ItsDevelopmental - content + technology + people

Learning needs analysis

Interesting advice on identifying learning needs for small groups. I like the group enagement approach - using all members of the team to look at their competencies, work out basic requirements of job roles and what best practice for indivduals and teams would look like.

Training budgets cut as economy falters

No surprises here - survey shows learning and development managers expect training budgets to be cut over the coming 12 months.

That makes it tough for those of us wanting to make it as a trainer. But on the flipside, if you can make it in a downturn then hopefully that will equate to more success when the economy picks up.

The sad reality is that training along with marketing is always the first to get squeezed in a downturn.

Praise for aspiring editors' group

I'm proud of this comment on the group which appeared on the RBI intranet. It is from Justin Stanton, editor, Motor Transport.

The group is an excellent initiative. I only managed to attend a handful of meetings, but they were all useful.

I particularly remember the inaugural meeting, where the key speakers were two RBI heavy hitters: HR director Nathan Cahill and publishing director Trevor Parker. To hear directly from their mouths what the company expects of an editor and, almost more importantly, what they look for on an inter-personal basis in interview was very useful when I next went for an editorship.

What sticks in my head is this thought: how often was I, then a news editor, going to get to spend one hour with two senior RBI managers? It was an invaluable opportunity to hear from them – and for me to raise my profile with them. Perhaps rather cheekily, attending the meetings afforded me the opportunity to scope out the internal competition too!

Coverage of aspiring editors' group

This is how RBI's intranet reported the latest aspiring editors' group meeting.

RBI’s Aspiring Editors’ Group met last week to hear from some of the company’s most experienced people exactly what it takes to step into the role of editor. Much more than just the next rung on the career ladder, taking the lead role comes with its own unique set of challenges,  writes Rachel Jones.
 
Editorial development director Karl Schneider, publishing director Trevor Parker and leadership development manager Hilary Harris joined the group to steer them through the demands of the job and share their own personal expectations when prospective editors step up to the plate.

“There are two words that describe the shift to editor and those are strategy and leadership,” said Karl. “It becomes less about your individual skills and more about your ability to get a team to deliver success and objectives.”

Listening to Karl talk it quickly becomes clear that the role of editor is a daunting task for the most experienced of journalists. When they take the reins of any publication it’s down to the editor to juggle the needs of their audience, their team and the commercial business; keep an eye on constraints and standards; develop their team whilst maintaining crystal clear communication at every turn. As Karl summarised for the group: “The buck stops with the editor!”

For Trevor Parker there are three core qualities that always stand aspiring editors in good stead when they come face to face in an interview: “Attitude and enthusiasm are key. It’s an incredibly rewarding job, but it’s tough and you must have a positive attitude to succeed. Second is a clear understanding of your proposition to customers, and third is the ability to manage people and develop teams.”

The group was the brainchild of Martin Couzins who held the first session two years ago when he identified a gap between what he thought he should be doing to climb the career ladder, and what the business was actually looking for. The Aspiring Editors Group was born and has since become a springboard for a number of RBI journalists into their current roles as editors, web editors, and community editors.

If you are one or two steps away from an editor’s role and are interested in joining the group, email Martin Couzins for details about the next session. The lunchtime meetings are held four times a year and not only offer guidance from senior staff but provide a useful forum to network with other aspiring editors in the business.

Time to design a time management course

Having disbanded the training team we are now creating a new one. Our organisational development director is taking on the training director role. I hadn't realised our previous director, Carol Eaton, was actually retiring. 

Hilary Harris (the new director) has set up an editorial training committee and I am on it. Hoorah. This is very, very exciting. I have the opportunity to work with Hilary and our editorial development director and one other senior editorial manager to shape learning and development for our journalists.

We had a short meeting yesterday to look at waiting lists for courses and to see which ones to continue for now (based on demand). The upshot is that a time management course is required and I agreed to design and deliver it.

My focus will be on content that applies directly to the business and the way journalists work. I envisage some theory but a lot on how to manage time more effectively and what tools are available to help do this.

My use of a panel in my digital journalism workshop was much liked by Karl (editorial development director)so I intend bringing in two or three people from around the business to share their tips on time management.

Working multi-media does pose time management and prioritisation challenges for journalists but they are not insurmountable.

My first job is to look at the course nomination forms and original course outline to see what delegates are expecting. 

Facilitation at Advantage Travel Centres

This afternoon I facilitated a session for Advantage Travel Centres. The aim of the session was to gain feedback on a draft of a survey we (Travel Weekly) have been working on with Advantage.

