Hello, I’m Helen and I’m a continual and lifelong learner with many years experience in the corporate world…..which I have now left behind.
During and after COVID, I experienced a profound personal transformation where I questioned everything – and everyone – when it came to how business was enabling their staff to build new capabilities, skills and learning for an uncertain and ever changing future. Most of all, I questioned society and the world I live in.
What I found valuable – community, learning, personal growth, human connection, communication, empathy and creativity…PEOPLE – were not what were deemed valuable, critical or important in business driven by data, profit and the bottom line. Conversations were also moving to AI which also seemed misaligned to my values.
You can say, I lost trust in the systems that I was working with, in or under. My BS detectors had broken down from the constant onslaught. They had clogged over the years and it was time to get new ones.
This set off a period of intense reflection and activity that was deemed as nonsensical to people and to me, only began making perfect sense months afterwards such as:
- I deleted all social media accounts
- I opted out of online communities and discussion boards
- I moved my CV off LinkedIn onto here on my own website
- I stopped reading anything put out by so called influencers in big tech or learning or HR – unsubscribed from their podcasts, channels and newsletters too
- I stopped taking requests to work on social media for professional development or designing social learning programs
Put simply, I stopped believing that my skill and expertise was effecting any real change in organisational systems so it was time to focus on BUILDING A NEW ME.
How I could get back a sense of my own creative self?
What comes next in my POST WORK LIFE?
How do I get back to more real, in-person experiences locally?
It was time to put my skills as a curious, passionate explorer and lover of learning to the test. It meant having to design a new life for myself in this phase of life.
What does the future hold?
I’m still figuring it out so this website is the space I do it in.
My Past Life
Co-Author of two books: Microsoft Teams: A Manager’s Guide to Communication, Collaboration and Co-ordination & Gourmet Teamwork: Recipes to Inspire Engagement, Improve Business Processes and Make Hybrid Work with Microsoft 365
You can buy your copies on Amazon.
Winner of the Jay Cross Social Learning Award
I was also the inaugural recipient of the Internet Time Alliance Jay Cross Memorial Award in 2016 in recognition for my work advocating a more humanistic approach to workplace learning.
Microsoft Ignite Community Reporter
In 2019, I was selected to be one of ten global community reporters to cover the largest technology conference in the world, Microsoft Ignite at Orlando, Florida. You can see all the videos I created and shared about what I was learning at this event here.