain from blogging including;

The opportunity to become a member of a community of practice

Networking with others

Connecting and sharing views with colleagues and thought leaders

Having personal views challenged

Learning, learning & some more learning

Sharing knowledge

Supporting others development & their informal learning

Supporting the formulation of thoughts

Contributing towards the personal CPD journey and benefiting from emergent learning

Improvement of personal communication skills

Some suggestions why I feel trainers don’t blog (although I feel that more are now than were 6 months ago) include;

Fear

Lack of time

Blogging is not a priority & not valued

Lack of ICT skills

Blogging links to the threat of increased ICT use and the decrease of face to face events

Blogging and social networking contradict the traditional view that when a resource is created it is owned and for use by the individual or 1 organisation. I believe that ideas and information should be open source (as open source software) and then available for everyone to share and benefit from.

I’m sure there are many more reasons for trainers to blog and reasons why they don’t.

What do you think?

Culture, compliance and coaching approaches

I’m thinking about how organisations seek to achieve compliance of behaviour that is linked to their culture & values and how different approaches & to coaching & mentoring either enhance or conflict with the culture.

This is hurting my head at the moment, any ideas very welcome.

Top 10 Tools

Jane Hart invited me to contribute to the top ten tools  feature. My full thoughts are here;

In summary my top 10 are;

WordPress, Google Search, Google personalised home page, Explode, Facebook, Technorati, Elluminate, Blackberry, You Tube and My ears, fingers, eyes & voice.

I guess I’d struggle with many of these without the last one on the list!

EMCC 14th Conference

The EMCC 14th Conference is taking place in Sweden on 11th-13th October 2007.

Sessions include;

On-line coaching to aid retention

Measuring and maximising the ROI of executive coaching

Coaching men & women-does gender make a difference

Coaching to accelerate learning in complex environments

Speakers include; David Clutterbuck, Jenny Rogers, Erik de Haan, Bob Garvey and David Megginson.

Stephen Downes, Web 2.0 and Learning

Stephen Downes in his presentation http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5431152345344515009 talks about web 2.0 and learning. This is a summary of the empowering messages linked to learning  that I have taken away from Stephen’s session. I wonder how these will be different from the messages that others retrieve ?

“To gain from self-directed learning, you must be self-directing”

“You are at the centre of your own personal learning network”

“Pull is better than push.” It’s better to retrieve what you want rather than receive what others want you to have

Make sharing knowledge, experiences & opinions a habit and a priority

“If opportunities for interaction aren’t there, create them”

“Take charge of your own learning.” Be clear about how you learn. Use your own words & examples to categorise, make sense of and to store knowledge.

Relevance is about getting what you want, when you want it. If you don’t need it now, delete it, you’ll be able to find it somewhere on the web later. 

Develop the Developer 2007

Here’s an opportunity for everyone who is involved in developing others to take part in a valuable on-line survey.

“A lot of research has gone into looking at the skills people need to fulfil occupational roles. Little has been done to explore the skills required for people who develop others but are not in the role of teacher or trainer. Even the role of trainer and coach has changed dramatically.

Developing the developers is a project with an aim of researching the current and future needs of people developers. As the business world progresses so does the role of people developers. At one time this was the remit of the HR or training team. Now with an increasing pace within the world of business, most of us have some responsibility for the development of others. But do we have the necessary skills? What skills do we need and where can we get them?

This project sets out to answer these questions. So if you manage, mentor, coach, train teach, educate or develop people in any way we want to know how you develop these skills and most importantly how you learn new skills, just when you need them”

http://www.developthedeveloper.com/index.htm

Goal Meme

I’ve been tagged by Don Taylor http://donaldhtaylor.wordpress.com/2007/05/14/bike-rides-and-the-goal-meme/ for the Goal Meme. The idea is that you outline your goals and then tag 5 more people. My difficulty is so many goals and so little time!!  Here are a few;

Grasp every opportunity to learn

Share, Listen and Collaborate

Aim for balance in all I do

Make time to reflect in order that I value planned and emergent learning

Try not to be too intense (at least once a week!)

My tags are to people whose blogs I value and visit regularly;

George  http://www.elearnspace.org/blog/

Karyn  http://karynromeis.blogspot.com/

Janet  http://brandon-hall.com/weblogs/janetclarey.htm

Kelly http://kwhobbes.edublogs.org/

Richard http://www.brandon-hall.com/weblogs/richardnantel.htm

Visitors from Training Zone

If you’re visiting from Training Zone and would like to set up your own blog, click the link ‘wordpress’ on my sidebar under ‘blogroll’.  This will take you to the wordpress site, just click the blue box ‘Start your wordpress blog’ It’s easy to do and it’s free.

Once you’ve done this or if you have a blog already, I’d really like to visit and share ideas. Just leave a link in the comments box.

Blogging is a great vehicle for networking,  learning and CPD.

EMCC Coach Mentoring Standards

EMCC’s Coach Mentoring standards can be downloaded here.

“The growth and development of coaching and mentoring in Europe is dynamic and evolving and these standards provide the start point. The standards are operating inthe UK and are now being piloted across Europe.The competence framework and competence standards element of these standards are part of a two year consultation process in the UK during which time feedback will be welcomed and invited from all coach mentoring organisations, purchasers of coaching and mentoring services, developers of coach mentoring programmes and individuals practising coaching and mentoring. A similar two year consultation process is due to start in Europe.”

http://www.mentfor.co.uk/downloads/articles/748/EMCC_UK_Consultation_Standards_pack_130307.pdf

Sharing Learning. CPD planning

After completing a process that has resulted in a CPD plan for the next 12 months, I thought I’d share some of the lessons learnt.

Be clear about overall goals before you start and don’t forget what’s important.

Revisit these goals at the end of the process, they may need to be changed

Consider both personal and professional development

Keep a journal to log learning on an on-going basis and review this to enable double loop learning

When completing self assessment activities, select useful tools & techniques. It’s easy to overdo self assessment and lose focus.

Feedback from others following self assessment is invaluable in identifying areas for improvement

Don’t forget your strengths, Keep balance in the process

Value both planned and emergent learning opportunities

Value reflection. It’s an essential part of the process.