There were 13 in the group sat around a table in a meeting room. I had a flipchart and a list of five topics to cover.

Facilitator is probably the wrong term - as my role was more about guiding the discussion through the topics.

And as I was stood throughout scribing points raised I looked more like a school teacher. Scribing and guiding and engaging with what people are saying all at the same time is very demanding particularly if you have a group that is not communiocating freely.

Luckily, the group all knew each other so were able to talk freely.

My main learning point was around intervention. I sensed that we were only scratching the surface on some topics but I did not want to push the group. My approach was therefore more about suggestion - putting ideas ino the mix (as questions) to see what the group would say.

Colin O'Neill at Advantage was happy with the outcome. I enjoyed it too -  and now have loads of flipchart pages to type up. I am facilitating a similar group later in the week.

The right to request training, please. You must be joking

So the government suggests that emplyees should have the right to request training (like a flexible working request) and guess what? Employers ie the CBI et al are up in arms because they will have to foot the bill ie they don't want to pay whilst employees are on training courses.

Ah, it's so refreshing to know that employers are so keen to train their employees.

Considering most adults spend 40 hours a week for 45 years of their life in the workplace, the number one and most obvious place for continuing development is the workplace. So why can't employers be more enlightened about learning and development?

The you-want-training-pay-for-it-yourself mentality will at best encourage employees who are keen to learn to get trained and move on - knowing it is up to them and no one else to learn and develop. That equals poor retention of employees who want to learn - arguably the typoe of people that should be reatined and developed.

At worst employees won't take it upon themselves to learn. Is that the type of person employers want? Of course not.

The Government proposals are good - let's hope that business does not derail them

 

Feedback from LCC digital journalism workshop

When I started the session I asked delegates what skill they wanted to develop over the coming year. This is what they said:

• How to turn news stories into features
• Online skills
• News writing
• Learn the rhythm of being a journalist
• How to construct a story (although that had been taught on their course)
• Shorthand
• How to interact with the audience (online)

A couple of delegates also wanted to build contacts - which is obviously key for a journalist. I put it to the group that there are now many ways to build contacts both off and online.

I provided the delegates with a feedback form which asked the following questions:

• Did you find this workshop useful? They all said yes and were very positive.
• What other material would you have liked to have seen covered?
• What was your opinion of the trainer?
• How else could this training session be improved?

I also provided delegates with the option to leave their email so I could email them links to digital journalism blogs - something they all wanted me to do.

I'm not going to provide all the answers to the feedback here BUT all delegates did like the session and thought the trainer was good (knowledgeable and enthusiastic were mentioned a few times).

Learning points for me
The room was a bad room for training - I was stood in the middle of a computer room with a pull down screen that made it difficult to see my presentations

1. I raced through a piece of group work. In fact, I changed the format of the group work because the room was not right for it. What I ended up was a quick fix. It was OK but could have been better.
2. Setting some aims at the start with the delegates is a great way to anchor the session, to keep focus and to help conclude.
3. I did not provide handouts - some did ask for them so must provide in future.
4. This group had different needs to that of the journalists I have presented to. I really do need to think about who is in the session and how much knowledge and experience they have. From this I can design a relevant session and set the right tone.

After the session I talked to course tutor Sue Dawson. She said LCC is looking at reworking its courses to cover media convergence.

She is keen for me to come back next term. I'll take that as success.

Next iteration of the Aspiring Editors' Group to kick off

On Thursday I have the first meeting of the Aspiring Editors' Group at RBI. I have posted on me setting up this group and am very proud so many members of the first group became editors.

Nine journalists are attending and I have three senior speakers too. All very exciting as the speakers will be spelling out what the company expects of editors in terms of skills, experience and capability.

With the media changing so rapidly it will be interesting to hear what the speakers - RBI's editorial development director, organisational development director and a publishing director - feel is important now.

Knowing enough about technology to influence technical teams and to understand how technology can benefit the business must be high on the list. As must be editorial leadership. After all, change needs leaders to show teams the way forward.

But, it's all new so we also need our editors to be risk takers - to try things out and to seize opportunities and to inspire their teams to do so.

Domain mapping etc

Hmmm, just lost a post I had written. Things are a bit odd and I blame my attempts at domain mapping this typepad blog to my itsdevelopmental domain.

Let's hope I can work out what I am doing very soon as the headers on my posts are the same size as the body text. Looks NICE.

I am going to save and hopefully retain these few lines.

Adventures in domains here I come.