ItsDevelopmental - content + technology + people

A grim view of homeworking

Lynsey Thomas writes a column in the Work section of the Saturday Guardian. This week's instalment depressed me.

The column is about being a homeworker and this week we learn that Lynsey is so obsessed by work that, and I quote  . . .

For me work is like a drug; it keeps my blood pumping and leaves me wanting more. And although I fully understand - and am constantly reminded by others - that my company doesn't care about me personally and business would still continue were I to drop dead tomorrow, I still find it hard to calm it down

Although she admits this is not good, I find it depressing that work has so taken over her life.

Here I am wanting to go freelance - which will involve homeworking - so that I can develop a better work-life balance - is there any hope?

Of course there is - I am the one responsible for the way I lead my life. Yes, work is demanding BUT I am the one who can decide how I want my life to work.

Lynsey says she is unable to distance herself from her work at home and that her husband constantly reminds her that he has no interest in what she is talking about (because it is work related).

Sounds like fun - her joking aside, work can and does dominate people's lives and it is damaging.

And if work is so dominating then what is the reason why? Not because workaholics are genetically programmed to work all hours as Lynsey suggests, but because there might be other things missing from their lives.

It is not genetic. We have choices and if work is your top priority then you can only hope that your loved ones accept that and are happy with it. BUT if you have children, I do not see how they would be happy with that, especially if they are young. After all, they need their parents. 

I think I'll start homeworking with a defined work space so that at least I can shut the door on it at the end of the day.

 

Helping with Relate's media strategy

Through the Media Trust I hooked up with Relate to help them with their media strategy and timeline for this year's 70th anniversary.

I spent a couple of sessions with PR and media executive Cath Allen. I helped Cath with the ideas, and how to breakdown a year's worth of media activities in to a plan - what to do, when etc. I used my template for my training sessions (aims, objectives, action, deliverable, timing) to help with this and it really worked.

Here is what Cath said after our meetings . . .

Hiya martin, thanks for your help yesterday, I really enjoyed talking to you about the planned activities. You helped me to focus on the point of doing things and gave me some great ideas – especially history magazine, and the idea of using a concept that works with one audience and applying it to another.

Cath has done a great job getting Relate's birthday activites into the wider media. I was also pleased to help her get a story in the Health Service Journal - never forget B2B titles!

City and Guilds 7303 - worth a look?

Whilst on the train the trainer course one of the trainers suggested I consider taking the City and Guilds 7303 - a qualification for delivering lifelong learning. It looks similar to the course I have just taken but does involve some assessed teaching practise. Hmmm, worth looking into.

AND, my local college runs the course so it would be convenient.

Communities of practice

I'm interested in these concepts. Will be looking into this more.

SMART objectives and Bloom's taxonomy

Here's where the Adelphi Associates train the trainer course took place - a pub/hotel/conference facility in the village of Deddington near Banbury. The course was VERY useful. Where to start.

Well, I'm not going to get into every detail, but rather highlight the learning points for me. Overall the course provided me with a good insight into how people learn. Rather than focussing on the style of the trainer, the course provided models to help me understand the types of learners there might be in a group and how to engage them.

The course covered: Preparing for your course, designing and delivering your course, managing interaction on the course and ending the course.

We started off by looking at Bloom's taxonomy - a useful tool for setting training objectives. The taxonomy looks at the delegate's knowledge, attitude and skills and categorises these into levels in order that the trainer can set objectives.

The taxonomy is very useful for providing ways of describing the types of activites to be used in training and how they can be measured - which is key to setting training objectives.

And these objectives should always be SMART - Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time.

It sounds obvious, but without clear goals any training is doomed to fail. And those goals must directly link to business goals. Trainers must be clear on what the business is trying to achieve and how training can help deliver that.

BUT that means clarity from the business on what is required, why, when etc. If a trainer does not get these answers then they must push until they do. Otherwise, they will not be able to convince deleagtes of why the training is relevant.   

Getting ready for train the trainer course

I'm two days away from my train the trainer course with Adlephi Associates and I am getting excited.

I have sent two session plans to Adelphi and hopefully the trainers will look through what I have done and give me some feedback.

The session plans were for a workshop on managing freelance workers and how to build internal and external networks. The latter will work well for the aspiring editors' group I run and the managing freelancers session is relevant to both publishing and non-publishing environments.

Judging by the way our business is going and the way the media is changing, there will shotly be a need to have skeleton 'office staff' only. Most will be based away from the office and many will be on freelance contracts.

And as for networks, well this is the one big learning point for me right now. One's development is very much about who you know. Take for a given one's level of experience, skills and aptitude and what else have you got? The people you know and the people that know the people you know and so on. Thankfully, social networking online has made this easier.

It still amazes me how bad people are at networking. Why is that? No drive? No desire to move from where they are and what they know? Happy with where they are?

Persona workshop

I recently carried out a persona workshop for my team. With the help of our research team, we posted 5 user personas for our web site on the walls of the training room and asked the team to comment on what we had created.

Personas are people profiles (in our case web site users) which have been created by our research team. They are not real in the sense that they actually exist, but rather they have been created from what we know about types of users from our research.

So, we presented 5 types of people to the team. The profiles included a picture of the person(a), what they did in their spare time, what they did at work, what info they need from the media etc.

Asking the team to comment on these profiles proved to be a very useful experience. Everyone was engaged with the personas and scrawled notes on them.

The aim of the workshop was to engage the team with our users and to give the users a name and a face - turn them into real people.

I am currently looking at the feedback. The next step is to give the updated personas back to the team and get lifesize cutouts made up so we can have our users dotted around the office and so we can 'take them' to meetings. That way we keep our users top of mind.

This was a very useful and successful workshop.

The end of a training department

Well, if you follow the Divestment Watch blog you will be aware that Reed Business Information (my employer) is up for sale.

Interesting times. I'm not sure this is linked to the divestment, but RBI has just made its editorial training manager redundant. Now, I know this does not mean the end of training - indeed, I have been told it is training as usual - but it does mean that training will be delivered from elsewhere within the HR team.

Is it a good or a bad thing that there is no longer someone with the title 'editorial training manager'? I'm not sure. I'm sure there are good reasons behind the move and as long as delivery is not affected then maybe it is not a bad thing.

But it will be interesting to see how this move will affect training delivery.

Will training be on a request basis from the business? Who will decide what training is highest priority?

We shall see . . .