A desk is a dangerous place in which to watch the world. John Le Carre A couple of mornings ago, I made my way into Melbourne for a fascinating if not, “intriguing” event called Conversations of Intrigue hosted by @DangerousMeredith. I had little idea of what the event will be about but from what I had read […]
Ingress: Do We Need an Alternate Reality?
For a while now, I’ve been playing Ingress. Now let’s get one thing straight. I’m not really into gaming. Sure, they pique my curiosity initially but I tend to lose interest if they don’t capture my fascination or where I’m not learning anything new. I also get bored easily. However, I was curious about Ingress […]
Melbourne Business Awards
This morning I attended the Melbourne Business Awards Breakfast hosted by the City of Kingston. Guest speaker Alex Kingsbury spoke about how 3D printing is disrupting supply chains and product fabrication processes. She talked about CSIRO’s Lab22 (named after the atomic number of Titanium) offers local businesses with services in training and 3D printing. She […]
The Ups and Downs of Business
This year, I have been undertaking a year long Business Coaching course through David Guest Outcomes Business Group. I’m eight months in and I can say that it has been an investment in my time and also my own professional and personal development. It has enabled me to plan, prepare and streamline processes and it […]
Social Learning at the National Sheep Show in Bendigo
Many of the readers of this blog know that I love knitting. It’s one of my long time passions that I have and a craft that is relatively self taught through many years of trial and error. Every year, knitters from around Australia look forward to the National Wool and Sheep Show that takes place […]
A Short Stint into Film Making of Third Place
A long time friend of mine is preparing to set up her new business. Ever since I have known her she has always been learning. She is a qualified masseuse and a photographer (and currently in the process of getting her pilot licence) and ever since I can remember, she has been energised by her pursuits […]
How to Play the Ukulele in Less than 10 000 Hours
Many of you know that I am learning to play the ukulele. I started back in February 2014 and in my post “Learning a New Skill – Ukulele Dreaming” I write how it was an impulse buy and how I ‘fell’ into learning to play this nifty little instrument. Now, although many times I may […]
3 LinkedIn Email Responses for Invitations to Connect That You Can Use
Coming up in November this year will be my 10th year of being on LinkedIn. Despite some people having a love-hate relationship with LinkedIn, my own experience and impression of this tool has been positive as is that it has helped me immensely to build my network, seek out new job opportunities and directly contact […]
I Need More Sultanas in My Life
Two weeks ago I began a five week More Than Meditation Course and I wrote about my experiences in the blog post Discovering the State of Stillness. Last week, we had our second session and I felt a lot more comfortable and open to learning how meditation can help me. The session was facilitated by Dr […]
Do The Pecha Kucha
I don’t know about you, but every single time someone mentions “Pecha Kucha” I think about the Horrible Histories song about the Incan Lord “Pachakuti”… Do the “Pecha Kucha” (it’s quite a catchy song)… Horrible Histories – Pachacuti from Matty driver on Vimeo. Pecha Kucha actually has nothing to do with Incas. In fact, they are […]
I See Desk People
Who can forget that 1999 supernatural thriller starring Bruce Willis called Sixth Sense? For a while there, the movie started a trend of people going around and saying to each other in spooky voices…”I see dead people”. We recall this particular line because of the twist at the end of the movie that left audiences stunned. […]
Practices That Don’t Serve Our Clients
Ever since I can remember, every role I’ve had within corporate Learning and Development teams has involved some element of systematising an internal process such as capturing the client enquiry through to servicing the client. These processes were usually focussed inward towards the L&D department as a way to explain our value by measuring our activity. They were […]
A Weekend Learning to Create Short Movies
This weekend I learned to create short movies. I was stuck indoors as it was pretty cold and miserable. I’m not one to go out often unless there’s a specific reason to but the cold weather gave me an excuse to catch up with my reading as well as learning how to use iMovie on […]
Discovering the State of Stillness
On Thursday night I started the More Than Meditation Course through the Lewis Institute of Health and Wellbeing. I was kindly invited by Dr. Daniel Lewis (@Paths2Wellbeing) to attend the course and I agreed. After all, I meditated in the past through group sessions at my local gym and downloaded some apps like Smiling Mind and my personal favourite Andrew Johnson’s […]
How Do You Innovate the Public Service?
Today I attended the GovCamp Dialogue as part of the Public Service Innovation Month (#psinnovate15). The panel @benrimmer2010 @CoraltRoss @Sara_Rice @sarahtmb @rmyardley @AlunProbert #psinnovate15 #gcau pic.twitter.com/4lwnYzDYGo — Helen Blunden (@ActivateLearn) July 23, 2015 The last time I was employed by a public service organisation was over 24 years ago but I have many friends and […]
“Promoting Empathy By Sharing Perspective”
Many people are aware that I watch Casey Niestat’s daily videos as part of my morning routine before I start any work for the day. It’s morning walk, breakfast, coffee, Casey, work – in that order. But why? Ever since I saw his video called Casey’s Wildly Functional Studio a few months back, I was hooked. Here was […]
How to Map Your Personal Learning Network Using Mind Maps and Twitter Lists
Over the weekend, I decided to map out my Personal Learning Network. I had been thinking of doing this for a while so that I could see where there were gaps in my networks to form new relationships and connections with people who were specialists in areas that interest me – either for my own learning or as […]
How Do You Explain Social to Learning and Development Teams?
The most frequent questions I am asked by corporate Learning and Development managers who are seeking my services in skilling up their teams for social learning are: “Can you help our Learning Development team implement social learning into our current programs?” “Can you run a short social learning workshop/webinar/session/presentation for us?” and, “What’s the best social learning system […]
8 Reflections of a First Year Freelancer
In a few more days I reach my first anniversary out of salaried employment and I’ve been thinking and reflecting on all the lessons learned in my life as a freelancer. There have been many ups and downs. The biggest learning for me was the acceptance of saying good bye to a steady fortnightly income as […]
Learning is Frustrating
For the last couple of weeks, I’ve been relatively quiet on the blogging front. It’s been a most frustrating time for me in many ways but don’t get me wrong. I feel quite guilty when I don’t blog – and while I’ll create a vlog instead – it’s really a “cop out” for me. Technically, vlogs […]