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21 September 2023 by Helen Blunden Leave a Comment

A Year Since I Last Worked

I can’t believe that a year has already passed since I resigned from my last role as a community manager in a tech company. Around the same time, I also gave up and deleted all my social media accounts and felt that I had walked away from another part of my life to start afresh […]

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Filed Under: Blogging, Community, Lifelong Learning, Personal Learning Networks, Social Learning Tagged With: 2023, Life Plans, Retirement, Working

28 August 2021 by Helen Blunden 1 Comment

We Need the Social at Work

Last night, my colleagues at Rapid Circle and I took part in a fun online Trivia Night. It’s now been four weeks since our Adopt & Embrace team were acquired by this new company and given that many of us were in lockdown in Melbourne, we were unable to meet each other in person. However, […]

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Filed Under: Creativity, Future of Work, Personal Learning Networks, Working Out Loud (Work Narration) Tagged With: 2021, August, August 2021, social learning

29 July 2021 by Helen Blunden 3 Comments

From Training to Learning to Knowledge to What?

down angle photography of red clouds and blue sky

(This is a collection of rambled thoughts – I’m still formulating what the question is in my mind so please humour me and go with the flow. I will find my way soon). I’ve been working on some interesting projects at Adopt & Embrace, a Microsoft Partner and where I work three days a week […]

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Filed Under: Blogging, Future of Work, Personal Learning Networks, Social Learning Tagged With: July, Meaning, Sense making

3 July 2021 by Helen Blunden Leave a Comment

Updating my YouTube Channel

For the last week or so, I’ve been trying to put some semblance of order on my YouTube channel and in frustration, I’ve realised it’s a MASSIVE job. There are over 400 videos on the site and as it’s a channel that is used as a record of work and learning, a portfolio if you […]

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Filed Under: Blogging, Book Reviews, Conferences, French, Future of Work, Learning and Development, Lifelong Learning, MOOC, Personal Learning Networks, Professional Development, Social Learning, Social Media, Vlogging, Working Out Loud (Work Narration) Tagged With: 2021, June June 2021, Learning Portfolio, YouTube

9 January 2021 by Helen Blunden

What is Life Long Learning?

Although this is not a definition I looked up anywhere but basing it on my own understanding and my own experience of it, I would say lifelong learning is the practice of continuing learning through your entire life.  It’s not entangled with the trivialities of the questions of ‘what’,  ‘how’ and even ‘who’ is responsible. […]

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Filed Under: Book Reviews, Lifelong Learning, Personal Learning Networks, Professional Development, Working Out Loud (Work Narration)

29 December 2020 by Helen Blunden

Foster & Build Lifelong Learning Practices in Your Day-to-Day Job

I’m excited to announce that our work at Adopt & Embrace will have a new book out some time in the new year that will be slightly different to our first published book called Microsoft Team: A Manager’s Guide to Communication, Collaboration and Co-ordination with Microsoft Teams.  Although it will be a surprise, the focus […]

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Filed Under: Future of Work, Personal Learning Networks, Professional Development, Social Learning Tagged With: 2020, December, December 2020, Lifelong Learning

27 December 2020 by Helen Blunden

Lifelong Learning as a Human Right

I’m reading a book by Daniel Susskind called A World Without Work and it makes for some fascinating reading.  Once I finish it and have a chance to put some thoughts on paper about it, I’ll share a video review on YouTube. This year I’ve been reflecting on a lot of things namely, trying to […]

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Filed Under: Learning and Development, Personal Learning Networks, Professional Development, Social Learning Tagged With: 2020, December, December 2020, Lifelong Learning

7 August 2020 by Helen Blunden

How Effective Are Newsletters as Personal Learning Resources?

Newsletter image

A couple of days ago, Ramses Oudt @rroudt tweeted an excellent question on Twitter that generated a discussion concerning who writes newsletters focussed on learning how to learn.  You can see the thread here which has some recommendations although I might add that many of them aren’t about tips, techniques and strategies for learning how […]

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Filed Under: Blogging, Learning and Development, Personal Learning Networks, Working Out Loud (Work Narration) Tagged With: 2020, August, August 2020, Newsletters

8 March 2020 by Helen Blunden

Are Competency Frameworks A Thing Anymore?

Back when I was working in corporate learning and development, when the mere mention of the two words “competency frameworks” in any team meeting, there was an audible groan. My experience of these have always been negative. Although I’ve never been involved in creating one, it seemed that I was always in departments that had […]

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Filed Under: Learning and Development, Personal Learning Networks, Professional Development, Social Learning Tagged With: 2020, Capability, Competency, March, March 2020

6 May 2019 by Helen Blunden

Taking Charge of Your Own Development – Podcasts & Interviews

Recently there’s been an interest in people wanting to know how to get more creative or be inspired to take charge of their own professional and personal development and learning. This is something that I love to share my own experience but rather than present any formulaic templates and plans for how you can do […]

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Filed Under: Blogging, Personal Learning Networks, Professional Development Tagged With: 2019, May, May 2019, Podcasts

13 June 2018 by Helen Blunden

Amsterdam Meet Up on Saturday 23 June 2018 at 6pm Delirium Cafe

Register: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/amsterdam-saturday-drinks-dinner-meet-up-at-the-delirium-cafe-tickets-46960055791  

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Filed Under: Personal Learning Networks Tagged With: 2018, Amsterdam, June, Meetup

29 April 2018 by Helen Blunden

Create Your Own Personal Learning Plan

How do you create your own personal learning plan? Some time ago, I was looking at ways to be more productive in my work and learning; and one way I did this was to list down all the various tasks I needed to complete during the week. Many of my tasks were simple To Do […]

