Sometimes you don't know what will be useful, until it becomes essential

 

Rachel Burnham writes: I was clearing out some shelves in my office the other day and I came across a notebook with my notes (& pictures!) from when I was first learning to facilitate live online sessions – though back then I called them webinars and was just learning to distinguish webinars and virtual classrooms.  It was 2208/9. 

I started learning about them and how to facilitate online out of sheer curiosity, rather than a need or specific demand from a client.  As a result I was able to suggest to a client that we started to make use of live online sessions as part of a blended approach to the redesign of a programme that I went onto to develop.

When the pandemic began I had 10 years’ experience of designing and facilitating live online sessions.   And I was so glad of this!  And the client had developed its provision by then to offer options for all courses that were either blended or totally online.  It was comparatively easy for them to move over their offerings to a totally live online programme.

Somewhere in between these times, a fellow volunteer for CIPD Manchester, Mike Collins, introduced me to using some new-fangled online meeting tool called ‘Zoom’.  As we found it useful for holding planning meetings in the evenings to bring together our small but dispersed team of volunteers for CIPD Manchester’s L&D work we adopted the practice of using it. It saved us all having to struggle into the centre of Manchester for a short meeting and made it much easier to find mutually convenient meeting times.   Back in 2017, it never occurred to me that I would be using Zoom for hosting most of my professional work, chairing CIPD Manchester committee meetings, painting socials, #LnDCoWork Manchester Christmas Curry and even family Christmas parties.

I started using drawing in my work in about 2015 and found myself developing skills in Sketchnoting, before I had even heard of the term!   Now the majority of my work is drawing and Sketchnoting related and I have even illustrated Gary Cookson’s ‘HR for HybridWorking’ book.  My art teachers from school would be flabbergasted.

Last week in the #LDInsight chat 13/1/23, we were discussing how we could explore the use of AI in our work.  And that made me think back to that notebook I had found earlier in the week.

Sometimes, you just don’t know what will be useful and in what way, until it is essential to have that skill and experience. Message to myself - keep exploring, keep learning, keep experimenting.

 

Rachel Burnham

17 January 2023

I help individuals and organisations to use visuals to think, learn and work more effectively, particularly though using Sketchnoting and drawing.