Rachel Burnham writes: Last week I visited Manchester City Art Gallery with a
friend. We went to see two exhibitions:
a collection of Martin Parr’s fascinating pictures of Manchester life from the
1970s onwards; and ‘Speech Acts: Reflection – Imagination – Repetition’ which
was asking questions about what museums collect and show, whose work is shown
and the narratives around them. Martin
Parr’s photographs are always worth seeing and it was great to see something of
the diversity of Manchester and the changes that have taken place of this
period.
The other exhibition
was less accessible and I found it harder to get my head around. It included a gallery looking at
representation and expectations, with predominantly works created by BAME
artists, a gallery exploring repetition and one looking at the part played by
networks and the creation of spaces in shaping artistic practices. This focused on a gallery that had been run
in Cumbria, between 1972-83 by the artist Li Yuan-chia, which was described
both as a centre for the local artistic community and focus for a wider
cosmopolitan network. Whilst many of
the individual works were interesting, I struggled with the overall exhibition –
yet all week, the parallels between the messages I picked up from this
exhibition and the work I do as a volunteer and community member in L&D and
HR have been tugging at me. All week it has been teasing me and making me look
again at what I do and why.
Here are some of my
thoughts prompted by that reflection – they are a bit untidy and half-baked,
but they set out some of the thinking that drives my volunteering.
Alongside my
business, I am involved as a volunteer and community member for a number of
bodies within HR and L&D. I am part
of CIPD Manchester’s Branch Committee where I have lead responsibility for both
our Public Policy and our L&D work.
I contribute to L&D Connect, being one of a team of people involved
in facilitating Twitter Chats and Unconferences and I co-host #LnDCoWork Manchester,
alongside Julie Drybrough and Mike Shaw.
All of these things are collaborative and it is wonderful to be a part
of such great teams.
Over the last couple
of years, I have really moved away from wanting to put my energy into
organising events that are the traditional speaker-lead events. I have been hugely influenced by the
experience of being part of the L&D Connect community. Gradually, in my other volunteering, I have
been trying out different approaches and seeing what works and what seems to most
valuable to the people participating.
In part this is applying what I know about how people learn and in part
this is trying to make sense of what each organisation can helpfully and
distinctively contribute to our professional field – eg what part can a CIPD
branch play in a major city like Manchester.
And it is also about me trying to use my time wisely and spend it doing
things that I enjoy, that feel worthwhile to me.
So, as part of these
teams I have hosted focus groups, tried out hackathons, commissioned Ignite
talks and ‘warts & all case studies’, borrowed ideas and developed CakeCamps and BreakfastCamps as result (thank you Martin Couzins), collaborated with #HRHour
(thanks to Mark Hendy) and tried out a campaign approach with ‘The Big
Conversation around Parents, Families and the Workplace’, including a series
blog articles by a range of contributors.
All based in the Manchester area.
All with an emphasis on interaction, where participants are active
contributors.
What all of this activity
has in common is creating opportunities for conversation and creating
communities of practitioners. This is
what creates opportunities for real learning and change – I think.
I think smaller,
local and regional events have the opportunity to be much more radical and
experimental in design than many of the national events. With a smaller event it is possible to try
out an approach, to play a bit and see what works. And if it doesn’t go according to plan –
that is OK – what can we learn from that? The costs are less, there is less
public exposure, less commercial pressure, less risk if we don’t quite pull it
off.
I want to celebrate
good stuff right around the UK and not have everything to be originated in
London or driven by London or done in response to London. There are local needs and local agendas all
around the country – certainly there are in Manchester, in the North West and
across the North. We need to be
addressing these issues and then sharing our lessons and expertise nationally.
I think that face to
face events can complement and run alongside on-line opportunities. I love the way that my PLN (Personal Learning
Network) has largely been developed online, but flourishes in face to face meetings
too! It doesn’t have to be an
either/or. It is great to have the
international dimension and sheer diversity of an online community, plus there
is the convenience factor of being able to connect with people wherever and in
odd moments of the day. But face to face
has a neighbourliness to it and a depth, plus opportunities for shared meals
and cake eating.
I have been working
on designing events and activities that give a greater range of people the
opportunity to have their say and share their experience. I don’t subscribe to the view that we should
all have the opportunity to be speakers –
but I do think that we all have stuff to contribute and relevant experience to
share. I want to create opportunities
for us to be challenged by putting our own experience into a wider context and
through discussion, debate, reflection, problem-solving together develop ideas
to take back to our own workplaces. You
rarely get the opportunity to properly do this within a traditional style
speaker led event.
I am particularly
interested in what happens when people really start listening to one another and
the cascade you get when people start to open up and people respond by listening
more deeply. What enables this, what sustains this and what can happen if it is
set loose?
I find it interesting
to see how word spreads between the different networks, communities and events
that I am involved in. I think that one
of our challenges in L&D and in HR, is that people often don’t know about
all the good stuff out there, the resources, networks and learning
opportunities that are available to them.
So, that if someone comes into contact with the Twitter chat #LDInsight,
or turns up at #LnDCoWork or finds themselves at a CIPD Manchester CakeCamp
they are then amazed to discover all the different things that this then gives
them access to – it is a ‘first contact’ situation that acts like a vortex into
a series of other universes. Or perhaps
I watch too much sci-fi!
I am keen for CIPD
Manchester to continue to develop all kinds of collaborative relationships and
links with other networks and organisations operating locally. It was great to work this year with Acas on
behalf of CIPD Manchester on a joint Flexible Working Conference and it was
great to support the eLearning Network with the unconference element of its
Manchester event last summer. It is
easy for organisations and groups to work in isolation and be unaware or
unwilling to work with other organisations operating in the same field. We need open gates, lots of signposting and travellers
to act as go-betweens.
I wonder if by having
a number of different kinds of networks in and around the Manchester area we
can have a bigger impact. I think it may
depend on how open & welcoming the networks are and whether we can continue to reach out
and invite in other people within our field who are less connected.
I feel as though I
have only just begun a very interesting journey and there are many
possibilities ahead. But I feel certain
that conversations and building community are core to what lies ahead.
Rachel Burnham
13 January 2019
Burnham L & D works
with individuals and organisations to help them learn and work more
effectively. As part of this I help
L&D professionals to be even more effective through updating their skills
and know-how. I have a particular
interest in curation and the use of digital technologies in learning. I frequently Sketchnote at events and offer
workshops in Sketchnoting.