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Filed Under: Blogging, Personal Learning Networks, Professional Development, Social Learning, Working Out Loud (Work Narration) Tagged With: 2018, April, April 2018, Personal Learning Plan, Resources, Templates

6 March 2018 by Helen Blunden

The Importance of Sponsors To Build Your Personal Learning Networks

Here’s a collection of tweets made into a Moment. A fitting name for the moment of reflections when someone says something to me and I make a connection to it with something else. On Sponsorship & Personal Learning Networks This blog post by Helen Blunden was written in Melbourne, Australia and is licensed under a Creative Commons […]

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Filed Under: Personal Learning Networks Tagged With: 2018, March, March 2018, personal learning network, PLN, Snapchat, Sponsors, Twitter Moments

27 January 2018 by Helen Blunden

Return to Roots

For a while now, I’ve been contemplating a return to roots. In the last few months from the tail end of annus horribilis that was 2017 to now, a series of events – mainly due to conversations and collaborations with people outside my field of corporate learning and development, has made me reflect on the […]

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Filed Under: MOOC, Personal Learning Networks, Social Learning, Social Media Tagged With: 2018, connectivism, January, January 2018, Personal Learning, social learning

22 January 2017 by Helen Blunden Leave a Comment

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 […]

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Filed Under: Lifelong Learning, Personal Learning Networks, Professional Development, Social Learning Tagged With: 2017, Fitness, January, Personal Learning

29 March 2016 by Helen Blunden Leave a Comment

The Value of Networking for Learning and Development

What’s The Value of Networking for Learning and Development? This post was recently published in the Training Journal on 9 March 2016 There is much discussion online about the future of Learning and Development and how teams can support their workforce to build capability during a time of constant change and volatility. Yet, how much […]

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Filed Under: Learning and Development, Personal Learning Networks, Professional Development Tagged With: 2016, learning and development, March, March 2016, Networking

14 December 2015 by Helen Blunden 1 Comment

Networked Workers Learn From the World Around Them

For the last few days I have been revisiting the notes in my Evernote notebooks and deleting things that are now outdated or irrelevant to me.  Usually when I can find some time, I go through this process a few times a year.  I find it cathartic to release myself of information that no longer serves […]

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Filed Under: Future of Work, Personal Learning Networks, Professional Development Tagged With: 2015, December, December 2015, Personal Learning Networks, PLN, Vitruvian Man

22 January 2015 by Helen Blunden 9 Comments

How Working, Connecting and Learning Is Like Driving a Car

Last week I had an opportunity to work with Michelle Ockers  who had travelled down from Sydney for work.  We caught up at the co-working space at the NAB Village to go through some final editing to four of the modules of the Work, Connect and Learn Program. The Work, Connect and Learn Program is a social learning guided […]

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Filed Under: Enterprise Social Networking, Future of Work, Learning and Development, Personal Learning Networks, Professional Development, Working Out Loud (Work Narration) Tagged With: 2015, CCA, January, Sharepoint, WCL, Work Connect and Learn

8 March 2014 by Helen Blunden 6 Comments

Serendipitous Connections Lead You To a Better World

It’s been a whirlwind couple of weeks since my last post.  I think that I should scribble notes into my note pad every time I have an engaging and mentally stimulating encounter with people so I don’t forget what we talked about.  Even better, I wish I could bottle their passion, enthusiasm and explosion of […]

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Filed Under: Enterprise Social Networking, Personal Learning Networks Tagged With: 2014, ESN, March, March 2014, Serendipity, Yammer

10 November 2013 by Helen Blunden 7 Comments

Reflections of Exploring Personal Learning Networks MOOC

Activate Learning Solutions

Five weeks ago, I started the Exploring Personal Learning Networks cMOOC with enthusiasm and expectation.  Jeff Merrell (@JeffMerrell) and I had organised to meet via Google Hangout to have a chat about this but of course, our firewall prevented that from happening as it was during work hours.  Instead, we talked via teleconference and I […]

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Filed Under: MOOC, Personal Learning Networks, Social Learning Tagged With: 2013, cMOOC, Networks, November, November 2013, PLN, Power, XPLRPLN

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Life Lessons Through Books

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My Writing

  • Meet Griffith
  • A Trip to Clunes Book Town Festival
  • Volunteering at Our Charity Event
  • The Genius or Maniacal Man When It Comes To Technology
  • Ladies Night at the French Film Festival 🇫🇷
  • We Had Our First Book Club Author Event for 2025
  • How I Take Notes When Reading a Book
  • Transferring All My Blog Posts
  • Creating a Book Club Journal
  • Our 19th Wedding Anniversary
  • Extracting 1498 Blog Posts One by One
  • Changing Ways
  • The Moon & Sixpence Book by Somerset Maugham Book Review
  • Flâneur Friday ~ Patterson Lakes
  • Spending Time with Mum
  • My Annual YouTube Analytics
  • Happy New Year!
  • My Year in Books – Reading in 2024
  • What I’m Reading
  • Book Review of She and Her Cat by Makoto Shinkai
  • Book Review of Ghost Wall by Sarah Moss
  • Visit to New and Old Parliament House in Canberra
  • Futuro House
  • Creating a Reading Journal
  • Book Review: Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead
  • Last Book Club Chat for the Year
  • New Book Review: Home by Toni Morrison
  • Golf Trip to The Dunes
  • A Week of Golf and Cleaning
  • Book Review: Leonard & Hungry Paul

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