Last year I became obsessed with learning all I could about how Australia was settled. My interest in Australian history was inspired by an Australian author David Hunt who wrote Girt. I had gone to the publishing event of his second book True Girt at Black Inc in Hawthorn where the audience asked him questions […]
Making the Messy Unmessy – Experimenting with Mind Maps
I had the pleasure of meeting a long time member of my personal learning network, Sahana Chattopadhyay at LearnTech Asia in Singapore last week. I was always a fan of her wonderful blogs because she had the knack for pulling together different concepts by various people who wrote about digital transformation, future of work and […]
What Do I Suck At?
I am going through all my DRAFT posts that are sitting on my WordPress site that have long gone unpublished and I came across this one that was written in 2013. At the time, it made such an impact but I was too fearful to publish it but now that I read it again, I’ve […]
Work Book Clubs As Social Learning Experiences
I’m putting it out there. I don’t understand people who say that they never read books – or even worse, “never have time to read a book”. They may as well say that they don’t value their own growth and personal development. The easiest way to learn something new and incorporate it into our lives […]
Chatbots in Learning
Recently I had my first experience of chatbots in learning. Note: If you can’t be bothered reading all this, scroll down to the bottom of the post and watch my video instead. I had been curious about these little critters (not exactly a critter but how could you deny that this little robot on the […]
This Week’s Snap Stories of Personal Learning Week of 18 September 2017
Here are this week’s snap stories of personal learning commencing 18 September 2017. Monday 18 September 2017 Today while waiting for a family member to have a day operation in hospital, I decided to work out from the hospital cafe to prevent me driving back and forth from home. On the hospital walls, they had […]
Changing Work One Human At A Time
I love this statement, “changing work one human at a time” because I feel that in some part, over the last few years that’s what I’ve been inspiring to achieve. This morning I was trying out the Couch to 5 Km running app while listening to James Altucher interview writer Steven Pressfield about his latest […]
Learning Is A Series of Little Experiments
Since finishing up my employment contract at an insurance company in mid-June this year, I have been reflecting that everything I learned about my field of Learning and Development has come about from a series of little experiments across multiple fields and different interests outside my field. I’m very much a dabbler and an explorer […]
A New Way To Create Podcasts
I found a new way to create podcasts for those who have been asking me this question over the last couple of years. And it’s too easy. In an employment contract with an organisation some time ago, I remember trawling Yammer one morning while having breakfast at my desk. I came across an internal business […]
Why We Post
Some years ago on Facebook, I made an intriguing observation on why we post. On my feed, I saw a variety of different types of posts. Ignoring the sponsored posts and paid advertisements, I looked at what posts seemed to have more discussion and engagement with my family, friends and peers. I noticed that posts […]
The Enigma Around Social Learning
I’m convinced that there’s an enigma around social learning. Recently I presented at the eLearning Instructional Designer’s Meetup and I had a massive realisation. Learning and Development don’t really understand what social learning is and the business doesn’t care much about it. It was confirmed by a quick survey I created and disseminated on Yammer […]
Lessons From An Independent Consultant
All gifs in this post via GIPHY It’s hard to imagine that three years have already gone by since I left the corporate world to become an independent consultant. It has been one of the most transformative personal learning journeys for me in my life that’s seen me ride the peaks and troughs of consulting work. There […]
Learning is Like Fitness
This year as I started my fitness routine, I was reminded by a quote by Addison who said that “Reading to the mind is what exercise is to the body“. Now I’m not one who loves exercise. In fact, I hate it. I do it because I have to. Every time, I come up with […]
A Case for Chasing the Shiny and New
When was the last time you heard that you shouldn’t be chasing the shiny and the new or risk your time, money and sanity with new fads? Recently I read Steve Wheeler’s post on Binge Learning where he recounted the story of his obsession with academic studies. The “compelling nature of the content I was […]
Things I Learned from Pivot Summit 2016
I attended the Pivot Summit in Geelong yesterday. It was the second time I had been to this new and emerging tech and entrepreneurship conference in the regional town and this year, decided to use Snapchat to record my learning. Here’s what I learned… Then I decided to include my key learnings within Storify so […]
Resources to Build Your Blog Into a Business
Last week I attended the Problogger Event on the Gold Coast. For those who may not be aware, Problogger is the largest and longest running blogging event in Australia. You can read what I learned on Problogger on this blog post I wrote soon after the event. If you’re someone who is currently employed and […]
A Few Things Corporate Bloggers Should Know
Last week I attended Australia’s largest and longest running blogging event called Problogger and I learned some valuable lessons. After hearing many presentations and speaking to the business bloggers there, I thought I’d share a few things corporate bloggers should know if they want to take their blogging OUTSIDE of their company in the future. […]
What Did I Learn at Problogger?
So what did I learn at Problogger? No, it wasn’t to try and capture a photo of me with Problogger, Darren Rowse. Okay, maybe it was (see below for my learning goals). So what is Problogger I hear you ask? It’s Australia’s biggest and longest running blogging conference and this year, I decided to […]
Are Member Associations Worth It Anymore?
Lately, I’ve been thinking “are member associations worth it anymore?” This question came about from a small sideline project I’m working on – it’s my own initiative so I’m free to write about it here. It was a kernel of an idea that planted itself in my head one day that had to be explored. It […]
Why I Blog
Some people ask me why I blog and I’d like to give them a serious answer they may want to hear about how it helps build and market my business or brand, or how it engages with my followers or clients but in all honesty, that’s far from the truth. It’s never been about business, marketing […]